Everyone has a story they tell about why they transitioned. It happens at all kinds of times—a lot of people explain that they were born that way, or otherwise felt it as early as they remember. For other people, it came with a heightened awareness of gender around puberty, and the realization that they were developing differently from the way that they wanted to be. For some, it wasn't until adulthood that they were able to put a label to how they felt. And people decide that transition is for them for many reasons—whether it's about the importance of being perceived as the correct gender by society, about having the right embodiment, about liking what you see in the mirror, or about performing your gender on your own terms.
So it's only natural that there would be variation in how people explain why they're trans. There are those who view it the same you might think about an endocrine disorder, an imbalance of hormones that just needs fixing. Those who have an unabiding surety in an internal sense of self and identity that includes a specific gender. Those for whom their overriding feeling is that their body is the wrong shape for their brain. And those for whom the social role they feel fits them best is not the one they were assigned. For some people, it's an immutable part of them, something they couldn't change about themselves even if they wanted to. Some for whom they wish it could change, and mourn that they feel it can't. And some for whom the whole thing feels like a reclamation, a choice, an active statement to the world not just about who they are but how they want to be.
And what's more, I think it's important that it's a story that people tell, and that people choose to tell. Because telling a story is not only about accurately recounting every single event that's occurred as it happened, but about picking the parts you tell and the parts you leave out. Using parts that you remember (and want to remember) and letting other parts that don't fit the story to fall away to be forgotten. No recollection of the past is perfect, or perfectly objective—it's all about the lens we use to see it in our mind's eye, and then communicate it to others. And to be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing; I think it's perfectly natural, not just when talking about trans issues but about anything at all that happens in our lives.
But I think it does mean that people have different ways of coping, of explaining themselves, of finding the positive in a frequently difficult and painful part of existing in an often cruel, unforgiving, and ignorant world. There's a comfort in the idea that you had no choice, that you were 'born this way', because it neatly rebuts anyone who would ever say, "Why would you choose this? Why can't you just be different?" But there's also an empowering story in choosing, in turning around and telling people that you're choosing to transition because you can, refusing to see being trans as being shameful, being lesser than or less valid than being cis, seeing it as a legitimate decision that you can make about your body because it's yours.
Reality is overrated. In the eyes of many, one of the most important things is being "genuine" or "real" or "natural", conforming to some kind of idea of how people should or are supposed to be, because that somehow makes it more true. But I've learned from someone important to me that these don't have to be important to everyone. And like you, Luisa, I think a lot about the ways that people can and will one day modify their bodies, both in ways that don't involve gender and ways that do. Many of the ways that we currently modify our bodies with things such as prosthetics (and even surgeries like SRS) are as ways of compensating for lost or unavailable functions, rather than giving us entirely new or additional functions that couldn't be achieved with an unmodified human body. But it's quite possible—perhaps even likely—that this will change in the near future, and I think we'd see in a world like that, people choosing to modify themselves.
I do (or at least can, when I'm choosing to view them in a particular light...it's always dependent on the story I tell!) think about changes due to hormones or surgeries in much the same light. It's about modifying my body to reflect what I want, because my body belongs to me. This story that I tell is not about me doing the 'right thing' according to others, it's not even really about 'gender identity', it's more like...a positive idea. That this is what I want. That there's nothing wrong or shameful with wanting it.
So I don't think you're alone. Transition is an investment in an image of yourself, and it, of course, represents a very large financial as well as personal commitment. Find peace with your story, find comfort in your needs, and consider—but ultimately trust—your own decisions. You know your own mind and body best.
