I guess I am rather unique in my experience of transness in that I started living full time (and even passing) as a woman before I even self identified as one. The thing is, lifing as a women for aabout a year literally changed my internal sence of gender, I wanted it to happen and I made it happen. Maybe that’s just me rationalizing my inherent “transness” but that’s my recollection of events.
I’m sorry if I misunderstand, are you saying you were forced to present as a woman? If so, I’m sorry that happened to you but it does sound like it worked out for you.
If that wasn’t the case, to me it sounds like you were unconsciously aware of your gender but had conscious defense mechanisms that took time to work down.
My experience isn’t all that dissimilar, in that I admitted to myself and my therapist that I was “not cisgender”, knowing perfectly well that that would definitionally mean I am transgender, but also denied that I was transgender. This was repression, “still cis though” to a higher level. It sounds like your experience was similar.
Forced? Only by myself, as I thought it was the only way to keep living, though maybe that’s just proof that I am trans, and I simply constructed a bunch of mental hoops to jump through due to internalized transphobia?