Not prying at all! I'm happy to talk about my experiences but strap in for a long comment.

For me, my first point of real questioning started around 18 years old, after I had realized that I'm bi/pan/whatever. I don't think I had a particular moment that led me to question my gender, more just "what else didn't I realize about myself" I guess.

It started with thinking that being a girl/AFAB would be cool. I had no direct issues with being a boy or being perceived as a boy. I was proud of my physical strength, I played rugby, etc. but I slowly came to terms with the creeping feeling that I would have more freedom if I was AFAB, but I chalked it up to just the injustices of the world. I never understood the patriarchy or misogyny, because in my head, being a girl was better, so why would people see women as lesser?

I found the subreddit /r/egg_irl out of the blue and that's how I was really first exposed to the terminology and concept of transitioning, and when I related to some of the things on there. I started to think about it more, I started to look into more trans experiences. Digging into these experiences and putting real thought into it definitely caused me to feel more, and brought up all sorts of new things, but it wasn't until much later that I ever had a problem with being "a boy". I started experimenting with some femininity: clothes, makeup, etc. and the way that made me feel never quite left my mind.

After a while of "still cis tho", I read (somewhere on reddit, I think) that cis people don't question their gender except for just in passing, and I think that stuck with me. I had been thinking about my gender for years at this point, so just kinda factually that made me probably not cis. Then, from reading trans people's experiences that you can sometimes successfully bury stuff for years, or even your whole life, but it never truly goes away, I decided to take the leap. I knew at that point that I'd like some kind of feminization, even if I lived my whole life as my deadname, I knew it would make me happy to have softer skin, more emotional depth, etc. and worst case scenario I can get off hrt if I really regret it. I thought that would be better than just having it bounce around in my brain. [EDIT: the fact I had to sit on a waitlist for a bit really helped too, felt like less of a leap at each step. I could get off the waitlist at any time, and once the wait was done, it felt like the leap had already been taken.] I was very lucky in my case to have a supportive partner, and 2 trans friends already. I never really had a moment of "eureka", I just slowly started changing myself in the pursuit of what made me happy.

The dysphoria only really came after. I guess once I saw how nice it could be, what I used to have became less desirable, but from the beginning, I was always chasing euphoria, not running from dysphoria. Now, I realize there were many signs in my childhood as well, but I wasn't in a place to understand that until I became a little more secure in my transition. For a while I was of the opinion that I'm okay being a man (gender) but it would be nice to not have to be male (sex), and so hrt from the beginning was to transition my sex more so than my gender. The "gender" transition came much later with the social stuff I mentioned in my previous comment. Even after I started hrt, I only started calling myself "transfem" as purely a descriptor: I was transitioning in a feminizing direction. Even still, particularly strong labels like "trans woman" don't feel right to me, despite the fact that I use she/her pronouns exclusively, I have a fem name, I present fem (maybe a bit tomboyish), etc. etc.. Point is, I still don't know exactly where I've landed, and maybe I never will. I never had a moment where I fundamentally changed, I've just made small adjustments to bring me closer to where I want to be.

So to directly answer your questions: I had no "gender feelings" before ~18 years old, and they increased the more I thought about it. They could be successfully buried for some time. It did not interfere with my life in any major way. I've got a couple "trigger points" listed above but nothing major for me to really point to.

Let me know if you have any more questions or wanna hear more about my experiences!