Heya. 
This is almost my story as well. The sister’s clothes thing. The feeble attempts. Waking up early from those dreams. i felt this a lot. But I was never in a financial place to transition. But now into my 30’s my desire to have a family has overridden those other ideas of transitioning. No one else in my life would care deeply if I did, but in what way could I better provide for a family? I just kinda want biological children. I want to give my kids the lessons and childhood I didn’t get. If I take several years off and thousands of dollars to transition I am cutting out those possibilities.

So many of our peers are being forced into the idea that one must transition. I actually am lucky. I now have a stable job, I dress whatever I want, I have a hairstyle that can pass either way but is flexible enough people confuse me for either gender. I could transition. But my gender identity isn’t the guiding beacon in my life. Stock traders don’t weigh what gender they are before making a big Sale.

I would give a lot to be female and feel at ease. Instead I’ve used my several extra years I have on you in this to figure out what I do enjoy and double up on those. I don’t mean this to shame you, as we’ve done the same. You have some extra insight on our younger peers and wrote this to provide them with advice far better than I could have. Not everyone can, or needs to transition. Those of us stuck on this side need more encouragement in finding ways to cope and deal with it.

tl;dr, thanks for the article, it was good. Enjoy yourself within whatever means you judge are suitable. Freedom means we decide what to do with ourselves, and not the mob. No matter how well-meaning the mob consensus thinks it is.