The real sign of being trans is if you go to egg_irl and start relating to almost everything lol /s kinda (sorry I haven’t got a clue how to link communities)

Tbh there’s no magic bullet to be sure, but if you fantasize about being a different gender that’s a pretty big one, cis people don’t do that.

I’ll add an edit: The only thing that confirmed it to me, was how excited I felt after I took hormones for the first time. Beginning them was terrifying, “what if I damage my body and I actually didn’t want this?” kinda stuff, but then I realised I wouldn’t have been waiting 6 months and been to all these appointments if I wasn’t, took the damn pill and felt amazing. It’s been ~9 months now and it’s made me insanely happy, that’s the only concrete proof I can offer to myself that I am in fact trans.

I think there are few overlapping things here that are probably worth pulling apart. Keep in mind that all of these are spectrums, some people might experience these acutely, others mildly, others not at all.

• Gender non-comformance: having a preference for activities that are typically ascribed to or preferring to appear as the gender opposite to the one you present as - men who like wearing dresses and sewing, women who prefer having short cropped hair and playing rugby
• Transgender - a feeling that your sex (your biology) does not match up with your gender (do you consider yourself to be a man or a woman?). Gender is a really complex thing and is pretty strongly informed by society - what were you taught “man” and “woman” means beyond just sex. For some people this disconnect can be dysphoric, and it quite often overlaps with gender non-comformance
• Transition - changing your gender presentation to be different from your sex. This can be small things - changing your hair style - to large changes such as getting legal recognition for a new name and gender identity or seeking medical interventions.

I guess my point is that there are plenty of people who engage in small non-conformances or who feel like their experience of being man doesn’t 100% line up with how society perceives men, and that’s valid, and is a trans experience, but doesn’t mean that they do or should feel like “trans” is a label or identity that applies to them. In the same way that you can understand that you are a little bit bi, without that being a significant part of your identity

If you have a partner it’s the less likely outcome that they’ll reject your new gender identity. Gender is a spectrum and we’re all a lot more interesting than just what our gender is anyways. Someone who was attracted to you was attracted to a lot more than just your gender expression so, on the whole, rather little about you is changing when you come out as trans.

I am not trans so I can’t talk to that realization but I am non-conforming and coming into that identity was mostly a relief. I had to cloak a lot and found myself pretty distinct from a lot of the stereotypes about men - I was married at the time and my partner didn’t bat an eye.

IANA trans person.

From what I’ve heard, a big factor is body dysmorphia. Do you look at your chest and think it’d feel more right with boobs on it? Does the idea of facial hair seem like it could never be “you”?

You don’t have to be all man all the time. You can like feminine things. That doesn’t mean you’re actually a woman. There’s plenty of shades of grey.

There is no realizing that you’ll turn out trans, because by realizing that you are realizing that you are trans.

It’s not a choice, they know from a very young age if they feel they’re in the wrong gendered body. Whether they decide to publicly present that is another matter.

It’s not really a feeling of being in the wrong body, at least for most people. It’s about what makes you feel comfortable and what gives you confidence.

For me, what makes me feel comfortable and confident is training my voice, wearing more feminine clothes, painting my nails, doing my hair… Being pretty is what I want for me, and what “made me make the switch” was accepting that repressing that part of me isn’t good and won’t make me happy.

dancing doesn’t make you a woman. feeling like a woman does. do you feel like you’re a woman? if not, you’re not a woman.

If it matters to you then you’ll know. If it doesn’t matter to you, then find another interesting facet of life to fixate on.

I’m a somewhat gender nonconforming man. I have long hair. I enjoy wearing colorful, frilly clothes. I crossplay in videogames. I love reading shoujo mangas. There’s a bunch of very “unmanly” hobbies I have. And I’ve had this question for a while: what if I’m actually Trans, and just masking it with stuff I deem acceptable for a man?

Then, after about one year of living together, my flatmate came out to me as Trans. She realized/admitted it to herself a bit before moving in (we knew each other before, but we weren’t really close), and started experimentally wearing women’s clothes and doing makeup (and probably some other stuff) whenever I was away for the past half year. I was one of the first people she came out to.

Over the next few years I saw her transition a lot. I was there, when she came out to a couple of common friends, gave her the courage to come out to her family (which caused some issues in the beginning, but ultimately turned out good), experienced her fashion change from awkwardly hyper feminine (pink skirts, fishnets, an oversized bra stuffed with definitely too much TP) to something that suits her much more and feels natural to her body type (still skirts and stockings and bras, just less awkward). She even started HRT recently.

And throughout all this, I realized one thing: I fundamentally don’t empathyze with that aspect of her in any way, shape or form. Like, I understand rationally what she’s going through. I see her get visibly happier every step of the way. If I was Trans, and just couldn’t admit it to myself as I said in the beginning, I’d expect to feel something when looking at her changes. Maybe some jealousy or envy. Or at least some type of “I want that for me too” type of thing. But I don’t. Whenever my flatmate did a change, my only thoughts were : “great for you” and “I wouldn’t bother doing that for myself”.

Living with a trans woman made me fully realize that I am male. I’m very much ok with people putting me in the same group as people like Leonardo Di Caprio, Ghandi, Trump, the five year old boy next door, and the rest of more or less 50% of humans that have ever lived (I know that’s normative of the gender binary, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase this without making it overly complicated). Yet I am fundamentally different from every one of those. So to me, it feels like I shouldn’t really place any value on being part of that group. I just know that I am, and that’s it.

As for you: talk to trans people. See if you can relate to them. Watch videos by trans creators. Experiment with stuff you consider to be feminine, and see if it makes you happy. Or if it makes you feel uncomfortable, try to figure out why. And if you find stuff you like, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are trans, though I believe that at some point that is strongly implied.

I have know idea what it actually means to be a man or a woman, or trans, or non-binary, or agender. I’ve just had an opportunity to figure out which of these groups I fit in. And I’ve realised that in the end, even though I know something about myself now, it doesn’t really matter.

It sounds like you’re worried enjoying activities and having personality traits typically associated with women means you may be trans, which could negatively affect your family life if you transitioned. I mean this in the nicest way possible: my therapist would probably call this catastrophizing. It’s coming from a kind place (you don’t want to potentially upset your family), but it’s several hypotheticals stacked on top of each other. Don’t borrow trouble, as my grandma would say.

Nobody is going to be able to give you a test to tell you with 100% confidence you aren’t trans, but if you’ve always felt comfortable with being a man and your anatomy, there is no reason to believe you will suddenly want to be a woman. Feminine men are no less men than masculine men. Some feminine men are even trans men! Being a man (gender identity) isn’t the same thing as acting masculine (gender expression).

So, all that said, what made me realize I’m trans is finding out trans men exist. Seriously, that was all it took. Before that I only knew trans women existed and thought I wasn’t “allowed” to be trans. Within maybe a month of thinking on it and reading accounts from other trans men, I knew I was trans.

Dancing and an eating disorder don’t make you bi. Same-gender attraction does.

A lot of people, myself included, won’t really understand because we don’t have that feeling of being in the wrong kind of body. People who genuinely feel that way deserve all the help they need to make it right.

IMO though if you’re doing it for pretty much any other reason then it’s just a mental disorder or even a fetish, and it’s detracting from the people who actually have a need.

Which category do you fall under?

However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body.

I’m not trans, but I believe that’s the key. You said “turn out trans,” but I believe most trans folks never really felt like they were in the right body, ever, though they might not have realized what it was that was wrong earlier. It’s not like people wake up one day and think, “oh shit, I’m trans!”

I could be wrong but I believe they’ve always known to some degree. They just didn’t understand it early in life.