I think I recognize your name from Ovarit, I enjoy your posts/comments and we may talked before :) Thank you for sharing that with me, that actually means a lot to me!

To answer your question, I'll give it to you as honest and as personal as I can: What describes me is someone born biologically male who thought he was a girl because he didn't see the difference between boys and girls other than clothes, and this little boy loved to wear dresses, so he was obviously a girl. He loved to hear the story his mother would tell him about she was told she was having a girl, and was surprised that it was a boy instead when she gave birth. Obviously he was girl, because he was supposed to be, and he would often tell people so. He thought it was silly that people mistook him for a boy, and he knew he would grow up to be mommy just like his own and look just like her. He noticed something poking out of his body between his legs, and would push it back inside where it belonged, but as time went on it would stay in place less and less until finally he couldn't put it back at all. He didn't know what it was, but it felt like it needed to go back into his body. He kept growing until one day in school, he learned the boys and girls had different bodies, and that whatever was between your legs meant if you were going to be a girl or a boy. He realized that he wasn't going to grow up to be a mommy or look at all like his or any other mommy after all, and that he actually wasn't a girl. People had always treated him like he was a girl, or so he thought, and some even called him a girl. He had always thought he was in on a big joke and would laugh and laugh when he grew up and everyone would realize he was a girl after all and feel really silly, but now he realized that God had been playing a joke on him. He thought God was so mean and that He hated him. His body kept growing and changing, but he still acted the same and thought the same as he always had. For the first ten years of his life, he thought he was a girl and was going to grow up to be a mommy. Even though he was realizing that he actually was a boy and would grow up to be a daddy, he still could only see himself as a mommy. He also started envisioning a boy at school as being the daddy in their family, and decided that they were going to get married when they grew up. He started to really like being around the nice boys in school, and even made friends with some. He wondered a lot about boys and if they thought they were supposed to be girls too. He wondered what their bodies looked like and if they looked different from him. Everyone had always found this boy silly and funny, but as he kept growing and changing, the laughter started to feel mean and the boys and girls got meaner and meaner to him and called him names that he didn't understand, but everyone called him weird. He learned that it wasn't normal for boys to think they were girls or that they would become mommies, and this scared him so much because he was afraid he was crazy and that if anyone knew he thought he was supposed to be a girl and grow up to be a mommy, he would be locked up in a mental institution. He knew he was crazy and weird, so he tried as hard as he could to be normal and to not think the way he always had anymore, and not do the things he always did or behave the way he'd always behaved, because people would find out he was crazy. He tried his hardest to be a normal boy, but he didn't understand boys or why they acted the way they did, and everyone still called him weird. He didn't understand why the boys were starting to be weird around girls and wanted to date them, but everyone acted like it was normal, so he decided he needed to date a girl too to be a normal boy. He made friends with a girl who he thought might be someone he could date, and they became such good friends that they eventually did and became inseparable. He had never had such a such a close friend before. He knew that boys and girls kissed, and decided that he needed to do that to be normal. The boy was a really good friend, but he was not good at being a boyfriend when it came to expressing physical affection, but he knew he needed to do that to be normal. The boy tried so hard to be normal and not crazy, but he had never stopped loving the things he loved and thinking about himself the way he always had. He had always loved dresses and the clothes that girls wore and looking pretty and dressing up, and he had learned that what he had always been doing is called crossdressing. He knew it was bad and crazy and he needed to stop, but couldn't because it was the only time he actually felt normal and didn't need to pretend to be. Everyone had started to have the internet and a computer in their home, and people from around the world were starting to interact with each other and share things about their lives. The boy realized he could actually be a girl on the internet! He made up a name for himself and started getting attention from older men, which made him feel so cool and special and beautiful, and it made him start to feel good about himself. YouTube was brand new, and the boy spent a lot of time watching video. One day, the boy stumbled onto a video of another boy who lived outwardly as a girl "You can do that?" thought the boy. The boy learned that this other boy was called transgender and transsexual, which the boy had never heard of before. The boy in the video explained his feelings and life and what transgender and transsexual mean, and the boy realized that all of this described himself. The boy realized that there were other people like him and that he wasn't crazy after all, and that made him feel so relieved and happy to know that he wasn't and he wouldn't be locked up for being the way he was and for seeing himself the way he did. He learned all about what he needed to do to get treatment so he could live the life he always saw himself living and decided he would start treatment when he graduated from high school. The rest of the story probably isn't as relevant to the answer; most of it was me coming out to my bff to a bad reception and realizing I was going to probably be disowned by my parents, so I went back to trying to be normal for a few years until I realized I was going to die if I didn't get treatment.

The TL;DR answer would be that I know I'm not a woman because I am not a female, but I have just always thought of myself and seen myself as a woman, both for no one reason and for a lot of reasons. I acted like a girl, was treated like a girl, was told I was supposed to be a girl, looked like a girl, liked all the other things girls like, so it all reinforced my conviction that I was a girl and that I was going to grow up to be a woman, which to me meant I would grow up to look like my mom and be a mother just like her. I always had to put effort into being perceived and accepted by strangers as a man, but if I make no effort to behave any specific way and act naturally then I'm universally perceived as a woman, which reinforces my conviction from five years old that I was going to be a woman. So maybe that's it: I grew up seeing myself growing up to be a woman and it takes no effort to be perceived as a woman.

I apologize for the lengthy answer, the TL;DR probably covers it pretty well. Also, I apologize for the weird fairytale story format and wording, it's really hard for me to think about all of that and that's a way for me to kind of distance myself from bad memories. Hopefully something in here was helpful!😂