Okay, I feel officially stupid now.

I knew about Mtfs (but thought they were a type of extreme drag queen) but never made the connection that one could go from physically female to physically male (or at least develop the secondary sex characteristics of a male). I didn't have any frame of reference really. I seriously thought I was the only male alive born this way. Made me feel kind of special actually. I had this dark secret that made me feel like a lovely and tragic mythical beast.

I did look into breast reductions, but they wouldn't do one flat enough for my taste. (I didn't want them smaller, I wanted them gone.)
When I was 27, I got clean and was spending a lot of recovery time reading when I came across a passing reference to 'gender identity disorder' and instantly knew that was me. I looked up, then got online and learned about transition and the rest is history.
God, it just never clicked. I mean there were butch dykes around but I knew I wasn't one of them and the mtfs around town didn't blend in, so I had no clue about medical intervention.
Wow.