CW: transphobia-lite(?)
She's so caught up in my "case" being such an outlier that there must be "something else" going on. She says she never noticed anything in me as a child that would point to gender dysphoria, and that since I was a fairly strong-willed child I would have let someone know. She's also linked to reputable-seeming studies about mean age of first experiencing gender dysphoria in trans youth, which peg it around 4-7 years old.
And she's right. I never had any gender dysphoria as a child, not really, and I still don't even see myself as a "girl stuck in a guy's body". I consider myself a guy who wants to become a girl, not because being a guy is so horrible, but because being a girl seems very nice.
My therapist tells me this is valid, that people have their different experiences of being trans, but my mom is so caught up in this data she's found.
Another thing—she's adamantly against me doing HRT due to the risks of estrogen and trauma from her breast cancer. I've since found data claiming that breast cancer risk in trans women on HRT is higher than for cis men, but lower than cis women, so unless she thinks my sister ought to take estrogen blockers there's no reasonable worry there.
All this culminates in her saying that she can't bear to live with me if I choose to go on HRT. She's not kicking me out, but she wants us to live separately. Problem is we're both jobless which makes getting approved for two new apartments difficult.
Needless to say this all sucks. Before I broached the topic last year I never would have expected this kind of reaction from her. I just don't see why it has to be such a scary thing for her. Every time I try to talk to her about it I'm filled with the doubt that radiates from her in waves. I do want to move out on my own but financially it's not the best move.
Idk what I'm asking for here. Data or anecdotes about realizing you're trans later in life would be nice? Warm fuzzy feelings from internet people? I dunno
We all experience our gender and trans-ness in different ways. Have you seen genderdysphoria.fyi? AFAIK it’s a good resource when you’re trying to figure out your gender, and also as a resource for explaining things to people when you’re still just figuring these things out for yourself.
Also, a lot of the things you mentioned resonate with me. From my mom insisting there were no signs (in my case I did experience dysphoria but didn’t understand it and kept it hidden as much as I could, as with my other ND traits), to her being vehemently against me starting hrt due to health risks, and even the whole strong willed child thing sounds familiar. In my case she also always tried to get me to wear lens clothes or at least stuff less feminine I think in her eyes, and stay closeted in as many situations as possible. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t just be a feminine man. She’s been better lately at least but it took a lot of talking and setting boundaries and me continuing to be strong willed.
I’m on HRT now and for me at least my mental health is way better, and I’m much happier living my life.
yeah I got recommended that site when i started questioning a while ago. still go back to it just to look and when i read about the estrogenic puberty i
and when i read about the androgenic puberty i 
, plus a lot of the sidebar tweets feel disconcertingly targeted to me with how accurate they are