I have AGP/autogynephilia, the fetish of seeing myself as a woman which inserted itself into my psyche somewhere in teenage years without the help of any "sissy" stuff that's around these days. Frankly from what I have seen online it seems like most people with this deal with it their whole lives whether they transition or not. However even when not aroused I do still love wearing say some tight flattering womens jeans, pantyhose, tight top and cute boots. Even when I'm not fully under the grips of an AGP "episode" I love looking in the mirror and seeing boobs protruding a little or my butt filling some cute jeans.
It is overpowering, very sexual and can take over my mind for weeks. I can "lean in" to it, take hormones, shave, lose weight, beautify myself and enjoy it a lot. I can try to ignore it....lift weights for a while, try to exaggerate masculine behavior, tell myself that is who I am. Completely ignoring my girl side just makes it come out intensely later. It's obvious my girl/AGP side is here to stay for good, I will never be able to ignore it at least not for long.
Do I want to be a woman? Well no, not really. I wouldn't say I have body dysphoria, but seeing myself in the mirror does make me want to feminize more. Closest thing I can think of is something like a "femboy". Cute but you can still go boymode for convenience sometimes.
Kind of puts you between a rock and a hard place. Trans community mostly doesn't want anything to do with AGPs, they see the AGP theory as invalidating their own identity (personally I think both can exist without one invalidating the other). Normals if they knew my desires would just think I'm a freak too.
Being trans isn't easy, being AGP isn't easy.....we all have our battles.