Also I never had any dysphoric thoughts before 26-27y of age.

my egg didnt crack until i was 25 and if you asked pre-transition me if i experienced dysphoria i wouldve told you no. turns out that i was just so dissociated/used to it/repressed that i couldnt recognize it. and as ashinadash said, you don’t need it to be trans.

I've felt dysphoria for less time then you

I'm in a similar situation with my parents and I don't have any advice, just this

Also I never had any dysphoric thoughts before 26-27y of age.

That's ok, you don't need any. Cool gender envy :)

I think if they really do care as parents, they'll realise that you are still you and being trans is cool. Safety issues are more worth considering imo.

How do you define dysphoric thoughts?

I didn't think I had dysphoria until I put on a dress and stopped normalizing it, at 44.

Here's some reflection after the fact. Hated puberty. Hated getting hair all over. Never felt like a man, always a boy. Never really enjoyed penetrative sex, always felt weird to me but I did it anyway because I thought I was supposed too. Preferred my head hair long but often wore it short for safety. Preferred pink but never allowed myself to wear it because of safety. Reoccurring dreams where I'm a woman. Preferring to play women in RPGs, as long as I wasn't being bullied for it. The list goes on.

But the mind can be quite adapt at hiding from itself . It's an adaptation to survive bullying. When I started accepting that I was genderqueer and likely trans, the puzzle pieces started to fit.

Another excellent way to tell if you have gender dysphoria, is if you get gender euphoria when you allow yourself to be yourself.

And so far, I only cracked my egg last month, that euphoria has been a guiding light for me out of a lifetime of depression, anxiety, and general self hatred.

Sorry your parents are religious. My family is not and it's still been difficult for them to accept. It's been difficult for me to accept too, as there is a lot of misinformation about what it is to be trans. A lot of gas lighting and gatekeeping from people who want to pretend that we don't exist.

But the joy I feel being myself is worth it. And as my family sees my joy, they come to accept that this is real.

There is still time

I might be trans, might just be someone who wants to look cute and I can't tell the difference anymore

Oh hi, it's me from the past. How's it going?

So, you have a lot of options.

You said you lived most of your life as a straight man. You can keep doing that if you don't have dysphoria but mostly gender envy. You can be a guy who presents femme and does the things that make you envious. That's what I did for a good while.

While reckoning with your parents is obviously the best choice, you could also just never come out to them and identify spaces where it's safe for you to present the way you like.

I'm not sure what "great personal cost and unique safety issue" you're referring to, but that stuff is real and needs to be taken into account. Consider how intense your gender feelings are (seems like you've had them for at least 5 years) and then weigh those feelings against the loss and safety risks. Then, make a decision. If it won't hurt too bad, maybe you want to just keep living the way you are. On the other hand, you may be inflating the risks and loss in your mind.

All together, transition is a choice to be made. While some people bottle up these feelings until they explode later, it doesn't happen to everyone, and some folks can just live with it. So... Just weigh your options.