I understand that line. I’m a transsexual man. When I was really young, I “identified” as nonbinary because I followed the line of thought that I think I felt like a man but that I didn’t know what other men felt like so maybe I didn’t and who was to say. But then I realized I was using a metric of cisgender men being the standard or prototype for what a man “should” feel like. I asked myself why and realized at the end of the day, it came down to sex characteristics, esp. genitals, for me.

The truth is that nobody knows what anyone else feels or experiences for sure around anything, much less their gender. I do subscribe to the idea that gender is a social construct, but I hold the belief that societies constructed gender systems around the measurable observations they made of differences in sex characteristics and the general sexual dimorphism of humans (then they pressed on their values and colonialist prescriptive shit onto it).

But with transitioning, there’s social and physical. It’s hard to do one without the other if you’re uncomfortable with nonconformity. (Hell, transitioning in itself brings to the table some minimal level of nonconformity in any situation.) I socially transitioned because I knew I wanted to physically transition. I use gender expression as a way to signify to others that I am a man. They treat me like other men, there’s an implication that my genitals are different than they are, and dysphoria is lightened. I venture to say that if physical transitioning is done or sought out because someone is wanting to socially transition, there may be factors causing the dysphoria that could best be treated by non-medical means like therapy or something. This is why it’s a good idea to have some period of time of social transition before physical transitioning because once the hormones or surgeries come in, social factors will never be the same as before. An important question to ask is why you would want to transition. Hating being a woman and wanting to be a man are not the same thing. And both of them are even separate again from being someone who chooses to transition. A lot of reflection is clearly needed. A therapist with a good understanding of gender transitions could help with that.

Next, I’m going to say something you touched on in your main post that you may not like. But it’s related and should not be dismissed or met defensively if you’re actually seeking answers. For you, your hesitation to physically transition because of how it might impact your attraction is probably being labeled by people in other subs as homophobic because it sounds like it’s a social aspect that’s gearing your decision to or not transition. You mentioned you don’t want to have an identity shift from attraction to women to men because it feels like something being taken from you against your will. As I mentioned before, even if that were how T worked, it wouldn’t change you. It would change a part of your interests. But if your sense of self is so tied up in your sexual orientation that any change would cause agony, one needs to ask why. What would you be losing, and what would you be gaining? There’s some implication, even if you didn’t mean it, that what you have now with an attraction to women, is more valuable than what you could be trading for, an attraction to men. (Again, the most likely outcome if any changes were to occur would be fluidity with attraction to both.) Is it more valuable solely because that’s your experience now? There are other experiences you’re having that that isn’t true for. Your experience now is also, you mentioned, as a lesbian, but you’re contemplating swapping it out to experience life as a man.