Is it possible my RLE has commenced awhile back and I did not know it?

[becca.anne]

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about my upcoming surgery. As far as the WPATH and RLE requirement are concerned. Why isn't being who we are that good enough. I mean, I look somewhat female in my dress, I have pierced ears, I love gel nails and sport them quite frequently-they currently have red tips. Is that good enough? It seems to me it should be. The other item I have been thinking about is what "pronoun" do I prefer. I always state "Me" which initially has throws some people off. Especially medial people - they like to put people in boxes.

So here I sit thinking about things and.......

-Becca

[Lori Dee]

You were likely on the path longer than you thought. In reality, wearing nail polish to the grocery store counts. Wearing feminine clothing outside the home counts. But in some cases, the "powers that be" want to see some sort of "evidence" that can show how long you have been living in the role full-time.

I began dressing appropriately, wig and makeup, every time I went to see my doctor. In my early visits to my psychologist, he noted in my records that I was dressed appropriately for my gender including red nail polish. Since that was documented by a third party, that is all the proof I need.

Perhaps you have something similar or could do something similar so that there is a record. If you receive mail in your new name, even without a legal name change, that could document it as well by the postmark. Just something to think about.

[SoupSarah]

RLE or real life experience, is to ensure you can function in your desired gender in the society you live in. So that means that you change your name and pronouns, passport, driving licence, bank account.. etc.. and you go to work and socialise and do everything in your preferred gender. Its not about gel nails.

Living the gender you want to live for real shows that you will likely succeed in transitioning and will not have regrets and detransition when things get real and irreversible. It is a pretty huge thing to change your gender - especially when that means you are you 24/7 and have no other persona to hide behind..

I remember when I transitioned - I had told most of my customers and that weeded out the ones who continued their business with me and the ones who did not. But then, a long forgotten customer called me, almost the day I went full time - an emergency and I had to go to their premises - I had to tell them I no longer was presenting as male and my new name - To be honest, I was so scared that I seriously considered just, for this once, go as my old self (I had only been me for 48 hours or so) - but this is what I signed up for.. this was how I needed to live my life and so I told them the facts - they said - great, happy for you - and I went to work in a dress.. that is when I started my FTE.. GRS 2 years later

[Paulie]

Hi Beca,

The simple answer is, What YOU are happy with is more than good enough, it' perfect.

Make yourself happy, that's as far as you NEED to go.

Warm Regards,
Paulie.

[Devlyn]

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about my upcoming surgery. As far as the WPATH and RLE requirement are concerned. Why isn't being who we are that good enough. I mean, I look somewhat female in my dress, I have pierced ears, I love gel nails and sport them quite frequently-they currently have red tips. Is that good enough? It seems to me it should be. The other item I have been thinking about is what "pronoun" do I prefer. I always state "Me" which initially has throws some people off. Especially medial people - they like to put people in boxes.

So here I sit thinking about things and.......

-Becca

As far as WPATH and RLE requirements...they no longer exist under version 8 of the SOC.

My doctor had told me (back in the day) that the name change was something that the insurance companies would accept as the beginning of RLE because it was documented. But again, the RLE requirement no longer exists.

Hugs, Devlyn

[becca.anne]

While I agree that this is "more than gel nails" my point is I have been presenting this way for quite sometime and perhaps this is frankly a "much ado about nothing" on my part. I need to stop overthinking. I am me, here I am.. Take it or leave it, makes me no nevermind.

-B

[Jenn104]

if this helps--

I once had a therapy visit. I started ticking off all the ways I was making progress. After about 5 minutes of this, that, and the other, I looked at my therapist -- "HEY! I think I've been living full time 3 weeks." She nodded.


More practically speaking-- supposedly I had an archaic 1 year real life requirement from insurance. Insurance lags WPATH/SOC8 guidelines. I told them I was going to use the day people starting using Jennifer full time. Which was well before I presented full time. I could argue my RLE started about a month before that. I also wrote a note to my insurance people that I was confident, self assured, and would work to answer any questions they had. I also told my concierge "there is not much else to learn, except how well I can put together a spring wardrobe".

Insurance approved my GCS well before the "1 year" they wanted.

Jenn


Bottom line-- don't let insurance bully you

[KathyLauren]

RLE, as noted above, is no longer a "requirement".  It is still a good practice, just for your own peace of mind, and some medical professionals may not have gotten the memo.

What they had in mind, back when it was a requirement, was that you don't ever "escape" back to your birth gender role.  So someone who presents as female at home and out shopping, but presents male at work would not qualify.  Since no one keeps track, and it is no longer a requirement, it really doesn't matter any more.

If you consider yourself to be "full-time", that is good enough.  If you put on jeans and an old T-shirt to work on your car, the RLE Police aren't going to jump out of the bushes and write you a ticket.

[Sarah B]

Hi Becca Anne

To answer your thread question of the bat, "Is it possible my RLE has commenced awhile back and I did not know it?"  The short answer is, Absolutely Yes.  Well for me, that's precisely what happened, without me knowing about it.  So funny about that.

The long answer comes from me and what happened.  If you have read the couple of stories about me.  I had two Christmas holidays as Sarah and I could not really get enough of what I was doing. When I changed my life around at the start of Feb 1989, read my short bio.  It was full on as Sarah, first visit to doctor, psychiatrists, endocrinologist, family and everybody else it was me.

I had surgery of course in Feb 1991 and the years went by.  I eventually came across Susan's and one of the subjects being discussed at the time was RLE.  I obviously contributed to the topic "Real Life Experience Before surgery" at hand and Cindy (member) basically said, "As far as I am concerned RLE is a total complete and utter load of stuff that comes from a cows bum." and I said,  "The real life experience is an oxymoron statement.   No matter what I do it will always be my life.  So my life will always be real regardless of what I do."

So yeah we were calling the RLE as required by the SOC or Wpath at the time a lot of crap.  This was before they got rid of the RLE.  So ironic that.  However at the time of this discussion, I was not thinking about RLE in terms relating to me.  Although the evidence was staring directly in front of my face.

Without realizing my two years before surgery I was doing the 'RLE' and at the time I sought information from my psychiatrists and one of my surgery letters contained a piece of information that only recently has made me realize that I was actually doing RLE according to the standards at the time.

My second psychiatrist's letter is as follows and I have highlighted the relevant part.

Dear Cornelius

Re Ms Sarah B

I have seen this transsexual several times now, and feel quite the appropriateness of recommending gender reassignment surgery.

She has proved herself as a capable and competent person with a realistic expectation from the operation, and I have little doubt that this will improve the quality of her life.

I would recommend that the operation be done later on this year, since that would closely approximate living permanently in the preferred sexual role.

I hope this will be of some interest and help to you.

Regards
Tony
CC Dr Peter Haertsch

In other words, the highlighted section indicates that I had to do the RLE and those words have only now indicated I was following those standards without realizing I was.

So yeah one can do RLE without even realizing that one is living their life authentically.

Love and Hugs
Sarah B
Official Greeter
PS I got the surgery letters around 2010 about the time I found Susan's (edit)