transition 101 revisited

ok, nick, here we go again. trans 101 talk. i've just spent a couple of days online talking with a girl who is thinking hard about transitioning. she has told me about how she just swoons over the idea of presenting female. during the course of this extended conversation hrt came up. i advised her as to the limitations of the feminizing effect of hrt, that it's no panasea. i told her that the pyhsical changes while substantial in ways often fall short of expectations in girls who want alot of change. she told me that the physical changes were were not the primary motivation for her desiring hrt, she really wanted to quash the masculine feelings she keeps having. that's a new one on me. i've never thought of transition as changing what is inside me but allowing what's in there to come to the surface and flourish. i've felt like if i stopped practicing at being male then the socialization would fall away of it's own dead weight and the true me would emerge. that i have what i consider masculine feelings from time to time is no surprise. i think it's pretty common for people of either gender to have feelings they associate primarily with the other at times. i've been trying to figure out if hrt has in fact caused me to have more feminine feelings and less masculine feelings or not. i certainly feel more feminine now then i did before transition, and i believe i am more a creature of emotion then i was. i'm just not sure i can pin that on hrt. i wonder if it isn't just that in honest presentation i feel more free to feel the emotions then i did. that before i exercised more control over my emotions because i just didn't like them, and i have since transitioning made a conscious effort to surrender more control, not exercise more. i wonder if anyone has made a good study of this and has something useful to add? lotsa love, pj