But the real issue is that calling what I experience an “inclination” seems right at first, but it really feels more like a desire? I do not experience constant feelings of body incongruity, nor do I constantly feel “phantom limbs” or pain at missing or having body parts. It’s more so that being a feminine, to the point of “passing” as a woman in cis society, and the secondary sexual characteristics (especially such as wider hips or a more androgynous face) associated with that, seem extremely desirable to me.

It’s less that I feel I’m missing those things, and more that I want them. I have an inclination towards them, but I do not actually know my own “subconscious sex”- I’m simply inclined towards them because they seem significantly cooler than my current body, presentation, and identity. That seems… somewhat toxic, but I don’t know if I can properly convey that it is a stronger desire than that implies. The idea of being a femboy that “passes” as a woman, or just a straight up woman, is appealing to me in a way that I have always felt conflicted about, because it always felt fundamentally stronger than many “grass is greener” sort of desires and similar to what people describe as gender envy, but I also significantly lack those important telltale signs, or even the presence at all, of a “incongruity of sex”. While I don’t necessarily think I could tolerate growing old as a man, I could live in my current body for a pretty long period.

I don’t think I have any serious qualms or complaints about it- It’s just fundamentally mediocre to me, minus the parts that are aligned with my “gender desire”, which I like, but it doesn’t really feel like I like enough for it to be indicative of my identity being valid. I also have never had these gender thoughts until the concepts of cross dressing and being a femboy were introduced to me. I never had the thoughts of “knowing my sex was wrong” that the author or numerous other trans people describe- Only ever a feeling of “gender desire” that began once it dawned on me that changing my presentation was possible.

Altogether I feel just like a delusional cis man,

So... This is so dead on for me. So much so that I feel like I could have written it myself, but could I ask... Is any of this really a bad thing?

You and I are having a unique gender experience, and we're feeling desire to break out of a rigidly gendered society. What if we're "just" crossdressers? Okay, that still makes us gender outlaws. What if we're trans women who are experiencing that journey in a different way? What if we're somewhere in between on the gender spectrum?

I think the fact that we WANT to present ourselves as something but constantly need to validate it is proof enough that we're having a valid experience.

It’s like not a single person in existence is able to relate to my experience or even provide a framework for how it makes sense.

I feel it. I'm sorry, I don't have the framework for you either because I'm still figuring it out myself. But fuck anyone who says your experience isn't unique and beautiful just because it's not lining up with what other people have written about. You're not delusional.

We want what we want. We don't need to justify it. Let's get there together.