Depends on what you want out of all this. For me, eliciting female gendering from myself and others without getting clocked (passing 100% of the time) was a priority, so my sequencing reflected this.
Stage 1: Therapy, Electrolysis, Voice, Support group
-- Therapy was to make sure I wasn't making a mistake, and to get letters.
-- Electrolysis is more likely to take two years, start now, beard shadow is no good
-- I can't emphasize how important voice is. I would have stopped if I could get my voice down. As it is, it took six months to find my voice, which took a lot of practice and unpleasant feedback (the main thing is to record what you practice and experiment with, and that can be dysphoria inducing).
-- I found support group very important not just for being able to relate to other people going through what I was going through, but as a place to be gendered correctly as a matter of course.
Stage 2: HRT, Wardrobe, Coming out
-- HRT helps with skin appearance and fat deposits, not to mention growing breasts
-- At this point I was ready to start investing in some clothes
-- It can take a good month or two to get really good at doing your makeup
-- I only came out to family and friends, not at work. See Stage 5 for more on this.
-- This is when I started RLE, too, except at work. I refused to jeopardize my income source until surgeries were paid.
Stage 3: Facial Surgery
-- At about 16 months into transition I had my whole face done -- scalp advancement, brow, nose, chin, jaw, and trachea. Best money I ever spent. Unless you're very lucky (5% maybe?) plan on FFS if you want to pass consistently. HRT will not remove a brow ridge or change any of your bony structures.
-- Plan on several weeks of recovery, and several months of general fatigue.
Stage 4: SRS / BAS
-- At 2 years into transition I had the last of my surgeries.
Stage 5: Practicing Non-Disclosure
-- Here's the other thing to consider, what many call "going stealth." The main thing about this is that a lot of us find that just the *story* of transition can get you misgendered. So I don't tell, and no one has asked. This was the other main reason for not coming out at work, to limit the number of people who could spread the story.
If non-disclosure is in the cards for you, prepare for moving to a new city and getting a new career; use only references that will respect your correct name and gender. Don't write about your transition on social media; set up new social media accounts for your new name, and don't link them to anyone who already knows you.
If you can relocate to a temporary city for your transition, maybe find a place where name changes can be done without being published in the local paper. Do make sure all your official documentation everywhere is updated -- social security, passport, credit cards, etc -- and note that some things take bottom surgery to update. Rent a UPS box and have all your mail forward there for a year, so that you can catch other accounts that you might have forgotten about without seeing "deadname" at an inopportune time.
Finally, it can take a couple years to determine if non-disclosure is right for you. It's easy to switch from non-disclosure to being out -- all you have to do is "come out" again -- but it's not so easy to maintain your privacy once you're out.
