The thing is, being a masculine female bodied person or a feminine male bodied person alone doesn't seem like something that should be considered a disorder in and of itself. How does a female who doesn't feel feminine, or a male who doesn't feel masculine and acts on their preferences accordingly harm others? It doesn't. If feminine or being masculine behavior on their own are not considered unhealthy, why is it suddenly unhealthy if someone of the opposite sex has those behavior? The only reason that gender nonconformity is treated as mental illness in and of itself is because it's visually obvious. It's one thing if someone's transgenderism involves harmful behavior to oneself or others, but even so being transgender is not the root cause, it's a symptom. The issue a lot of people seem to focus on is whether or not medical transitioning is done out of self hatred or destructive tendencies, but the vast majority of trans people get therapy and do a lot to work on themselves and figure out whether or not any trauma they may have been through influenced their identity BEFORE they medically transition. In which case, it should be 100% between a transgender person and their therapists and doctors, and not armchair psychologists who think gender nonconformity alone is a sign of mental illness. I very much believe that the vast majority of mental illness symptoms that arise in transgender people is a result of being abused for non-conformity, and not the other way around. The same goes for autism, people don't like to hear about the ways that autistic people are abused by their families and their diagnosis is a way of deflecting blame onto the sufferer rather than the people who contributed to their maladaptive development.

Anecdotal experience, I grew up in an incredibly abusive and chaotic environment and as an adult show some signs of autism, have struggles with my expected gender presentation, and have a lot of issues with anxiety, dissociation, and fragmented identity because I was exposed to trauma at multiple stages of my development. As a teenager, I coped by trying to do whatever I could to appease the abusive people around me, which wound up resulting in me being highly self critical, perfectionist, and self hating. When I started having gender identity issues as a pre-teen and teenager, I was encouraged to present a caricature of femininity which included me becoming very quiet, a doormat, self harming, and allowed myself to be sexually abused at the encouragement of my parents who wanted a "normal" daughter, discarded most of my "too masculine" hobbies, and while I put A LOT of effort into my physical appearance w/ make up, dresses, etc. I stopped taking care of my physical health. As an adult I started to meet healthy people who encouraged me every day to take care of myself, want good things in my life, and not keep taking abuse from people. It took me almost a decade, but I got away from most of my family, got an education, built a career, and am working on being healthy enough to maybe consider growing my very small family (currently my fiance, dog, and I). Now, though, I cannot stand to wear make-up, wear dresses, and force myself to act more feminine than I actually am (and I have been this way since I was very very young) and attempting to do so sends me into a spiral of self hatred, shame, and people pleasing and reminds me of the way I was abused. Is it unhealthy to go in the total opposite direction and transition? For me, at this time, probably, and It's not something I plan on doing unless it's determined later through therapy that it will help me and my fiance has been very understanding and made it clear that he will love and support me regardless of what I might decide in the future. Does that mean that everyone with gender issues is like me and shouldn't transition? That's not for me to judge or decide. It's understandable for people to worry that some people may rush too quickly into transitioning, but again, unless it's someone you know very closely, it's probably best to trust them that they are doing the right thing for them to feel comfortable and happy and not for you to judge. It's extremely complex and you never know what someone else has been through and whether or not their transition is something necessary to help them survive what they've already been through. If transitioning keeps someone happy, healthy, productive and prevents them from dying, can it really be that bad?