You’re asking people to describe a qualic phenomenon. This thing, the feeling of being trans, isn’t really something someone can describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

Ultimately, what you’re describing to me is less trans, and more along the lines of how I am. I’m a cisgender male, but I’m also very feminine in certain areas. I paint my nails, I enjoy dancing, too, and I play female characters in games where I can make the character. I enjoy teaching, and nurturing. I have no desire to change my gender, or to conform any more strictly to one set of gender norms or the other.

So often, you’ll hear trans people say they always knew. I think that’s both the case, and a bit off. My guess is that they’ve always had a feeling SOMETHING was amiss, but weren’t really able to nail down the exact feeling until, well… They started considering transitioning.

Cisgender woman here, I just wanted to add that if my husband were to come out as trans, that would not be a tragedy or something I wished he’d gotten figured out sooner for my sake. In this hypothetical scenario, if it somehow managed to make us incompatible as married partners we’d deal with it but people have gotten divorced for much worse reasons before. The worst part for me would be worrying if he’d been miserable during our marriage, because I love him and would hate for that to be his experience of our time together.

It’s really hard to imagine because AFAIK we’re both cis but personally I’d probably prefer to stay married to my spouse even if he changed his gender identity. I mean he’s still the same person I married and we still love the same things and have a wonderful life and child together. I dunno, maybe it wouldn’t work out in the end but I sure as hell wouldn’t be mad at him for something he couldn’t change.

Anyways, my point is you don’t have to assume that your relationships with cis people will all get blown up if you do happen to be trans. I appreciate the urge to have your ducks all in a row before embarking on significant life events but the truth is that marriage and adulthood is super messy anyways. If you marry someone and have a kid with them the odds are good you will have all sorts of chaotic events to deal with- physical illnesses, mental illnesses, kid stress or illness, weight gain or loss, money trouble, job changes, changes in personality with age, the list goes on and on. The trick to being happily married is rolling with the changes, working hard at your partnership, and being committed to your partner, not having it all perfectly lined up at the start.

If you feel like a man, like being a man, and enjoy having man parts, you’re probably a man. Your interests are not your gender, and dancing isn’t exclusive to women. Even ballet has male dancers.

Still, a little bit of exploration never hurt anybody. If you are trans, if living as another gender would make you much happier, wouldn’t you want to know sooner rather than later? And if you aren’t trans, you might still learn a thing or two about yourself that you never would have discovered otherwise. Most people go their whole lives without ever questioning their gender or closely examining what it means to them, and I think they’re missing out. There is power in truly knowing yourself.

Do some thinking. Ask more questions. Not just to others, but to yourself as well. What do you like about being a man? Can you imagine not being one? How does that image make you feel? If you could instantly become anything, with no rules or consequences, what would you pick? Don’t shut anything down; there are no wrong answers. Allow yourself the freedom to explore.

It may help you to stop thinking in the binary terms that society imposes on us. Gender isn’t just a question of Male or Female; there are many different kinds of men and many different kinds of women. There is a large area in between where the two overlap and the lines get fuzzy, and even places that aren’t on the same spectrum at all. I myself am a demigirl. My gender identity is mostly female, but also a little bit male and a little bit something else. You don’t need to feel obligated to be what anyone else is.

As for how I found out, I’ve already posted that elsewhere in this thread. It looks like you’ve gotten a lot of answers from others as well. I wish you good luck in wherever this journey takes you.

I think the term you might identify with more is “gender nonconforming” meaning you enjoy things that are not traditionally associated with your gender, but you’re happy with your gender and body the way they are. If you felt dysphoric/uncomfortable with your body that would be more trans. Hope that helps, whatever you choose to label it doesn’t matter too much just be what makes you most comfortable!

dancing doesn’t make you a woman. feeling like a woman does. do you feel like you’re a woman? if not, you’re not a woman.

Ask your mom. Moms always know ;)

There is no realizing that you’ll turn out trans, because by realizing that you are realizing that you are trans.

You don’r become trans, you eventually realize that you are trans :)

About being sure: It took me a lot of self-reflection and I only found out Inwas trans when I was 31ish.

A lot of people, myself included, won’t really understand because we don’t have that feeling of being in the wrong kind of body. People who genuinely feel that way deserve all the help they need to make it right.

IMO though if you’re doing it for pretty much any other reason then it’s just a mental disorder or even a fetish, and it’s detracting from the people who actually have a need.

Which category do you fall under?

Gender and sexual identity are way more fluid than people want to give credit for.

So looking for a “final answer” at any point in your life might be biting off more than you can chew.

I’m a cis-man, but I’m personally with the Gender Anarchy folks. We’re stuck in weird gender roles that literally don’t matter anymore and maybe androgyny or things like it truly are the way forward.

I’m in my 40’s and trans, and ever since I was a child I knew I didn’t fit my assigned gender and it just felt… wrong. Took me a long time to understand this was me being trans and not me being “broken” somehow, thanks to a conservative upbringing, but basically I’ve known all my life.

Dancing and an eating disorder don’t make you bi. Same-gender attraction does.

For instance, I dance a lot. I have even started ballet dancing. And in the past I had an eating disorder. Now I know this may sound a kind of bigoted or stereotypical. But I don’t mean it that way, this is purely based on statistics.

these things do make not a person LGBTQ+

However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body. I like being a man, I like the idea of masculinity

this seems to be pretty much the qualifying criterion, and, to this, I’d ay no, you’re (very probably) not trans.

But it makes me “worried” if I do end up tran

people are born LGBTQ+ and typically know it all their lives. From you descriptions, it seems like you might just be Bi. Enjoying “non-masculine” activities doesn’t really mean anything in and of itself. Being LGBTQ+ isn’t something one “ends up as”-- it’s something we always have been.

when I already have a wife and children

and so what? sure, there may be some adjustments for them to make, but, unless they’re transphobes, it shouldn’t be a problem.

If you have a partner it’s the less likely outcome that they’ll reject your new gender identity. Gender is a spectrum and we’re all a lot more interesting than just what our gender is anyways. Someone who was attracted to you was attracted to a lot more than just your gender expression so, on the whole, rather little about you is changing when you come out as trans.

I am not trans so I can’t talk to that realization but I am non-conforming and coming into that identity was mostly a relief. I had to cloak a lot and found myself pretty distinct from a lot of the stereotypes about men - I was married at the time and my partner didn’t bat an eye.

However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body.

I’m not trans, but I believe that’s the key. You said “turn out trans,” but I believe most trans folks never really felt like they were in the right body, ever, though they might not have realized what it was that was wrong earlier. It’s not like people wake up one day and think, “oh shit, I’m trans!”