Greetings everyone,
I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself to the forum.
I'm a mid-30's 'closet' MTF (in that I have never gone out in public feminized). I have been cross-dressing for years, a 'kink' my wife was fully supportive of (it shocked me too!). It's become obvious to her over the years just how deep seated my desire to become a woman is. Well beyond the bounds of a simple sexual fetish, it has been a deep yearning for as long as I can remember, although (I thought) incredibly well hidden for most of my life. Though the act of repressing it was eating away at me, and thoughts of transitioning consumed me, I don't know when I would have gotten the courage to face it. My wife was actually the one to broach the subject of transitioning to female first. Yes, I am amazingly lucky and I know it.
We are not blind to the difficulties we will face, both from the outside world and within, but we feel our relationship is strong enough to deal with it. I could write a novel about how much we have been through together, but suffice it to say that the least of my worries at the moment is my marriage. We have no children, nor are we planning on having any, and I am estranged from my family. We have a very good group of friends and believe they will be supportive (We've only told one friend so far, but she was not at all surprised and was very excited for me). In fact the only real concerns with acceptance would be from her side of the family and my work.
That being said, this is still all very new. Although the topic has been discussed in theory over the years, the decision to move forward is fairly recent. We are in the early stages of researching the reality of it all. Our plans are tentative at the moment. My first step is to get to a better weight. I am predicting a long hard battle with that, but I am very determined. Either way, sometime around the 3 month mark from now I am hoping to find a doctor to prescribe HRT. I have a very good female family doctor whom I am sure will be OK with giving me a recommendation should I need it.
If anyone knows of any good psychiatrists in the Toronto area, please let me know! From the reading I have been doing it appears that approval from a psychiatrist is almost a prerequisite, and although I do not believe I will have any difficulty in being classified as transgendered, having an understanding doctor would make things much easier - especially as I intent to take full advantage of counseling through this.
This brings me to my next question... I'm looking for a support group to get through this. For those who go to 'in person' support groups, would people be comfortable with my wife joining me at the meetings?
Anything beyond getting on HRT is a bit too far to plan with any confidence, but we do have a vague idea of how we would like to proceed. For various financial and life situation reasons, the earliest I would be able to have any surgery would be a couple of years from now. My hope is that I could live fully female at home while on HRT, but put off 24/7 until after FFS (facial feminization surgery) at least. It should be said at this point that I am over 6' tall, with broad shoulders, and large hands and feet. I am VERY worried about passability, and FFS is likely the only way I would look even slightly passable, even with a couple of years of HRT. This is very important to me, as I am a vain creature! One advantage I do have is that I work primarily from home, so I would have to pretend to be male only rarely.
Once I have some confidence in my passability, I fully intent to change my name and live female 24/7, with SRS following soon after.
So that's my potential future. Historically I've had gender issues since well before puberty, with the typical raiding of my mother and sisters closet, but came from a dysfunctional family where I was forced to bury these feelings (and many other things).
I spent many years building up the image of a tall, strong, confident male, hiding who I was from everyone around me, but most of all from myself. The periods of guilt and self hate over the years have been bad, but nothing compares to living day after day as someone so... false. Constantly lying to myself and everyone around me was wearing me down more than I could have guessed. My wife was able to see through the façade and recognized the struggles, social awkwardness, depression and moodiness for what they actually were, and helped me begin the process of accepting my true self.
So here I am. Equal parts excited and terrified. Embarrassed to have such a masculine body with such a feminine mind, but proud of finally making the decision.
-Gwen
