As a reminder, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.

Interestingly, I'm glad I didn't realize I was trans earlier than I did! I was like 27, partway through grad school, had good health insurance and a supportive environment (including the best partner ever, love that guy), my parents couldn't say shit, and I'd already spent years living as a woman, interrogating what womanhood meant to me, before deciding I didn't want it. (Don't want manhood either, my gender is "no thank you, I'm good".)

Sure, I maybe could have avoided some pain and awkwardness if I'd realized I was trans sooner. On the other hand, as cool as my parents are, I don't think they would have let me transition as a kid and that would have been a whole different level of hell I don't think I would have dealt with very well. And given the conservative area we lived in, the bullying would have been off the charts, and I was already bullied. No thanks.

Also, I kind of like the empathy and understanding of women that living for so long as one has given me. I know from personal experience what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, and if I'd transitioned earlier I wouldn't have had that same experience.

I'm glad I've transitioned, I'm much more myself now, but I don't mind having lived 27 or so years of my life as a woman, it was alright. A mask and a performance, yes, but an enlightening one that usually wasn't too constricting.