Quote from: Clara Kay on December 07, 2017, 09:42:06 AM
That's a question only you can answer, Sheila. But I have some advice that might help you.
There's no one way to transition, although WPATH provides a best practices guide. There's nothing that says that the first step is coming out to your friends and relatives. Many start by scheduling visits with their gender therapist to talk about it. A good therapist can be a wonderful source of support, information, and guidance. She can also help you understand the severity of your GD. Self discovery is very important. Maybe gender transition isn't the answer for you. If it seems likely that it is, she'll probably suggest a trial period of hormone therapy to see how you react to female hormones. Changing your sex hormone balance is both a diagnostic and a treatment for gender dysphoria. You don't need your father's approval to take this step, nor do you have to tell him. You could also join a transgender support group to meet other trans people and learn from them. Transition is not easy. Social adjustment, emotional upheaval, huge costs, and physical pain are all aspects of transitioning that make the process very challenging. And there's no guarantee that you'll have a better life on the other side.
Many transgender people find effective ways to cope with GD. I did for years. I know several transgender people who cross-dress as a means of relieving the stress of GD. Distraction is another effective way to cope. Focus on your career, college studies, a hobby, or anything that takes your mind off your gender issues. Stay busy and involved. Please don't fall into a pattern of self destructive activity like drugs, alcohol, or engaging in unsafe sex. If you find you can put off transition, there are still things you can do now to prepare. Take steps to avoid male scalp hair loss. Begin the long, slow process of facial hair removal. Work to find your female voice. Gradually, take on more and more of a feminine presentation. Let your hair grow out. Wear an ear ring or two. Wear androgynous clothes. There's nothing that says your transition has to be sudden and shocking to those around you. In the mean time, save up as much money as you can. Transition is expensive and you'll be more successful if you have the resources needed.
These are just a few thoughts that you might want to consider. I hope you can find a path that bring you to a good place. Hugs.
Hey i know i said this to you in a private message since they locked my thread, but i want to share this with other people too. We can continue to talk in PM though.
Thank you for the advice, Clara. Apparently though, i can do none of that right now except see a therapist and have our talk be confidential. My dad visits me every 3 months, that would be impossible to hide doing all that other stuff. I am very close to my dad intimately and he likes to spend time with me so if i were to receive hormone therapy he would know. He seems to find out about everything i do and i have little privacy so its like i'm living with him still even though i live alone now. He is an over the road truck driver and makes a lot of money, he gives me some money, but my minimum wage job and my disability insurance and medicaid help me out more than anything even though i technically don't have to be working and could just leech off disability insurance. I want to be a graphics designer and that will pretty much set in stone most of the transitioning costs once i've accumulated all the money. I think disability and medicaid insurance would help cover some transitioning costs as well. You don't have to pay for it all at once from what i heard so that's good. My hair is already grown out and long, i keep myself shaved, i have a feminine face, at least in my opinion.
Now as much as i want to avoid talking about my dad's biases and misconceptions i guess i could share a few but it might offend some of you...one misconception that he has is your gender is decided by your chromosomes and if you have a penis or a vagina and your body structure and brain chemistry since birth. He boils it down to transgenders are just delusional and just simply have a mental disease, they try to change what cannot be changed such as transitioning as according to him they will still be their assigned birth gender and that they are fighting a hopeless war to be a gender they are not and dont try to change what you were born as. He says there are only two genders: male and female, not a third gender called transgender. He says transgenders merely wish or want to be another gender with imaginary dreams and feelings of that gender they identify themselves as being and so they are just men or women wearing the opposite gender's clothing as if it's some sort of sexual perversion and that we are just playing around. He believes a transgender woman shouldn't use the woman's bathroom even if she or according to him HE still, sits down on the toilet. Very ignorant and biased way of thinking about transgenders isn't it? I hate his views with utmost passion and they disgust me and make me very disappointed. He blatantly ignores what science says pertaining to transgenders too obviously as those views of his as i just said don't line up with today's scientific analysis and empirical methods of observation and medical research behind what makes someone a transgender and most of this is not just a hypothesis, it is based on objective FACTS that led to many conclusions as to what makes us transgender. In his mind transgenders don't really exist. He has an open mind about many things but his views on some things are very much clouded in ignorance and very narrow minded and black and white way of considering things. He even thinks gay people have a mental problem but wait hasn't homosexuality been observed in nature with animals too not just humans?
I go my own path too, but my dad is way too involved in my life for him to not know that i would transition. He said if i really wanted him to not stop by so much and give me more space i could always give him the heads up. I think once i become a graphics designer after i finish my studies and college, find someone to move in with, maybe a roommate, or even a boyfriend or girlfriend then he would leave me more alone and i'll have more options and will get the chance to transition without telling him but he might know i am transgender eventually someday. Part of it is he worries about me being alone all the time due to some other issues i have. I want to transition into a beautiful woman or at least a cute one to fit the woman i am inside. I think my face is already kind of cute and people tell me i am cute, even guys tell me i am cute like my coworker at the convenience store and it makes me giggle and blush like a girl, he even says i blush. I love the compliment. I'm not sure if he is gay though. I'm bisexual myself.
I ought to wear more women's clothes again, try on some make up or lipstick. I can easily get all that at my local wal mart.
It's difficult though having gender dysphoria even though i feel blessed that i'm a woman but it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows when my dad finds out i am a trans. He needs to really spread the branches a little and look around more about transgenders before he opens his mouth and ridicules us. He will not be around forever, and he will also die much sooner than i will which is sad, i love him dearly, but i also have my own life to live and i will transition, he will not prevent or stop me from transitioning even if he doesn't accept me and that he is still around and alive. He is the only person in my family i worry about getting rejected by as my family is rather small anyway and i'm currently single and not in a relationship with anyone. I'm scared and worried and get depressed a lot due to the tough situation i'm stuck in. I hope maybe a therapist can give me a solution to my problems.
He is going to have to accept me for the woman i am and if he doesnt i'll have to move on, there is no other nice way to put it even though being separated from him or never seeing him again terrifies me but his potential negative react towards me being trans terrifies me as well and i'm scared about many things that will happen because i know my life will drastically change. He has known me as the woman i am even though i have been pretending and acting like a male but not completely so he's always known me as the person i am, however in the guise of a male so this is not something new. I've been trans for a long time since i was a kid and first realized my innate feelings and instincts of being a woman but i have always been scared and worried about telling anyone. All he has to do is accept seeing me with his eyes as the woman i am when i go through transitioning someday which will be hard for him i know that but i will have to explain to him how i have always had these feelings since childhood and knew i was probably transgender. It's not going to be easy. I will probably argue with him and he will hurt me emotionally.
What do you think about my dad's biases and misconceptions?
It's a struggle being in a male body when you are female, it certainly feels odd and weird. I don't like it at all and i'm miserable about it. I know my body isn't fully masculine especially my brain i think and my soul is obviously female in my perception, which is good but I want people to stop getting my gender wrong and that's only because i havent transitioned yet. I didn't mean to say i would never transition like i did earlier, i will someday. It'll be a long journey ahead towards transitioning and living life genuinely as the woman i am.
Hugs,
Sheila
krobinson103: Look at the thread "Jesus loves you unless...", i explain my views in regards to Christianity and being gay or transgender.
