I think that transitioning and not passing or looking attractive, would not be as hard if you were not attractive and people didn't pay much attention to you pre transition, because you are basically already used to it, whereas you could be in for quite a shock to be the person who suddenly is unattractive and ridiculed for the first time in your adult life and that phase can literally last for years until you are adequately feminized by HRT, unless you can have FFS (but if you have a very masculine body you still need to be feminized by HRT) if you need it, and most of us do, unless we started HRT in our early 20s or sooner.