Altogether I feel just like a delusional cis man, and while the book is extremely good for giving a framework of describing trans issues so far, it feels sort of heart wrenching. 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.

Personally, I relate at least somewhat to a lot of binary trans woman tropes (not that I always knew my gender - I still don't know that, but I've known I've been jealous of women for their bottom parts for a decade before having any clue I might not be cis and would have no hesitation to magically swap those parts). But I still feel like a fake for not caring about the social stuff and I'm not sure what I want (maybe the latter is just because of depersonalization? Either way, it sometimes feels like I'm just doing it because so many trans women seem excited by it). Like, using my birthname as my preferred name during my appointment to start HRT made me feel uncomfortable and judged, but I don't have any intentions on changing it unless it just starts being too awkward (99.99% of people with my name are men). I don't really care about pronouns that much, some gendered terms don't bother me (although some do).

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.

Maybe I would be fine forever? Idk. Been fine the last couple years. Mostly just wanted to save up more money in case HRT got in the way of my ability to make money (which I'd figured would take about 5-10 years). The reason I decided to suddenly make the change was because I thought my savings goals were possibly being delayed by many years and because my sister announced she was pregnant and I found out I didn't like the idea of being an "uncle" (even though I'm perfectly fine with being my siblings' brother). But it wasn't like I suddenly felt like I needed to do it, but seemed like a good time. I still wonder if I should be taking HRT at all each time I take it and wonder why I'm taking it without any real answer. Yet I still haven't missed a dose (not a trivial feat for me).

Now I have to deal with figuring out how to tell my family (including my slightly transphobic mom) that I decided to try out HRT for what basically feels like a whim and that I don't really get the whole gender thing, but I do have some arbitrary terms I would like them to not use. Ultimately, what does it matter what my gender is or what my AGAB is.

TLDR: imposter syndrome might be one of the most common trans experiences and we can have very different reasons for feeling it. All those arbitrary rules/expectations just keep us down for no good reason.