Notes

I used to play an MMORPG called ConquerOnline. All my characters were female, and I presented female in the game in all ways. I called myself Malin (common name in Sweden), and even posted fake pictures on our guild's forum. I finally told a girl in the game that I was not a girl IRL. She was furious with me, and I told her that I didn't choose to be born as a guy (or something along those lines) and she said something like "Don't give me some bullshit about you being a 'woman trapped in a man's body'". So I pretty much admitted to her that I was trans. But I didn't know. What the fuck.

I had an assignment in high school english: create a character (we even got character sheets to fill in) and put your character in a situation and write about it in a very detailed fashion. After an hour or so of filling in my character sheet, I did a read-through of my character sheet. Everything about my character was me. Except it was a female character. Hair colour, temper, traits, you name it. I even put down that "she has a scar in front of her left ear", which is a scar that I actually have. At that point, I realised what I had done, and I tore my paper to shreds and threw it away. I didn't complete the assignment and I completely repressed my feelings about the situation. I believe I was ashamed.

I would constantly fantasize about being reborn as a girl, through some sort of mutation or whatever. This ties into a Reddit story pasted further down.

Copied from other people's stories from Reddit:

I was never happy with my appearance as a guy, but I used to "console" myself that at least I'm not a woman, or I'd be considered really ugly.

I again came to the conclusion that pretty much wanting to be her must have been a crush.
Bonus points for literally never using the boy's changing rooms as a kid, I'd always sneak into the disabled ones because I was super uncomfortable undressing around all the boys

I was extremely jealous of the girls in my class, but I dismissed it as something everyone goes through.
Being ashamed of my masculinity and proud of my femininity.
My ability to relate to female characters more than male ones.
The constant thought of being inferior to girls.

I 'pretend' to be a girl online, I fantasize about being a girl for big chunks of my days, I want to rip all my facial hair out, if I had one wish it'd be that I was born a girl. But that's all normal, every guy wishes he was a girl right?

felt far more comfortable around girls growing up than boys
What made my closet deep though what that I never even considered what any of this might mean. No "I want to be a girl but can't" no "am I trans?" no wondering if this happens to other people. I just kept this part of my brain hermetically sealed from the rest and (unconsciously) avoided all knowledge of gender and transsexuality for as long as possible.

I thought I couldn't be a girl, and that the next best thing was just to have a fantasy in which I was. So I began writing a story in which I was a girl. I kept rewriting it because it was not detailed enough. Essentially, I was trying to live out a life that I was a girl by writing it.