How many of you transitioned blindly without knowing where it would lead?

[FrancisAnn]

Northern Jane. Good for you to become normal as early in life as possible. I wish I had also followed through in my early years. Please have a great day & thanks for your posts.

[Northern Jane]

Thank you Francis Ann.

The really rotten part was that I was already to go at 17 and would have jumped at the chance for SRS and transition at that point but it was another 7 years before surgery came to North America and I almost didn't survive that long.

Actually, I had the chance for SRS at 17 but couldn't do it. A young man from a wealthy background was very much in love with me and offered to send me to Morocco if I would only marry him. I just couldn't do it, as much as I wanted to! I couldn't marry someone I didn't love and I was too honest to accept the trip overseas and then abandon him afterwards.

The lowest point came when I was 24. I had told my doctor I didn't expect to live to see 25 and one evening near Christmas the depression was so bad I loaded a gun and put it to my head. When I pulled the trigger, the gun misfired - it had NEVER misfired before! - and a voice in the darkness said "No, not yet. Wait just a little longer." I was NOT in the habit of hearing voices and that startled me. I did wait and within a few weeks I found out about Dr. Biber in Colorado. A flurry of correspondence followed in the new year, a rush to liquidate everything I owned, getting thrown out of my parents house, and I was off to Colorado with half of the required fee for SRS and to meet with Dr. Biber. The interview was short, he agreed to do my surgery for the amount that I had, and that was it!

As long as I live I will never forget the voice from the darkness! Somebody or some thing was looking out for me and I came so close to throwing it all away.

[anjaq]

That is one hell of an experience, Jane. Wow, you really had a guardian there. And also a big wow to Dr Biber that he did this without all the money. I wonder if any SRS surgeon in the world right now would do that if someone came to him like that. I severly doubt it.

[Shantel]

I jumped in because I fear being any more manly than I already am. It was the only way to try and stop it. I have seen my future and the thought of becoming an old man was so disgusting to me I have to try and stop it from happening. I'd rather die. I thought I could do things over my life, like LHR and stuff and that it would alleviate that fear, but it wasn't enough. I don't know where it will lead.

+1 This is the exact same for me as well. The finale straw that set me over the top was when I was sitting at a beach and an old man bent over in front of me in tight cotton shorts, I could clearly see this repulsive stretched out scrotum and balls hanging down one leg, I thought I's throw up!  I couldn't wait to get an orchiectomy and be rid of those damned things!

[Murbella]

+1 This is the exact same for me as well. The finale straw that set me over the top was when I was sitting at a beach and an old man bent over in front of me in tight cotton shorts, I could clearly see this repulsive stretched out scrotum and balls hanging down one leg, I thought I's throw up!  I couldn't wait to get an orchiectomy and be rid of those damned things!

Yes, I can't concieve of anyone enjoying a nutsack in any way...  They can be interesting watching things shift around in response to temperature changes but always looks like some alien egg thing...

As for the OP, personally, I'm not really planning on saving up for any surgery, but I'll probably start looking at insurance plans rather closely next time I am allowed to make changes.  I work for a large company with good benefits, and I'm hoping that one of my available plans might be more inclusive and at the very least allow me to direct pre-tax contributions to an HSA towards therapy/HRT, but I have a lot of research to do on that front.  Other than that, I don't think that I'll be planning much of anything as I've always been much more of a "go with the flow" kinda person.

[K8]

I didn't try suicide but got so that I was afraid I was going to commit passive suicide - ever riskier behavior that might end in my death.  I knew I had to move toward resolution.

I started hoping only to be able to dress in women's clothes in public when I wanted to, then I wanted hormones to soften my features.  Each time I opened a door, I wanted to open the next one.  I was lucky - I could open the next one when I was ready.  (A year after I had come out to a close male friend, I told him that I was going to get SRS.  He complained: "You said in the beginning you weren't going to become a woman."  I could only reply: "Just goes to show you I didn't know what I needed."  He accepted that.)

It took me a long time before I got to the point of 'if not now, I may never get another chance,' but once I got to that point I knew I would rather live as an ugly old woman than any kind of man.  I think if I had realized how wonderful my life would become I would have hated the waiting more.

- Kate

[Tessa James]

Oh that dreaded old man ball sack syndrome, lol.  Yes nude beaches can be alarming?

I had way too much misinformation and my own overwrought fears to break through but I still do not think of having a real life plan or goal that leads to specifics.  We all are potentially taking a leap and I was certainly naive about my ability to stop or go back.  The intoxicating power of finally being myself was stronger than the fear of ridicule and moving forward has huge rewards.

At first I was disinterested in bottom surgery but my evolving self is now open to that consideration too.

Blind no, uncertainty, well that was more of a starting point for this girl.

[LizMarie]

I was desperate but also trying not to destroy 35 years of marriage and my relationships with my adult children. So I worked with my therapist and developed a very slow, conservative plan to give people time to adjust... except right at the start they refused to adjust and my marriage will be ending (we'll remain friends but still...) and my relationship to my two adult sons has become very problematic, though the younger one is improving slowly. The only positive in this mess was my daughter.

My other problem was like many born in the 1950s - we had been fed a pack of lies and I believed most of those lies. As those lies slowly began to be falsified, as I learned the truth about the medical science about being transgender, that a trans woman can be fully orgasmic, that we really do have a real reason for feeling as we do, as I learned more and more, it became harder and harder to shove my dysphoria back under a rock after each appearance.

