How did your gender therapist help you?

[suzifrommd]

I'm starting working with a gender therapist. It would help me to know what your gender therapist did that helped you.

[GhostTown11]

She wrote my letter for hrt?

[peky]

She wrote my letter for hrt?

^^this. LOL

[TheAwesomePrussia]

I've had two gender therapists. One who wrote my letter for hrt and one who I'm seeing long term while in school.
The one who wrote my letter for hrt also hosts a group therapy session every month. It was really helpful to get a chance to talk with other trans men and women.
The one I see regularly is writing me a letter for a hysterectomy (though I'm having trouble finding a surgeon who will perform the surgery with just the letter...). And she's also just very supportive. She keeps track of my progress, acts as someone I can talk to and reminds me of my support group and how lucky I am to have them, and also helps me find doctors and companies that are trans friendly.
A year or so from now I hope she'll be able to write me a letter for bottom surgery as well.

[Constance]

I started working with my current therapist before I realized I needed to transition. The marriage therapist suggested that the two of us should have individual therapists while in marriage therapy. I chose a therapist who was listed in the directory as having LGBT and gender experience.

So, I began in November 2010 with working on just general stuff before pursuing transition. The gender-related work began in January 2011. By April I had my letter for HRT. By summer she was helping me with the extreme nearly-suicidal depression that was brought on by the divorce proceedings -- a divorce that was due in large to the fact that my (then) wife didn't want to be married to a woman.

She's been very supportive of me in my transition. Originally, I wasn't planning on starting the RLE till January 2012. But, she agreed with me when I said I needed to start it last September, three months earlier than I had originally planned.

So, my therapist has helped me in various ways, not just with supporting my transition.

[Adam (birkin)]

Uh, well, my actual gender therapists honestly just wrote the letters. I was pretty much an open/shut case.

[Arch]

Kept me alive.
Kept me relatively sane.
Got me through a breakup, job loss, relocation, and transition thus far.
Always called me "he."
Found my original endo--I didn't have to lift a finger.
Wrote an HRT letter and a top surgery letter.

[GhostTown11]

Uh, well, my actual gender therapists honestly just wrote the letters. I was pretty much an open/shut case.

Ha ha  . I understand some people need them, but honestly I just see them as the gatekeepers they are.

However, they are good at giving you a cost/benefit analysis of whether transition is right for you.

[Alexis]

There was nothing gatekeeper-like about my experience, but I was sure about what I wanted going into it. Being open and honest and really just having someone to talk to was invaluable for me. Therapy helped much more for the confidence that it gave me in myself and the posibilites for success. I didn't see it as a chore at all then, nor do I now when I still go for the occasional appt.
HRT was definitely a plus though.

[cindianna_jones]

I saw my first therapist a total of three times. She saved my life. I was absolutely suicidal. I would have done it too, if I hadn't had that lifeline to grab. I have posts about it in my blog (chronicles of cindi)  under "Rise from the fall." It's in five parts.
I still get genuinely depressed from time to time. But suicide is far from my thoughts. And I usually snap out of it within a day or two. The good side of my depression is that it has a flip side. There are times when I am bouncing off the walls with creativity and energy. I get to do wonderful things! Since transition, all that focus gets diverted to inventiveness, art, music, and writing. It is a marvelous life!

[Constance]

There was nothing gatekeeper-like about my experience, but I was sure about what I wanted going into it. Being open and honest and really just having someone to talk to was invaluable for me. Therapy helped much more for the confidence that it gave me in myself and the posibilites for success. I didn't see it as a chore at all then, nor do I now when I still go for the occasional appt.
HRT was definitely a plus though.

I agree with Alexis. My therapist was nothing at all like a gatekeeper. And like Arch and Cindi Jones have said, mine was a life-saver. Well, her and a Zen priest, too.

[AnarchyAlice]

I haven't had much positive luck with Gender Therapists aside from them writing me my letter for HRT.

[Ayden]

Mine was great. She worked with me until a month after I started by hormones on a very regular basis. Now she is basically there in case I need to talk to her. I was pretty certain transition was what I needed, but she helped me get to a better place as far as what would be changing. She also helped me to deal with a lot of childhood trauma unrelated to being trans. I was able to open up to her about things I have never even told my husband, which helped me to stop self-harming. That was probably the best thing she did for me, because I was able to self-harm without anyone knowing it. Not a good thing. She even put me in contact with other trans guys and worked closely with my endo to get me started. Her letter was what convinced my endo to start me on hormones right away, even though it was the first time I had met her.

[kelly_aus]

Apart from being an open and non-judgemental person I could talk to about my issues, he has given me a number of 'tools' I've found handy for dealing with my life - both the present and the darker parts of my past.

He's never been at all gatekeeper like. Ok, yes, it did take me a little longer than the standard (for him) 3 months to start HRT, but I wanted to deal with some baggage from my past first. When I was ready, he wrote my referral without a second thought.

Early on, I saw him quite frequently, now after 14 months on hormones, I see him for a 1/2 hour every 2 months. It's become more of a semi-social catch up rather than therapy - but he is there when I need him too. I am/was a fairly open and shut case and transition was always going to happen for me, but I did find hin very useful early on and continue to do so from time to time.

[Claire25]

My therapist is awesome. He probably saved me alot of emotion stress. I always thought of therapy as a pseudo-medicine and thought it was never a big deal. Then I started going and it has been great. He asks how I am doing both emotionally and physically and is just an all around good person to talk to. I always feel good after I leave his office. Somedays we don't even talk much of the transition but will just have a good down to earth conversation. He is also the same person who wrote my letter for HRT and I don't see him nearly as often as I did when I first started going to him. My wife also sees him and she loves him too.

My therapist was in no way a gatekeeper. I told him what I wanted from the start and he asked my plans and I laid it out to him and we talked about all the ins and outs of transition and he knew that I was well educated in the subject and knew very well what I was getting myself into. After about 2 months of weekly visits I had my letter in my hands. He never even once tried to steer me away from the Idea of transitioning, just wanted to make sure that is what I wanted to do.

[Jillieann Rose]

My therapist gave me the confidence to move forward.
On second visit she said, "Of course you are a women."
And that so change myself image and my self-esteem sky-rocked.
She is so great to talk to about girl stuff too.
I have wrote letters to my family with her help and encouragement.
She has rejoiced and cried with me.
Jenn wants to help me get my surgery too and is more than willing to provide the papers I need.
She has even got a second therapist that will attest to my GID.
Thanks to her I am now a happy girl.

And no, she is defintely not a gatekeeper, shes a life saver.

[cindianna_jones]

It is good to find a match, isn't it, Jillieann?

[Jillieann Rose]

Oh yes Cindi it sure is.
I was so blessed to find her in this backward conservative little city.

[Brooke777]

With my past, all I did was explain my situation and my psych sent me to the endo. I still see her once a month, just to talk. We pretty much just chit chat, and discuss professional topics.

So, I guess she helped me by sending me to the endo.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Mine gave me an outlet to explore my true self.  He also wrote my letters for HRT, Orchidectomy and SRS.  He also turned me on too my psychiatrist for my second letter for SRS and passport.