There is a point in every trans narrative I've encountered in which the protagonist has a breakdown, a deep existential crisis in which they declare retroactively, 'I cannot continue to live like this!' (The first such account I remember encountering was an interview with Wendy Carlos in a 1979 copy of Playboy. I still remember the careful calculations I made before deciding that if I was caught with it, it would be safely assumed to be "normal" surreptitious behavior for the twelve year old boy everyone assumed I was.) After this narrative revelation, the protagonist invariably makes the decision to begin living life "honestly", and the standard progression towards more comfortable assimilation begins.
Clearly, there are all sorts of problems with the above. It's all self reporting, and always retrospective, two things that may call narrative details into question. All of these stories that I've encountered invariably end with the (auto)biographical subject arriving in a happy (or at least more comfortable) destination; this structurally suggests that the problem is with the subject's place in the world, that it can be resolved satisfactorily, that this is a normative and desired experience within the trans world. To the extent that assimilationist trans narratives are the predominant form of trans literature, they set up expectations that all trajectories can and should emulate. One rarely reads an honest, sympathetic account of a problematized experience.
From a personal perspective, that moment of existential crisis is one with which I feel I can relate, strongly. I experience it as an unspeakable burden, an invisible barrier between myself and others, myself and social life, a narrow, unforgiving channel that limits movement, expression and choice. All of this resonates very strongly with most trans narratives. The difficulty I have is that neither of really the only two options seems better for me. There is no home for me in either 'man' or 'woman'; I experience the standard breaking point, and then go nowhere. Basically, I'm stuck in that crisis moment, and have been for a long time.
Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different had I acted earlier, had I moved when I thought there was a better flavor of suck on the "other" side, if not actually something good. I wonder if I might have found a degree of comfort before I began to see the insufficiencies and frustrations of that position, as well, and ended up doing something like Kate Bornstein or (shudder) Rikki Wilchins. Ultimately, that's pointless conjecture, as I didn't. I don't really bludgeon myself with the what if any more, but I can't help wondering; there seems to be a degree of movement, of slippage that some trans folk (can) claim after having found a (relatively) safe space of solidity in the 'other' gender.
The obvious-seeming question is, why can't I do this? I don't know. I don't think it's just an intellectual position into which I've thunk myself, a theoretical tiger trap of my own making. I honestly think that the theory I use/create is descriptive rather than proscriptive, that I cobbled it together a posteriori rather than a priori. It feels like an important realization, a kind of revelation that leads to a slight cessation of personal doubt and guilt, but at this point, I really don't think I'd mind some positive proscription.