Am I delusional?

[LeftistLeslie]

I fall squarely into the "older when came out and never had a huge lifelong history of wanting to be a girl" category, and sometimes it's hard to believe that I'm as trans as those who knew ever since they were a couple of years old.

Don't fall into that trap.  I did, and it takes a long time to climb out of.  Stop comparing yourself to others, because if there's one thing that we have in common, it's that we often have nothing in common.  We're all heading in the same direction (kinda), it's not a race, and there's no prizes for being the youngest ever transgirl or having the quickest transition, nor being the "transiest" transgirl or having the longest litany of miserable childhood experiences to draw upon.

I'm not sure you need a history of thoughts, feeling and memories to be considered trans.  You just need to be genuine and honest with yourself right now.  You want to explore being trans?  Go for it.  Make an appointment with a therapist and start to unpack what you're going through.  He or she will, over time, help you figure it out.  You're doing nothing wrong, dangerous, or irreversible by just talking about what you're going through.  That's how you find out who you are today.  Sure, a long history can help you come to some conclusions about who you are, but don't let the lack of a history or a consistent lifelong set of experiences make you draw the wrong conclusions about yourself.

Remember, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Thank you so much. This is such a helpful thing to say.