But yes, I planned everything and that plan keeps getting updated as circumstances shift and as I learn more.

[Katie]

Having lived through the process I can say that nothing I had ever planned was exactly what I expected. So many things change once those hormones kick in that its impossible to plan much of anything.

If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences. I always knew I was a woman but it took some time to learn that there was no reason to voluntarily out myself as something different.

Katie

[Joanna Dark]

If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences.

I'm learning this myself. Lately, I've been tinking I should talk less and less about transition at all. It's been such an obssessive process that it has been hard as I have foot in mouth syndrome but I'm going to try my hardest. I also think it is easier for people to view you as female if you don't constantly remind them of the condition.

[Katie]

Jonna I will say one thing. If you could sit down and ask people like Boylan and Rose if they could do it over again would they not have wrote their books, I would bet money they would say they regret writing the books. Why? Well forever they are trans women. Not women trans women.

I can point out something else that might be hard to understand but after you have surgery everything changes and most just want to live a normal life. Sadly some cannot because they ran their mouths or wrote books, or you name it.

Katie

[Janae]

I knew what I wanted to do when I was about 15-16. But because I felt as if I needed "Permission" to get started I waited. For a long time being that young I didn't know who to go to for help. Because puberty hit me around 13-14 I felt sad because I knew there was no way to stop what was already starting. I wasted so much time over 20 yrs. And now that I'm both feet in all I do is think about how I'll get the money I need to be complete. The only comfort I have is that I've found some great surgeons who's prices will make things a lot easier to obtain when I have the money. What I wasn't expecting is how much stress, depression, and loneliness would follow. Even though I'm still in the early stages, I just want to be done so I can move on to more pressing goals I want to achieve.

[K8]

If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences. I always knew I was a woman but it took some time to learn that there was no reason to voluntarily out myself as something different.

I got enormous help from my non-trans friends during my transition.  It was the most difficult, exciting, wonderful thing I had ever done, and I needed to talk about it during the process.  I owe part of my success to their patience, encouragement, and willingness to listen.  Some still think of me as a trans-woman but others just accept me as a woman.  I wouldn't change any of it.  And I know that I was very lucky.

- Kate 

[Donna Elvira]

I guess I could answer yes and no to this question. If I take the beginning of HRT, Sept 2008,  as my starting point I definitely began not having a clue where it would lead. It was totally DIY, based on internet research and I had no external support whatsoever. It wasn't that I didn't want support, there was simply nothing available anywhere remotely close to where I was living at the time and I hadn't yet discovered Susan's..

My first FFS surgery was pretty similar. Starting in 2008, I had done some internet research even contacting Dr Spiegel in Boston at the time.I also read Dr Ousterhout's book on the subject so before I took the leap I did know a little. However end of the day, I decided really quickly. I had an opening between two jobs during the summer of 2011 and decided to go for it.

I got an appointment with Dr Van de Ven in Ghent Belgium on 1st of July, liked him and opted to use the last slot he had available before his summer vacation to do my upper face FFS just a little more than 2 weeks later.

The whole organisation was rushed and my post-surgery accomodation was very poor. I was also far more beaten up after the surgery than I ever expected, so swollen that I could hardly see for several days. As I was alone, that was not a fun moment.

However that whole experience was my real moment of truth. The emotion I went through at finally taking this huge step was greater than anything I had imagined and had me completely submerged at times. The experience was very different from HRT which is far more gradual and largely reversible, at least it was for me,  even after months of treatment.

Since summer 2011 however, when I finally became sure that I was going to through with this, I have planned things far more carefully and can only say, so far so good. I have come through coming out to my kids, close friends, siblings, outer circle of friends and my immediate colleagues at work without any significant issues and already live 100% as a woman in my private life.  I thought I would finally get to transition completely summer 2013 and this didn't quite happen. However, everything is now set for it to happen over the months ahead. I just need to get my Civil Identity Change approved to be able to take the final step.

As it happens the filing will be made this week and today I saw the first draft of my attorney's submittal. I was alone in my office and just couldn't fight back the tears as I went through her text. It really does look like a life of fighting with myself is finally coming to an end and in a far more positive manner than I imagined at the outset.

It hasn't been linear by any manner or means and I came close to total disaster at work in spite of all my precautions and planning. That's why I'm inclined to believe that if we don't accept at the outset that there are significant unknowns, this is as journey that is probably best avoided. However, it also why I strongly favour a gradual approach. Until you start coming out to all and sundry and/or doing surgeries, turning back is not too difficult. Afterwards it becomes much much harder so I guess the first months of HRT are best used just to start to get to know a more female you that much better, see how you like her and only then push forward a bit harder.
My 2C's worth...
Bises
Donna
   

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

Prior to transitioning, (one could say I entered it blindly) I had no set plans to speak of, nothing was mapped out, I just went with the flow...Fortunately it turned out alright...I've no regrets...

Metta Zenda

[PHXGiRL]

*raises hand*

I had no idea if it would be ok with my work. No idea what my family would say. No idea how I would pay for it. No idea what the future held for me. I expected the worst and the best happened. Work is great! Family is wonderful and the funds are coming together. Transition is one of those things you have to dive in. Move forward and life will find a way. That is what I told myself and still do everyday!