Based on my own experience (which applies to everyone, of course!
), I would say that the most important thing to do before taking any steps toward transition -- or detransition -- is to find out who you really are. The point of seeing a therapist isn't to be told whether you are trans or cis or something else, it's to help you find out who you really are, underneath all the manure that people have piled on top of you. Most of us have had a lifetime of Authorities telling us who we are, mostly regardless of who we are inside, and you need help getting past that.
In my own case, I spent 25 years with one therapist before I even thought about whether I might be trans, and all of that was spent undoing the kinks in my psyche caused by all that "upbringing." And when I divorced and started living on my own, I realized that if I was going to be alive in 10 years, I would have to find out who I
really was, as opposed to what everyone was telling me I had to be. And that's a large part of what I've spent the last 20 years doing. Being trans was just one of the things that popped out during that process.
Actually, the first "gender counsellor" I saw saw me twice and then announced that I wasn't trans. I went away thinking, well, that was a waste of two good hours of my life.
[Putting on my Wise Guru hat:]
Quote from: Wise Guru HatTransition shouldn't be about becoming a woman or becoming a man. It should be about becoming yourself.