Excerpted from: http://heartcorps.com/
1. At what age did you first feel different than other kids of your sex?
For kids with gender disorders, they usually feel that other kids of their sex think in ways they can't comprehend. This usually gets worse throughout the school years.
When I was very young (8-10), it didn't occur to me that I might think like the girls.
Some I've talked to tell me they immediately knew that they were like the girls, and not like the boys, from the first day of school.
It hit me when I was in my teens that I might have a female mind. All through the years, I had sexual fantasies about becoming a girl, having boys like me and daydreaming what it would be like to have a boy kiss me.
In kindergarten, a group of girls used to chase the boys around and try to kiss them. They called themselves the "Kissing Girls." I was one of them in my heart, but didn't want to let others know.
Many times, whewn I was 10-12, I wanted desperately to talk to my mother about my inner desire to be raised as a girl.
And this leads to our second question"
2. Can you recall times when you naturally acted more like a girl than a boy when you were a child?
When looking back, you can see that your outlook and interests were a lot more like the opposite sex than your own born sex.
Those were times when you were not aware that anything like "sex change" existed.
Today, it's easier. Sex change stories are all over television in both fiction and the news. It may be likely that younger people know all about sex change even before going to kindergarten. I wish it had been that way for me. I might have been raised as a girl - my fondest wish.
These days, even before school age some children are telling their parents they are not a boy or not a girl. They ask questions like "When am I going to get to wear those clothes?" or "When will I get to be a [boy or girl]?"
Can you recall thinking your natural approach to live, or manner of thinking, was much closer to the opposite sex than your born sex?
3. As a child, did you yearn for things appropriate to the opposite sex?
Did you ever envy things girls or women did? Were you ever attracted to items of clothing or jewelry that you thought were pretty? Most cross-dressers, since they are primarily driven by sexual interest, don't start experimenting until puberty. But most transsexuals either begin cross dressing at an early age well before puberty.
A lot of us find clothing or jewelry pretty and want to try it on (dressing up like mommy) but are told we can't because we are boys. We soon learn not to ask because we begin to get reprimanded sternly.
For me, I was about five years old when I was first attracted to female clothing. I wanted something like that for myself. I started cross-dressing at age seven or eight, secretly trying on my sister's clothes.
Ask yourself if you ever lost the urge to cross dress for perhaps years at a time. Most cross dressers never lose the urge.
After I got married, I continued to cross dress secretly for many years. There were times though, that I thought about gender issues less frequently.
True transsexuals who wait until later in life often do so because their maternal instinct is so strong they yearn for a family more than to be in the right role.
Often, those who change early get a head start because they are more assertive.
Fact is, the age at which someone changes neither validates nor diminishes how "real" they are.
4. Looking back, have you been closer in your feelings toward your male or female relatives?
Boys and men generally aren't really all that close to anyone. Although sensitive and gentle men are not at all necessarily transgendered, most men don't make those kinds of connections.
Male relatives are, therefore, also a bit stand-off-ish. So, take that into account when considering your answer to this question.
But, if you take that into account and find that rather than emulating the attitudes and philosophies of relatives of your born sex, you were in greater empathy with those of the opposite sex, then you are in line with what most transgendered people felt as they grew up.
Doesn't mean I was a feminine kid though. I learned early on to play the game and by the time I decided to transition in my late thirties, it came as a total shock to everyone.
Other friends tell me that when they changed, relatives told them, "well, that makes sense." Again, go figure.
5. Have you had lifelong fantasies of becoming female?
If so, you are either a cross-dresser, transgendered, or transsexual. All people occasionally fantasize about being the other sex. That's why so many stories are made about that for the mainstream audience. But for it to be a lifelong fantasy, especially to the exclusion of other sexual fantasies, well that pretty well speaks for itself, especially if the fantasies started before puberty. In such a case you are far more likely to be transgendered or transsexual than anything else.
Have your fantasies of being female affected your relationship with a woman? Have you had problems with sex because you viewed yourself as wanting to be her versus making love to her? Men enjoy making love to a woman while many women enjoy being made love to them.
6. Do you have to be on guard all the time to prevent yourself from falling into feminine poses and movements?
This is a big one - one of the best questions to help you sort out if you are really transgendered. Crossdressers tend to naturally move, pose, and act masculinely. When dressed, they have to make an intentional effort to act in a feminine manner.
Men who are transgendered tend to fall automatically into feminine poses and movements all of their lives, even back in school. They have learned how to act in a masculine manner, but even with years of effort, they have to constantly monitor their movements to make sure their arms are held "just so," their legs move with authority, and so on.
In school, someone once told me I walked like a girl. I spent the whole next Summer watching movies with strong male characters and practicing their moves.
A friend's father complained about the way she took off her tee shirt, pulling it up by the sides instead of from the back. Why? because guys and girls do it differently
But WHY do they do it differently? Because male and female bodies are built differently at the skeletal level. Its just easier for each to do it the way they do. Which, is why my friend did it the girls way - she had female skeletal features.
Which brings us to our final question:
7. Do you have any physical characteristics that are far too female to be normal?
Transsexuality is believed to be caused by an aberration in the flow of hormones over the brain of the developing fetus during pregnancy. Turns out, that the more intense the mental transgenderism, the greater the female physical attributes as well.
I personally know a lot of transsexuals who had all the surgeries and now look pretty much like women, but they never had the telltale physical characteristics. Every single one of them acts more or less like a man, with male-ish attitudes and perspectives.
So what are these characteristics (so you can look for them in yourself)? Here are a few - smallish hands, narrow, delicate bones overall, wide pelvis compared to shoulders, narrow shoulders compared to men, ring finger and index finger same length (men have a noticeably longer index finger), and then my two personal favorites:
1. Elbows. If you let your arms hang down by your sides and face your palms forward, male physical arms will be almost straight line from shoulder to wrist. Female arms will be straight down to the elbow, but then the arms angle outward, away from the body at about a thirty degree angle.
Why is this? In evolution, the angle makes it far easier to nurse a baby; Male arms can't easily twist into a position to bring the baby to the breast area, while cradling the baby's head in the crook of the elbow.
It is this angle that makes girls throw like girls (and that led my friend to take off her tee-shirt the way she did).
2. Crossing of legs. We can all cross our legs, but can you double-cross them? In other words, after you cross your legs, can you then tuck your ankle around again, under the ankle of the leg on the bottom.
Guys can't seem to do this because of the width of the pelvis and the angle at which the legs are attached.
