I have been trans for like, 12 years. I spent significant amounts of that transition compromising on being who I wanted to be or what I want in my gender and sexuality because pursuing what I really wanted felt too difficult and I allowed myself to care more about the acceptance and positive response of others to my gender and sexuality than my own desires.
I stopped presenting as feminine as I wanted to because as a presentation it felt like it was too difficult with too steep consequences for failure. Other LGBTQ people responses negative to me presenting in gender conforming ways, especially if I was dating cishet people. They assumed I felt like I was better than them or trying to leave the community.
But that response began before I would get good at it enough for cisgender people to accept me either. So it felt like pursuing the gender and sexuality I wanted would lead to being an outcast and I gave up. I wanted the acceptance of other trans people and assumed I'd never be accepted by cisgender people and I prioritized it over the actual point of transitioning: to furiously pursue living the way that makes me feel good and wonderful no matter what anybody else thinks about it.
I had a circumgender butch phase for maybe five years. It was very low effort to maintain during a period of time when I didn't have a lot of time or money to put into my appearance. For that minimal effort I was praised tremendously by other LGBT people. The acceptance and desire directed at me felt very good. I still felt like I probably looked good. I enjoyed it. I did. It wasn't bad it was fine. it was a sort of compromise. A second choice gender presentation. If I couldn't succeed at being a woman maybe I could be an androgynous genderqueer thing that was mostly oriented around pleasing other people.
The past few years I started dressing feminine again and growing my hair out again. The way that I know that this is the gender I actually wanted all along is that when I look in the mirror I like what I see. It makes me happy and makes me feel good regardless of if anyone accepts me for it. And now that I'm older and have more time, money, and knowledge I'm better at this presentation than when I was 20 and getting everything from free piles and didn't really know what I was doing.
With self confidence and security in my identity I am now actually pursuing and presenting as my first choice gender again. It feels amazing. I don't care anymore that this gender paired with the gender I'm attracted to makes me straight or if immature LGBT people I'm not even friends with judge me for it. All of my friends are LGBTAIP+ and the ones who are my friends accept me no matter what.
Pursue who you want to be furiously. Accept only your first choice gender. Don't assume it would be too difficult to actually get where you want to be. Just keep trying for it and you will see changes. You will get better at what you're doing. Your body will change. You will mature and learn and develop skills. It takes cisgender people a long time to come into the way they present as adults and you need to spend just as long. You won't be able to speed run 12+ years of development in 2 years.
Finally, I am actually living my truth.