When I was a lot younger, I was trying to figure out my identity.
Growing up in the 80s and being a teenager in the 90s was an awful time to be trans, and even though I definitely had gender feels going back early in my childhood (like, recently I remembered thinking about it when I was 7, and really into The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle), the environment simply wasn't supportive back then. I got bullied for being a "sissy" and a "girl" a lot.
I was also very much into transformation-related fiction (uh, like The Last Unicorn) and along the way I decided that it would actually be easier to be an animal. This of course led directly to my later descent into furry trash.