When did you first realize/start labeling yourself as trans?

Labeling not as in when you came out to anyone else, but when you first started thinking of yourself as trans. I know for many people (myself included) it is a gradual realization, so it doesnt need to be when you were SURE, just when you started connecting your internal experiences with being transgender.

I posted a similar poll in the general r/ftm but that sub skews very young so I wanted more info from folks who are 30+

I was inspired by this other poll asking about ages https://www.reddit.com/r/ftm/s/WGfARkil6f
i was curious about the specific time periods in which people may have realized, like if people realzing at age 15 and people realizing at age 40 are overall still having that realization around the same time. My thinking was that the increased visibility of trans people would lead to more people realizing that being trans *was an option*, vs knowing that *something* was wrong but not having a label for it.

Part of my curiosity is because I know a couple people who had the realization around the same time I did, but we are completely different ages. When I’ve seen similar polls in the past asking about the *age* people realized they were trans most results would say they realized as teens, and that made me wonder if that was just because the people voting were young and their “teen years” were actually pretty recent, rather than trans people *in general* mostly realizing as teens.

I know the year ranges are a bit weird, I wasn’t sure what ranges would make the most sense 😅