I actually intended to transition in college but I lost the nerve because I was so isolated, and because of little things those otherwise supportive friends said, calling me a cross dresser etc. Also I had read anti trans things.

A bi/queer girl i dated in college let me wear her clothes, and she used to say that I was more like the girls she'd dated than the boys. One time she freaked out that it was messing with her head that I didn't have a vagina, because I seemed like a girl and not a guy. That kind of encouraged me, and I later came out to another cis woman friend who gave me a lot more support and told me a few things about trans stuff, treated me like a girl etc. We dated and then I guess I started living a double life with a little support.

Sorry this story is so complicated. Anyway eventually I'd been wearing girl clothes sometimes, tho never getting gendered right or anything, but I was also drinking heavily and smoking so much weed, and feeling really suicidal. It was a total bummer actually. But at the same time, I did feel a lot more comfortable when I was alone or with my few trans and genderqueer friends. This was in 2011, so right around when they changed the protocol around informed consent clinics and revised the DSM, and I was on reddit and tumblr and reading queer theory and researching hormones, and I guess eventually I found out about the body changes that hormones cause, and encountered art about how trans women are beautiful, and like, that kinda just gave me the encouragement I needed to say fuck it to the cycle of depression and self-hate and hopelessness that kept me feeling miserable/wanting to die. Also I learned about hair regrowth and how it's kinda sorta possible if you combine topical herbal treatments with hormones (mine did almost all grow back and like, scientists will say that it's impossible but i swear it really did). I guess mostly it was reading about the effects of hrt (making it seem feasible that i might look like a girl to the general population, that i might have the kind of body that I want for myself, and also like the calmness that trans women reported, which has been amazing.)

So yeah, then one day i was like, in an especially suicidal mood but angry because I love life and shouldn't have to be a pawn for everyone else and try so hard to please my family that I would hate myself and want to die. So I thought I might as well give it a shot.

So then I made an appointment at a clinic to get prescribed hormones and got on them a few months later and felt a lot better, and since then (3.5 yrs) i still feel better.

tldr; i read about the effects of hrt, was encouraged, gave happiness a shot