CJ, one thing that I've found helpful is to break "gender dysphoria" in to more specific components:
- sex identity -- i.e. whether you want to see someone male or female when you look in the mirror and how comfortable you are with the body you're in.
- gender self-identity -- i.e. whether you see yourself as "masculine" or "feminine" in all your non-physical aspects
- gender social identity -- i.e. your gendered interactions with others and the gendered social roles you partake in
Admittedly, the latter two are intertwined -- if you don't feel entirely "masculine" (or "feminine") you're probably not going to feel comfortable playing the "masculine" (or "feminine") role in society. Conversely, if you don't feel comfortable playing the "masculine" (or "feminine") role in society, that may cause you to feel like your gender self-identity differs.
Some folks feel strongly disphoric across all three dimensions, some on only one, some in varying degrees on different ones.
I know one transitioned TS who did so primarily because she felt she was in the wrong body -- she herself says she could have "been herself" personality-wise as man and moved in circles where that would've have been a problem.
I know other TSs who felt the need to live as women but who eventually got GRS not out of any dislike for their genitals, but because having an "appropriate" body helped them lived that life. Conversely, I know others who cross-live, but don't feel a need to make body mods. TS? transgenderist? Male-born woman? I'll let them define themselves.
I think many crossdressers are more focused on the social aspects of gender. Some may also feel they've got personalities that don't fit neatly into the "masculine" box. Some if society were different might prefer to live as "feminine men," some would alternate the gender they present. Others are happy to just be "gender spring breakers."
As far as TS "peer pressure," yes unfortunately. It
does exist. For example, I was at a TG dinner once and the first thing the TS next to me said was that she knew a good surgeon when I was ready. This from someone who was just meeting me for the first time....
As has been said, it usually seems like someone's trying to validate their own experience. In this case, after a fairly heated argument, it turned out the TS in question felt she'd transitioned years later than she should've and now it was her "mission" to help others transition earlier. Of course, the possibility that her experience might not be others' experiences eluded her. She just couldn't grasp that I had given the issue some thought and that I was happy where I was, and happy being a man -- since after all she was never happy as a man. And months later she fessed up that she's a big believer in the gender binary, can't understand why someone might want to straddled it and that crossdressers freak her out. (Someone once jokingly said TSs are just CDs who can't handle ambiguity and I do think there's a bit of truth in that with some TSs.)
An extreme case, admittedly. What I find more common is the unthinking assumptions and/or cheerleading. Because I present well en femme, I've had people asking when I was starting hormones, etc. Or you'll see things in discussions like "we've all have doubts at X, but life was so much better once I did Y."
And of course there's the pernicious tranny hierarchy... Where TSs are more "real" than TGs, who are more "real" than the public CDs, who are more "real" than the closeted CDs, who are more "real" than pantyhose fetishes. And of course, post-op TSs are more "real" than pre-ops, who are more "real" than non-ops. So I think some of that plays into the TS peer pressure that goes on.
When the important thing is finding a place -- where ever that is -- where you're comfortable.
What's infuriating from this CD's perspective is that I feel like we're often in a Catch-22: The more I or others say we're happy where we are, the more evidence that is to those "who know better" that we're in denial.
As Helen Boyd once aptly put it: it's
"the sound of the other shoe not dropping." That is, unless you transition, you have no way to "mark" that you're at the end of your road. And since so many transsexuals say "you can't know if you're in denial" then there is no "end of road" for people who aren't transsexual, or who don't transition even if they are.
And it's this sort of second-guessing that's infuriating. It's one thing to hear it from the muggles who don't know any better, but it's another to hear it from people who
are familiar with trans issues.
Anyway, the upshot of all of this, is I think it behooves of us to realize we're in delicate terrority and we need to be very careful to avoid generalizating, or projecting our experiences for others. For example, I got really angry with a TS who said in some many words that "you'll never know that you aren't." In reality what she really meant was: "It's hard for some people, including myself, to know, to really know, that they were repressing their need to transition until they got to a point where they felt they had no other alternative." And if she'd phrased it that way, I wouldn't have had a problem with it.
Incidentally, there's also the issue of an aquaintance of mine, Andrea, calls "dragging the frame of reference." It's something that occurs in organization -- those who have the most time and energy end up setting the agenda. It's not an evil thing, it's just human nature. But what happens in "transgender" organizations is that it's usually TSs who end up running them for a variety of reasons (it's more important when you're 24/7, they're out of the closet, etc.) But the upshot is that CDs can feel like these organizations don't serve them, which can become a vicious circle. For example, when Andrea went to join one group, they couldn't understand why having a changing room might be important.
There's a similar dynamic that's going on with language -- with "transgender" becoming a synonym for "transsexual" (apparently it's being favored by TSs who don't like the fact that there's "sex" in "transsexual"). Ordinarily, I'd encourage people to define themselves the way that they want to. The problem is that since "transgender" was adopted as an umbrella term to cover the entire trans spectrum, redefining it as "TS" effectively defines the rest of us out of existence -- at least, as commonly happens, TSs who identify themselves as TG don't mention there are other types of TG folks as well. It's sort of like if TSs started being referred to as "full-time CDs" -- I imagine most of them wouldn't be happy with that, since that term doesn't convey what they see as their identity.
BTW, I'm a lefty as well, so as has been said, I can definitely understand the "I just am" feeling.
I have to live day-to-day with this, and then I'm fine. 
