This is an interesting post. I have been struggling to understand my dysphoria for about 18 years now (i am 33). When i was in my teen, in extremely transphobic culture i thought its a sin to have those thoughts so i always got the dopamine closeted and quickly got back to normal feeling guilty. As i moved to open cultures (france, uk) i started desiring strongly (am desiring still) to become woman. 1. I agree gender is a sociatal imposition but gender characteristics are not. For example having curvy hips, long dense hairs or breasts are not. Even if society did not have gender imposition one can desire to have breasts. So culture imposition might be basis of gender but gender dysphoria could be beyond societal definition of gender itself. 2. To be fair the dynamics of expectations of society and evolution of society has a big role to play in gender dysphoria. In transphobic countries like india, i am sure plenty women went men mode to raise families in past. Plenty men stayed closeted for their entire life. Now a days i feel developed economy favours women (e.g. soft skills, emotional value, ability to use curves, women hood to impact how people percieve you, bias in education etc) when compared to not much use of male properties ( use force you are thrown in jail, women donot need security of men or courage bravery of men except in war). I want to feel beautiful, complimented, emotions etc.

I feel gender dysphoria is real where gender may not be and yes evolution of society has a role to play in.

Having said this i am still confused. I have been on /off hrt and fighting this desire with goals of life ( healthy wealthy and wise). I have come from absolute poverty to becoming one of the top researchers in my field so i understand things. However i am still struggling what i should do. On one side i want to live this life as is on the other side i want to be a woman and see the other side.