5th February - how to explain myself?

I still don't think any of what I said yesterday properly articulates what gender means to me.  Problem is that I am not sure how I can explain it, which matters because that is the very thing that I need to do.  I can't just say "I feel like I'm a woman" and expect my wife, or anyone else for that matter, to just understand and accept that statement.  

I've tried to cover the social aspects, of fitting in with women and not men, and not wanting to behave in line with a typically masculine expectation.  These things probably can make sense to others, but they are just being a non-confirming man, why do they make me a woman?  Why would I need to transition to be able to do them, given that I am saying that this is already how I feel?

That is a good question, and one I have been over myself during my many many cycles of doubting whether I can really be trans.  

The simple explanation is just that I always wished I was a girl.  Not for any rational reason that I can explain, I just do.  It's partly the social and friendship aspect.  Partly clothes and hair and wanting to feel pretty, the appeal of femininity.  And in some sense that is hard to explain, a feeling that a female body is more me than what I have.  

That final thing is the key point, but it the hardest to explain.  I can manage some of the social aspects as I am, and if I need to feel pretty, I could just cross-dress in private.  None of that needs transition.  Except the wish to have a female body.  Which is the bit that I can't really explain. 

I can sort of put it in terms of wanting to align everything and not to feel fake because my body doesn't match my presentation, but that doesn't fully cover it.  And I worry that trying to explain it in any terms involving breasts and vagina, that opens up the response of "it's just a sex thing" and condemnation follows.  Because it definitely isn't that, it's something else, but I just don't know how to explain it.