How do you "become" a woman?

[MatildaJ.]

It's only in about the last year or so that I admitted to myself that I'm TS.

I was in denial before [age 35].

Is late onset transsexuality essentially a variant of TS wherein the individual has so completely suppressed their underlying identity that they convinced even themselves they were male?

That may be true. But I don't see how loved ones are supposed to differentiate between such strong denial and late onset transsexuality. I'm also not sure what the point is, of trying to distinguish between complete denial and late onset transsexuality.

I'm sure for the transitioner, it's reassuring to feel that she has finally figured everything out and she was always a woman. But a spouse may find it easier to believe that the transitioner has changed from male to female rather than to believe that their whole marriage (and decades of friendship) was built on lies and repression.

Perhaps the two people can just agree to disagree and be compassionate with each other. Insisting that one's spouse admit that she married a woman twenty years ago, and has therefore had sex with a woman for twenty years, so why can't they keep on having sex... I don't think that's going to make one's spouse feel good in the present. Likewise, the spouse shouldn't use phrases like "when you were a man" -- that's not going to make the transitioner feel good in the present. They might be well advised to just try to live in the moment and avoid discussing the past if it is too awkward.