Well you can and in many parts of the world you would do it no problem, we just live in a jihadi puritan society when it comes to nudity.

i wish that women could be free without being gawked at or in danger.

Welcome to Protestant America. It's only a step above being in the middle east where you walk around without hair covering, some guy will be jacking off to your hair.

breast fetishism is a thing in the US, and a lot of other countries actually find it weird that we inherently sexualized breasts to the point that even breastfeeding is considered sexual.

I am sure it can happen and for a lot of people it can be a "phase", there was a mention years ago that most young children who wanted to be the opposite sex stop feeling that way or grow out of it. That said, there are also people who genuinely deal with dysphoria and it might even be rooted in biological anomalies and predispositions - similar to being gay.

That said, I wouldn't use your experience to blanket everyone else's or be like "I grew out of it so why can't you?" because it's different for everyone, everyone is coming from different places and have different causes. Yes, it's possible to "outgrow" being trans, but is it a guarantee? No.

I've had my issues since I was a toddler - even way past teenage years, it never went away.

Women are seen as desired and more sought after than men, seen as more "beautiful" than men. You can be just as desired and sought after as a man. I would count what your blessings are as a man that you won't have as a woman. Being a man is a gift, just like being a woman is. A man's strength is a blessing to him and the people around him. A healthy man who takes care of himself is desirable romantically and sexually, and he has a charm that women don't/can't have. He can do things that women can't or usually won't. Cultivate your masculinity, because masculinity is a good thing (just like femininity is a good thing). If you meet a woman, embrace and appreciate her femininity as your own instead of wishing you yourself had a female body. Try to compliment your masculinity to hers.

my brain just makes me want to act so weird when i present female.

Maybe it's social conditioning. In a lot of places, women are conditioned to tone themselves down or have a lack of "self", to step aside and put their own opinions and desires and needs in the back burner, and instead wrap their worlds around other people especially men. I noticed this about a lot of small towns and hyperreligious communities in the US.

But by taking on the role of a man, you felt like it gave you the permission to be your own self. Who were you and what were you about while taking test? Because that is probably the real you, and you can be like that as a natural biological woman too - even though some people can socially punish you for it.

I would try to befriend and get to be around other women who seem to have a solid sense of self and agency, because then your mind will know that yes, it's okay to be a woman and have your own sense of self.

my brain wants to detransition "for him" and present female "for him" and re-enter womanhood "for him".

That's natural, to want to please someone and be a complimentary to them if you like them. Men do this for women all the time. I would say even healthy as long as you're not losing your own sense of self. It's okay to be vulnerable and dependent with the right person who cares for you. Just get to know the guy more and make sure he's a good person. He's going to be vulnerable and dependent in a way towards you as well. Humans naturally need eachother, it's normal.

It's definitely something I noticed, a lot of MTFs today seem to be heavily into anime (like ones featuring cute little girls) and they even use anime themed things in real life, or talk a lot about japan. I think "real" transwomen are usually the ones who are attracted to men and they're not talking about cartoons or act like they're cartoons.

feminine desires, like wearing a necklace, makeup, and wearing skirts for years

maybe you don't want to be FEMALE, you just want to be aesthetic, look nice, dress up, and be desirable. Kind of like how men look at women (but not as common for women to look at men). I think that's a pretty normal desire in men but it's either suppressed or overlooked, while it's encouraged in women. Rappers and dandies glam up all the time though.

Being a woman doesn't orbit around wearing makeup and skirts and looking pretty.

Just because they were right doesn't mean they had to be dismissive or be a prick about it.

Also, feelings and brains can change. People aren't static. It's possible you actually were trans and somehow able to change - which doesn't mean your experiences were less valid, and absolutely doesn't invalidate other actual trans people's experiences.

I get the impression that cis men as a group wouldn't care as much as cis women do - as long as he's still getting sex and affection. It could be because men don't think too deeply about stuff like this, or they never expected to be sought after and desired by women like how women are by men, or maybe they don't take women's internal life that seriously. I've heard of cases where a woman being a lesbian or attracted solely to women doesn't bother the man as long as she's still having sex with him, and he doesn't care if she's having sex with other women as long as it's not with other men. It doesn't even occur to the man that the woman may leave him, that she has her own agency and can kick him out of her life.

Women on the other hand care very much if the man is secretly gay or has gender dysphoria, even if he "performs" his duties as a man in her life. Even if the man never had sex with other men and don't plan on it, him being bisexual is a dealbreaker for a lot of heterosexual women. Women very much care about their mens' internal lives and inner thoughts.

Regarding female sexuality not being taken seriously: women in general aren't taken seriously. like women's pain is brushed off more than men's in medical settings, there's a narrative that female sexuality is "fluid" so men can fantasize about getting straight women to do threesomes involving other women, and lesbians are told "you just havent met the right man", gaslighted, and even pressured to have sex with the opposite sex in ways that gay men aren't. I guess that's part of why gay men are feared and hated more than lesbians, because people view them as a legitimate threat, while lesbians are viewed as something that can be changed and controlled (or just cast aside in the corner if they're not conventionally hot enough).

It's before the period. I don't think about gender dysphoria when I am in pain during other times of the month (like getting an injury), and I am not even in pain or anything during premense. I wonder if gender dysphoria can be hormone related for me.

Male and female children are born with the same range of pigmentation, it's during puberty that this changes.

T can make your hair thicker and have more sebum, which can affect color by making it slightly darker due to the rich oil content. Also it seems evolutionary that women in a population generally have lighter skin than men because lighter skin is more efficient at absorbing vitamin D, which helps with childbearing. Men on the other hand have more melanin because they're outside more. It could be an evolutionary adaptation.

I never physically transitioned because I knew I would never be happy with the results and it will be a time and energy sink for results I will never be content with.

if I only wanted to transition due to the long-term sexual assault trauma I encountered

That's a good question that shouldn't be ignored. Would you have been trans otherwise if it wasn't for sexual assault, or is being trans a way of trying to cope with the trauma? If you somehow were able to work with your trauma instead of transitioning, would that actually be better? If it's trauma based, working on your trauma will help you more instead of transitioning, where even if you transition you will still deal with the effects of trauma. Life isn't easier or better as a man and you will just be dealing with a whole new set of male problems, which you may or may not prefer to what you're dealing with now.

Your dysphoria might actually just be a pretty natural and understandable response to an abnormal environment (sexual trauma, misogynistic society, feeling out of place in your STEM field when most others are male). Sometimes the environment and other people ARE the problem, and if you can, I would try to find a better environment even if it means moving for it. Try to find female friends who connect with, and male friends who respect you.

You have a lot of potential to power as a woman, more power than a man, and I wish more women knew this. It's so powerful that many fear it and try to control women from a very young age. World would be a better place if women knew what they had. You're still young and only 18, I would learn to cultivate that. If you play your cards right, men will follow you to the end of earth and you don't even have to sleep with them.