hello it is i the premier transgender icon on pokécommunity how may i be of service
What I want to start with is your insistence on not identifying with being transgender, or being misconstrued as such. May I then suggest the term genderqueer? I'm not sure what extent you want to do things as the opposite gender, but it seems that you're not describing a total shift in terms of sex/gender. You just want to do things as a girl sometimes? So, with that in mind, I think genderqueer might be appropriate. It's basically a way to describe those who are fluid in terms of their own gender. I don't like the term queer in any form myself, but perhaps that's somewhere to start if you're looking for a term to grapple on to. If you're not looking for a term, then that's your thing. But it's a start!
In regards to me, it wasn't hard to accept, just hard to process. Being trans wasn't something particularly frustrating to come to terms with, but it was something I just straight up denied for a long time because I simply didn't have the time to deal with my gender on top of everything else going on in my life. For about four years, I'd put the confusion and dysphoria in a mental box and mark it with 'DO NOT OPEN, CHRISTOPHER!!!!'. But after I left my stressful job in late 2013 and things calmed down a bit while I prepared to start university the following year, I found myself edging closer and closer towards the box until I realised that I had already opened it.
I think it really started making sense to me when one of my online friends at the time compared the feeling to wearing a mask that you can't take off. The mask is skintight, it strangles your entire body. It cuts off the circulation to your soul. You know that the mask is a mask, but to everyone else, it's who you are. That's how it first made sense to me. Like, I understood gender identity and what not beforehand, but I wasn't able to relate to it on a personal level. Somehow, I found a way to slowly chip at the mask, to come to the realisation that there was a reason why I had never felt comfortable in masculinity; there was a reason why I was jealous of women for simply existing in a way that I could not; why I always felt like one of the girls; why I hated my body so much; why I despised my genitalia; why I was the way I was. I ended up crying myself to sleep that night, but not out of sadness or despair. I cried because I finally understood.
Spent about six months talking with one of my friends (and eventual boyfriend) about the issue and in about April last year I accepted my identity. Oh, there was some shame and loathing over the matter, but that faded away. It was mainly over me finding yet another reason to hate my body, but I realised that this matter is deeply connected to my body issues and that I finally have an answer. Idk, I just settled into the thought relatively well.
This is completely disregarding gender dysphoria, by the way. That thing is a rattata.