Iām sorry if I misunderstand, are you saying you were forced to present as a woman? If so, Iām sorry that happened to you but it does sound like it worked out for you.
If that wasnāt 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 isnāt all that dissimilar, in that I admitted to myself and my therapist that I was ānot cisgenderā, knowing perfectly well that that would definitionally mean I am transgender, but also denied that I was transgender. This was repression, āstill cis thoughā 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 thatās just proof that I am trans, and I simply constructed a bunch of mental hoops to jump through due to internalized transphobia?