I wasn’t really one of those people who knew at a young age I was trans, I knew something was wrong but my approach to that was to just stop associating my body with myself, that cope was probably why I was rather late to the punch on this. (started hrt at 26) I’ve easily lived most of my life in this disconnected state. My cope was too essentially tell myself it did not matter how I looked like at all or how I presented because all I was was the brain inside of this body. Of course that didn’t last.
It feels like I’ve been doing this too long to fully break out of it, because now I’m more aware of all the damage that has been done to my body that is impossible or out of reach to fully repair. I think I was just straight up too stupid to understand it all earlier and now Im paying the price for it.
many such cases!
but yes actually. i have serious dissociative issues and i also “didn’t know young” (until i later learned i did understand to whatever degree you can when i was very little just to have it “disappear” throughout puberty and more). crashed down in mid 20s.
my therapist is really keyed in to dissociative stuff and has told me that they’re now learning/researching that trans people in particular have especially high rates of dissociation/related conditions. makes sense because of how early humans begin to be aware of sex/gender. my own headcanon is that most did know at young ages, but those who “didn’t” just were forced into repressing/dissociating and forgot basically.