I was lucky. Sort of. Had terrific and inclusive choir directors in both junior high and high school. My junior high choir director figured out I could sing before I did. Moved me from the soprano section, where I had placed myself because I didn't know harmony from shinola, and sat me beside a good, strong 2nd alto I could follow to learn how to sing harmony. did well enough to make the Concert and All-county choirs, but felt inadequate because I still struggled with the higher reaches of the alto.

My voice was closer to 2nd tenor (as I get older, I am closer to a baritone, but am losing range - I don't think I have two octaves now that I can count on any given day.)   Although female, I relate to what you baritones have experienced. I was probably 50 years old before I figured out that I simply can not comfortably sing in the keys most people sing. Singing in groups, always at the screeching top or the gravelly bottom of my range. church choir director tried to get me to sing with the tenors. Were I a better musician I might could have done so, but the timbre of my low female voice was so different from the timbre of the male voices in the same range that I simply could not connect to the 2nd tenor parts.

It seriously undercut my confidence. Had I known when I was younger what I know now, I could have been a very fine singer. Some part of me sensed that, but the more conscious and self-conscious part of me believed I was just not quite good enough.