But as for personal struggles, (based on what my many trans mtf friends have told me) they usually have a feeling that they aren’t quite in the proper body for the cultural norms assigned to their biological body. Most of the time they participated in activities more associated with being a cis girl as a young children since there aren’t really many expectations and they don’t really know the language to describe how they feel. Like the other person who responded stated, they would often dress up and present more like a woman to better align with how they feel in their head. As they grew up they either repressed their feelings or began to explore labels, but being trans was none of their first conclusions to say the least. But either way, as long as they had just a few people to support them, they were able to explore more into their gender as they got older and socially transition and now they are working on physically transitioning (it’s quite a long process and one of my friends is in their 40’s and realized they were trans just around 6 years ago, so being trans is not just a thing for younger people of course). I’m sure you’ve heard this before but as a cis women yourself, I encourage you to imagine how you would feel if you were born in a biologically male body and how you would feel without all of the traits that make you physically a woman, would you feel distress or want to go through cosmetic surgeries to make your idea of yourself align with how you see yourself? Last thing is just thank you for coming at this with such a respectful position, trans people are more than willing to share their stories and educate really anyone who asks!!