That you would like to share, of course.

I grew up with a family who didn’t really like transgender people or identities. They were fine with gay or bi people, just not trans people. They thought they were their birth gender, that they were delusional, and wanted to “shield” me from learning about it or people who were trans.

In second or third grade, when I was eight years old, I really liked tomboy characters. I, for example, had watched To Kill a Mockingbird (the movie) and really liked Scout Finch.

As a kid “shielded” from learning about trans people, I didn’t quite know the term to describe myself. All I knew was “tomboy”, so I thought that my desire to be a boy, be mistaken for one, cut my hair short, and play boys’ sports and hang out with only boys was a common “tomboy” desire, so I must have been one.

When I was around eleven, I was still shielded, but I learned from a 13-year-old kid who bullied me at school (who was sometimes nice) what genderfluid meant. I, of course, didn’t understand, so I tried to talk to people in my family and verify the information, but they wouldn’t give me an example and said I shouldn’t know what it means and that it’s bad.

Later on, I read that it meant “not having a fixed gender” and took the kid’s information that it was “some days being a boy and some days being a girl” and realized it applied to me. I was really into Danganronpa at this time and Leon Kuwata was a huge “role model” of mine. My whole life, my favorite characters, or “role models” (not really, but I wanted to base my personality off them) were men.

I wanted to wear a hoodie to hide my long hair and boobs, and be called “he”. My girlfriend at the time just laughed at me (she wasn’t very nice at the time but oh well, she was ten).

I wanted to prevent my boobs from growing as a child going through puberty, and when I was young, was convinced I had a penis (as I knew boys had penises), just a really, really small one. I thought in the future, it would even grow into one or I could “stretch it out”.

About the “role model character” thing, I wanted to make my personality like them and be like them, which I thought was “just a fictional crush” just like my family and others thought.

When I was twelve, I would sometimes, again, feel like I had a penis.

When I was thirteen, I identified as a trans boy named Mikey. I met a girl (14) online and she confessed she had a crush on me after we were friends for several months. We dated, but she then spread/heard a rumor about me that I said something mean about her, so she broke up with me and started to say some nasty stuff about trans people after that. I felt so bad after the breakup and what she had said, that I detransitioned.

I began to question again before realizing that I actually am trans, and no matter what pronouns change, “he” was always one of them that stayed the same, so I guess I can mainly use that (they and he are of equal preference, though sometimes they or he are slightly stronger, then she).

So whenever people think I was “influenced by drag queens and trans people” and that my family “abused” me, no, they had the same mindset. I, in fact, didn’t know what trans people were and was not exposed to them. I was instead exposed to other boys and girls at school and knew I wanted to be a boy, I just didn’t know how to describe that feeling.