this is my perspective too. i kind of relate it to my autistic masking. i used to do fencing and had spent literally years of my life with one of the other fencers, and we ended up taking over the club together when the previous coach retired. one time he invited me to a little house party with some friends, and afterward he said he had never seen me act the way i did at the party before, like he was shocked at how different my behavior was (not in a bad way i think). he had only ever seen me in the context of fencing, so there were huge parts of my personality he had never interacted with, and seeing a glimpse of the larger me showed him he really didnt know me as well as he thought.

i think of my transition the same, like all the stuff coming out now was always there but i never showed it to anyone, so some people are going to be surprised, or shocked, or angry, or happy, or whatever because im showing them that they didnt really know me that well. or maybe not because some of my friends were completely unsurprised lol.