Definitional update (work in progress)

It's been pointed out to me, several times and by several people, that I don't always let on when things might have changed (which is never as often as I'd like; to me, stasis feels a little like what I imagine death to be). So, with that in mind, below is a response to a question someone asked me recently. Obviously, this is subject to change.
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For me, at least, I'm reluctant at times to apply the trans label to
myself. It used to be, years and years ago, that I was certain I was
mtf. I hung around the extreme periphery of the lesbian scene, even
dated a few self-identified lesbians. I think it was grad school that
made a difference for me in that; I went to get a master's degree in
comparative literature, and I was extremely heavy on poststructural
social and literary theory, the point of which was to question
unspoken social, cultural, and literary assumptions. It didn't take a
genius to go from questioning things in general to questioning gender
in specific, which is to say that I did question it. I fought it a
lot; I had totally bought into the "if not man, then woman; what else
is there?", and I was drawn to the certainty, even if I was afraid to
do anything about it. But, my brain is frighteningly persistent in its
attempt at internal consistency, and soon I was slowly but surely
eroding gender as a concept at all.

Basically, I'm at the point where I think gender as a system is
fundamentally stupid. It makes no sense at all to me to divide reality
into two parts, and then assign membership based on genital shape, but
no one really seems to question this. I'm quite certain that I'm no
kind of man, but I'm not at all sure what that means. I'm pretty
darned sure that I don't buy into the "if not X, then Y" scheme any
more, but I do find myself drawn to aspects of typically 'feminine'
secondary sexual characteristics. I've been cautiously undergoing a
self medicated hormone therapy for going on two years now, but I tend
to think the results are so subtle that most don't notice, that
presentation makes more difference than the state of being in my case.

I'm sometimes pretty sure I don't want the woman label, but I don't
know if that is a political stance, or something else. I know I hate
the feeling of the weight of others' assumptions when they read me as
'man'; I suspect that after a time, I'd feel a similar weight from
'woman'. But, that could be a big cover for fear; I'm terrified of
trying, and not being able to pull it off, particularly as I seem to
lack that absolute confidence in my own gender that the literature
tells me all "true transsexuals" have. (I guess I tend to feel that,
in questioning gender as I do, it undercuts the central assumptions of
transgender).

So, that's basically where I am now.