I've never liked how I looked. Not really.
I was able to look objectively attractive, I guess, but it never truly made me feel good about myself.

So even without realizing until a couple months ago, I've probably had dysphoria ever since I started caring about my appearance. Which was about the age when puberty did its thing.

Thinking back on it now, it's all coming together.

It turns out I had dysphoria my entire childhood, I just hadn't identified it as that. I just kind of assumed I was innately ugly and broken.

A couple of years before puberty for me (or at least, a couple of years before the noticeable physical changes)

The first time I can look back at growing up and pinpoint dysphoria was the onset of puberty. It felt so wrong, like it shouldn't have been happening to me. I felt trapped in someone else's body. I remember reading the diary of Ann Frank, and she was happy to get her period and be a woman. That concept was so foreign to me. Why would anyone want to be a woman if they didn't have to? I got a period, and I felt dread. I knew my mom had a hysterectomy, and I knew that's exactly what I wanted as soon as possible. I have always known that I would get sterilized. The thought of birthing children and getting pregnant made me feel sick and uneasy. I wished it weren't possible. I wished I didn't have to.

As I grew to be a "woman," I had a deep hatred for what I felt I had to be. I didn't want to be a man. I just wanted to be a default person. I didn't want to be perceived masculine or feminine. When I was a young child, I didn't feel like a pretty little girl. I felt like just a kid. A lot of girls played with other girls and boys with other boys. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, but is that dysphoria or is that growing up as an outsider?

I remember thinking about cutting out my uterus while it was bleeding. I felt it shouldn't be there, and I needed to get rid of it. That was totally dysphoria. There's nothing like that when I was younger that I can remember.

Puberty's what did it for me. Don't remember caring too much before, but when it hit the dysphoria also hit like a truck. Apparently I didn't "show the signs" as a small child.

I don't actually know when, just that it clicked when I finally played as the girl option in a Pokemon game and it felt so right. Mind, part of what made it so slow is that I'm genderfluid, so there were enough times I was firm enough in my identity that, combined with going to a Christian Catholic school, made the times I switch easier to... Well, ignore

I've never liked my appearance until recently, nor have I liked being perceived by lots of people. Thought that's just how introversion works, but now it all makes sense.

I was 16 when I had the realization. Pretty much all the memories I have from when I was a child are me being sad or angry/frustrated. I had a lot of emotional issues as a child, which my parents and therapists I had couldn't figure out. I grew up in rural area and had zero knowledge of transgender people until I was a tween, which I discovered via porn and I honestly thought it was photoshop for a good while. I feel like my life would be so different right now if I had just been told more about gender as a kid.

Weird story, I think I started feeling it after watching a cartoon where a boy and an girl switched bodies for an episode. I would just watch that episode over and over again for a while not understanding why. (I was like maybe 10 in the deep south with no internet, makes sense i wouldn't know what it was)

Aside from that, I guess during puberty I just kinda started feeling a strong desire to wake up a girl, not sure if anything specific set that off just kinda started happening.

When did I recognize I was feeling something that turned out to be gender dysphoria? Idk some time in my mid 20s because of a friendship I had online with someone who called me his wife.

In retrospect I probably 'started' feeling dysphoria as a very young child. Maybe 8 or 10? I remember doing a few things that could be seen as early experimentation.