Hey Dad,
    Sorry for not writing back sooner - the thing holding me back's been a combination of midterms stress and the feeling that I had to respond with some grand overarching monologue or whatever the hell. Instead of doing that, I'm going to just go through and respond point-by-point to a few of the things you brought up, in no particular order.
    First off, I recognize that you're concerned about me "rushing into" things, which is completely understandable. But, you should realize that I wouldn't ever come to you and Mom about something as major as this if I wasn't rock-solid on it myself. You know me, and you know that I don't like major changes - I certainly wouldn't want to take something like this lightly or frivolously, simply for the very same fear that you have that I'd be acting too hastily. I'm asking you to trust me - trust that I'm rational enough to realize this would be a massive life change, trust that I'm mature enough to understand that a good deal of the human race would hate me just for existing, and trust that I know what I believe, what I want, and what I feel, and am not being deceived or coerced into any of it by anyone.
    Regarding the point you made about never seeing any of the "signs" early on: I should preface this by saying that even if a trans person doesn't embody the stereotype of hating and rejecting the norms of their assigned gender and/or embracing the norms of their preferred gender from a young age, that doesn't mean that they're "less trans" than someone who does fit into that paradigm. That being said, I definitely had feelings of femininity from a decently young age; however, I was a smart enough kid to recognize that our society treated people like me with disgust, if not violence. For this reason, whenever I used to try on Natalie's dresses or watch "My Little Pony" or any of that stuff, I always did my best to keep it a complete secret from everybody. It was mostly the same with my not having many female friends - the feelings of guilt and shame resulting from realizing I wasn't "normal" convinced me for years and years that I was some kind of perverted freak who was just objectifying or fetishizing women, and I tried to bury my "shameful" non-conformity by rejecting all things feminine. This is where the beard fits into all of this: it was a product of the whole hypermasculine Ron Swanson-type ethos that I tried to make myself enjoy, but ultimately couldn't. As well, I dreaded becoming a man who was "creepy" or overly forward towards women - do you remember that British song on one of our old mixes where the female singer is semi-rapping about "all you guys asking 'can I get your digits?' at the bar, leave me the hell alone, I'm not interested", etc.? That song always embodied what I was terrified of becoming: someone who made unwanted impositions on women and made them feel uncomfortable. For this reason, in middle school, I vowed to myself that, in order to be "one of the good ones," I wouldn't ever speak to a girl unless she initiated the conversation, so as to not inconvenience her or creep her out. Looking back on this episode in light of everything I've experienced and realized about myself, I can quite confidently say that the issue wasn't just that I didn't want to be a skeevy man, it's that I didn't want to be a man at all.
    A quick note about my appearance: I feel like being bi has actually given me some clarity on this, in that I'm able to say that objectively, my body right now is that of a pretty attractive man, in a way that someone who's not into men wouldn't be able to judge. Because I like both men and women, I'm able to look at the whole gamut of male appearance and say "sure, some of these guys are attractive, but I don't want to *be* any of them," whereas I've only recently realized that my attraction to women has always been colored with a tinge of envy. Dysmorphia is, for me, entirely out of the question, as I'm now able to, with a clear head, recognize my earlier anxiety about being "too fat" as actually having been anxiety about being too bulky and masculine-seeming.
    As for how I know for sure this is what I want, the short answer is "gender dysphoria." This is quite a tough concept to get across to someone who, by definition, hasn't ever experienced it, though. It's like that joke about the two lobsters on the ocean floor: one turns to the other and says "Wow, the water's really cold today," and the other one says "What the hell is water??" Or, to put it another way, dysphoria is, metaphorically, like breaking your leg. If I were to ask you what it feels like to *not* have a broken leg, you'd probably say "it doesn't feel like anything," because you've never had a broken leg (in the metaphor, not in real life), and so don't have the life experience necessary to relate to someone who does. But the crux of it is, if someone realizes their leg *is* broken, they're clearly able to recognize why it feels so terrible and think of steps to take towards remedying the problem, despite the fact that it's a feeling that's conceptually different - lying on a different axis, so to speak - than the majority of experiences. However, if someone's never even heard of the concept of a broken leg, they likely won't be able to take steps towards solving the problem, or even to recognize that there *is* a problem, until the pain gets so bad that they go see a doctor. Extending the same metaphor well past its shelf life, if someone who's had an unexplained pain in their leg for days on end happens to fashion themself a splint for it, and the pain decreases immediately, that's a pretty clear sign that their leg is indeed broken, as opposed to muscle cramps or a flesh-eating disease or whatever the fuck. This is basically what happened to me. After I swore off femininity in middle school, there was always a persistent feeling of... I guess you'd call it nonspecific dread, always lurking in the back of my mind. I thought it was depression at first, but I was happy in high school, with a close group of awesome friends and extracurriculars that I really enjoyed, and the dread persisted. So, when I came to college, I (after some hesitation) bought a thrift-store dress (for my "girlfriend," I told the clerk), tried it on, and felt the dread subside, just like that. I posted a question about my experiences to Reddit, and people were supportive, except for this one belligerent troll. A supportive commenter told off the troll, saying "Leave her the fuck alone, she's been through enough already." That "she" was, of course, me - reading that sentence, where I was being referred to as prima facie female, gave me a feeling like at the end of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" where the Grinch's heart grows three sizes. From then on, I was certain. Not 100 percent certain, obviously - from time to time, I get flashes of doubt about whether I'm really trans or not. But the fact that the idea of not really being trans and never being able to be a woman makes me sad and anxious is always a reminder that no, this isn't the way someone who's male feels.
   I'll just say a couple of words for now about the concepts of gender identity, expression, and presentation, since this email is getting novella-length already. The way I've come to think about all this stuff is this: does Mom's degree in astrophysics, a field that's as much of a sausage party as any I've ever heard of, mean that she's "less of a woman?" Obviously, the answer is no. In high school, I learned that Alex Buss was a huge gearhead - she spent hours on end tinkering with every type of car you could imagine, and could most definitely change a tire whereas the great majority of my male gaming buddies definitely couldn't. Does that mean that she was secretly dying to be a man? Of course not. Essentially, if masculine hobbies and interests don't preclude someone who's cis (i.e. non-trans) from being a "real woman," why would they be a "deal-breaker" or "red flag" of insufficient femininity for someone like me?
    Clothes and outwards presentation are a little bit tougher of a nut to crack: while it's true that objectively speaking, there's nothing inherently feminine about makeup and all that, this whole line of reasoning reminds me of a rather dark joke I saw a couple months ago on a trans forum. It goes: "I'm a proud parent of a gender-non-conforming son: I just think he's *so* brave for wearing dresses and makeup and speaking in a feminine voice and saying to me 'I'd like to go by female pronouns and use the name Annie instead of Mark.' What an inspiring young man!". The joke is that a preponderance of "wokeness" can, and sometimes does, circle back around into invalidating trans people once again. Suffice it to say that while there are people who are gender non-conforming (butch lesbians, cis men who wear skirts / makeup), and while these people do have a right to present themselves however they please, my personal attitude towards dresses, etc. is that I like them both in the neutral sense of "this is a nice-looking garment!" and in the symbolic sense of openly displaying and thereby validating my femininity. If that's "problematic" of me to say, then whatever. I don't think I can write another sentence of woker-than-thou gender analysis without my head exploding.
    All right, this was kind of a mess of an email - I hope I got my point across! Let me know if anything's unclear. I've got to go see my therapist, funnily enough (who I promise isn't part of some conspiracy to turn the freakin' college students gay) - smooches! Love you!!