I really appreciate this thread @Danielle Kristina, and all of the stories in it.
I'm still very confused emotionally, though my logic brain is starting to catch up these days.
There were signs when I was a kid. I only wanted to play with the girls when I was in pre-school, until the teachers told me I couldn't anymore (I was silently furious). In grade school for a year, maybe two, I felt strong feelings of wishing I was born female, but that was pushed aside by fear of being seen as "gay" or "different", and so I suppressed it hard. In high-school I had mostly female friends, my parents warred me that I needed to have male friends or I'd become a girl myself, I didn't see that outcome as bad except for the ridicule and shame that would come with it, so I squashed it hard.
And it wasn't until age 30 that it came back, somehow in the intervening time I was "fine", which is a source of doubt for me, how can I be legitimately trans if I didn't feel anything for those years? Clearly that long period of feeling OK must be evidence that what I'm feeling now is somehow "fake" right? (logic brain chiming in, it's BS, these feelings are real, they are valid, I am valid and worthy, and so are you!).
There are some days when I don't feel any dysphoria, therefore I must not really be trans right? Any half-decent gender therapist will tell you that's not true at all. But I still struggle believing it.
I don't feel the urge to be feminine all the time, and some feminine things I never really want for myself, therefore I'm not really trans, I'm just a privileged dude wanting some way to be unique and show off so people will feel sorry for me. This, is also BS, because when I'm alone and no-one can see me is when I feel safest in expressing these things, it isn't about others, what's about others is hiding who I am from the world.
I'll happily tell all of you that you're feelings are real and valid, and that you're worthy of being yourself!
I'll also accept if anyone wants to tell me that those things I wrote above about myself, those doubts, are in fact BS.