A stage set by naive educators

I had a lot of challenges as a youth, mostly related to bullying rooted in social awkwardness - because I didn't relate to the boys when it came to physical aggression. 
Nor was I athletic and was fairly incapable in sports of any kind that relied upon visual coordination or dexterity (due to my total lack of depth perception - a genetic defect). 
I remember in middle school one coach that loved on rainy days to pit us in captive combat in the gym on each other dodging volleyballs (he called it 'Bombardment') I was always terrified because I literally could not see the incoming blows before they happened. I was an easy target, making me a point of ridicule; and ultimately breaking my glasses several times in two years. 

Also because of the self-consciousness I always felt and my lack of self-esteem, I did not relate to the girls because I was so afraid of being rejected / mocked / bullied by them as well; and hanging around them during recess and other non study times in any effort to forge relationships would have only furthered the alienation I experienced from my biologically male peers.

SO, add to this, the fact that as a gifted student I had been advanced a year in grade rank between kindergarten and second grade. Being 17 months younger than the group average; I ended up with the mantle of being smaller, younger, and less socialized than my classmates of both genders. 

The displacement was a double edged sword because academically I was still far ahead of my class group and this caused a lot of resentment and others were threatened by the ease with which I handled learning concepts which they struggled at - and so they lashed out defensively labeling me as "geek" and worse; redoubling their efforts to demonstrate superiority through physical means.

My advanced intellect wasn't developed enough to compensate for the judgement and alienation caused by this social displacement (such that I might understand what was going on at the time related to this lack of social belonging); and hence I always assumed that something was wrong with me - and my self esteem was impacted even more adversely than it may have been had I remained in classroom groups with peers of my own age and allowed to develop socially alongside them.
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If you ask many transgendered people about how early in life they knew they were different, (mis-gendered), you'll often get a definitive answer that often sounds like "I've always known as long as I can remember that I was living in the wrong body"

This was not the case for me (early on I had no clue that gender dysphoria was even a thing), because I was busy dealing with fallout from the social alienation set by the events described above. Although I knew I was different, I just assumed it was due to the age displacement and nothing more at the time. 

Later on in life when I began to realize that I identified more with feminine ideals and characteristics because I was more comfortable with values of empathy and non-aggression; and when I discovered that presenting my physical appearance in female fashion actually felt right and gave me pleasure (I literally loved who I saw in the mirror for the first time in my life), I assumed that I was not qualified to call myself trans. 

I fully bought into the social judgement hype that I must be "Deviant" or even worse ""perverted";  (and after all, I had been routinely labeled "fag" or ""gay" by peers who enjoyed making me squirm with fear when faced with combat or even confrontation). So for years to come I dismissed the self-love I actually experienced by squashing it with social mores and adopted the belief that I was simply a cross-dresser.

One thing I did know, and reinforced the self judgement at the time, was the fact that I definitely wasn't sexually attracted to boys and hence the denigrating labels were even more painful to me intellectually, since there was no truth to the slurs. (although it probably would not have helped my self esteem if they had been true either). 

As my gender exploration became more extensive through the progressing years, this belief would also serve to add to the already rampant confusion and self judgement set forth by my incongruence with my social peers; because of my ignorance in assuming that transgender must also always be reinforced by sexual preference.

Anyhow, summing up this chapter I firmly believe that the single most damaging decision ever made on my behalf as a child, was the decision to promote me and skip the first grade in order to keep my intellectual development "stimulated". The resulting alienation caused decades of self-loathing and so on, and has impacted my life choices in literally countless ways.

Even as I write this, I marvel at the thought of the myriad of possibilities my life might have included had I actually believed myself to be worthy of love. I am so grateful to finally be free of internalizing the hateful definitions of self, and really for the first time in a half century - I honestly love who I am.