when i was more on the binary I defined it in terms of behavior sets - masculinity had a lot of baggage over years of performing it, and more than anything, the masculine social role became something i associated with oppression, self and external hatred. I don’t think of that as healthy, it’s just where I ended up after years of performing ill-fitting social roles, and the fatigue of living in misogynistic and patriarchal circumstance; and presentation - how i comport myself, how i dress, how i exist in a social environment.

As I got into hormones, it was the subjective experience of feminization. What started to emerge that felt right, and affirming to do and be just… changed. Gender euphoria guiding, the general internal changes that came with HRT became the most important thing. It literally made my brain work better. I’m autistic and I began just naturally perceiving social cues I used to miss. Im not saying estrogen cured my autism, far from it, however the breadth of what I can naturally process and understand expanded more dramatically than years of psychedelics and painful-to-learn behavioral coping strategies ever gave me. I felt substantially more human, when i used to genuinely ask myself if i was some kind of secret alien or something.

I still feel a kind of alienness to allistic folks but i’m much b etter at doing and being alongside them now, while generally honoring who i am otherwise.

These things all came together and matured, because I got comfortable enough in my own skin to cease defining myself with those behavior sets and presentations i arbitrarily assigned to my vision of womanhood for myself. At this point the high-femme repetoire i learned in my first two years of transition are the basis of a more non-binary being. I call myself transfemme, because i don’t really see myself as a woman, the transness of my identity feels inseparable from any specific manifestation of Gender - I like dressing like a tomboy or a more non-binary femme, like i honestly prefer traditionally lesbian styles that don’t innately accent the feminine form, they’re just cute and comfy things.

I’m not beyond a cute dress and makeup and more traditional expressions of femme being, but in general I try to just exist comfortably now - that’s something dominantly feminine, but not bound by it.

I have limited plans for surgery - i dont want breast augments anymore, i don’t want ffs, i just want laser surgery and/or electrolysis to make my beard go away forever. Everything else feels manageable. Sometimes I think i should pause hormones to bank sperm and try to get myself in a place to have a family - something i deeply, badly want - and i’m perfectly willing to use the birth equipment to get there, so my dysphoria isn’t strictly in a place of needing drasting bodily alteration to sate, and so it doesn’t feel right to myself to insist i’m exactly like somebody who wants to completely alter their look and body.

which is to say i’m kind of in the same boat as OP maybe, but we’re all different, but i felt some kinship in reading it.