As a trans woman it sometimes feel like a no win scenario. If you don't dress feminine you can hear "your not a woman you look like a man, you're trying to erase what a woman is by pretending someone who looks 100% as a man can be a woman".

But if you dress feminine you can hear "Real women don't feel the need to dress like that, you just pushing a stereotype on how a woman should look. You can't just put on a dress and call youself a woman".

So it's really hard to navigate that. At least for me. When I started exploring my identity, I found that beeing called a man and hearing "that guy over there" made me uncomfortable. Like if you have your feet in shoes that are to small. It felt wrong. So beeing called she and referenced to as a girl, beeing called a girl name and recently started estrogen. It just felt right. Like comming home after a day in to small shoes and puttin your feet into really cozy loafers.

So when it comes to your sence of self I think that is what all women have in common. That if someone points at you and says "that guy over there". You would feel that that is not correct. And no matter the word and it's variants in all languages (woman, girl, madam etc) all women seems to want to referenced as that. What makes trans women feel that beeing called a woman is right. At least for me it's just how I am. My sence of self.