It has been a very interesting experience for me to see the "transition" of a male friend of mine from "typical" (sports-watching, beer-drinking, manual-working) male, to something approaching a female when he became a SAHD to a girl. Three years ago, he used to think his wife (who was on ML with their new baby girl) did "nothing" all day, used to complain about her waking him when she got up with the baby every night (and never ever did a night feed) used to expect dinner on the table and his shirts ironed etc. Then, as his wife was the main breadwinner she went back to work and he became a SAHD, and now he says pretty much the same things as a woman does, about feeling invisible, and his interest in feminism is very high.
Nothing physical about him has changed at all. He is a tall, very physically strong man. But he has gained a new perspective on the world. It started when he said to me "I feel invisible," having been a SAHD for about 6 months. I said "that's how women feel all the time." His attitudes have changed dramatically over the last three years, in fact I have never seen such a change in a person. First he turned all his sexist attitudes on himself, and he expected the same unreasonable things from himself as he did from his wife, in the belief that, being a good person, his expectations were realistic and so if he expected them of a SAHM he should expect them of himself. It's only over time that he has seen that his expectations were rooted in sexism and he has come to see his own sexism from the inside so to speak. And he has rejected that sexism. He is in the process of becoming a true feminist ally because he has an inside perspective so to speak.
However, he is still very aware of being a man and the advantages that continues to confer on him. He acknowledges that though he has experienced the devaluing that women experience he can never ever understand what it's like to feel under threat from the opposite sex.
It strikes me, Kim, that you are seeing being a woman from an inside perspective and you're not liking it much either. You talk about the difficulty of being a dissenting voice etc - these are things women experience all the time, from day one. I think you have to accept to a certain extent that if you are going to become a woman you are going to take on all the disadvantages of being a woman, you will not get special treatment. And being a woman sucks. Sorry about that.
On top of that, being a man, you have never experienced the same level of threat that biological women have experienced. In fact, you are a threat. And women will treat you that way, for our own safety. So you have the double whammy of the shittiness of being a woman and the lack of acceptance from both men and women of being trans. It must be tough.