Many of you before transitioning calculate how you will be able to have money to complete all your surgeries but how many of you jumped into the waters without knowing whether you will be even be able to complete all the surgeries. Me I started from scratch and absolute 0. I didn't even have money for laser and quality hormones before. I've been very lucky on my journey to get some people who helped me with boob job & some stuffs on face but I'm still struggling and don't know whether I will ever be able to reach my final goal. How many of you are in the same boat? Who among you jumped blindly too and how did you manage to get money to do your different surgeries? With a normal job can never have full surgery. The only thing i could do is buy a plane ticqet to get to a better country with a stronger currency and i'm exhausted struggling. it's taking an effing eternity!!! :embarrassed:
I knew if I didnt try id be ash being spread over the great lakes in due time. So I just jumped and went for it. Its been tough, but at least suicide isnt always at the forefront of my mind anymore.
I just decided to start one day
I still have a long way to go, but taking it one step at a time
I guess I did, but more because I had no idea what a "complete list of surgeries" for me would even be - I knew I didn't want FFS or BA, but I can't swear I wouldn't have gone for either if HRT didn't help, you know? My only surgery ended up being GRS.
There was definitely money (and insurance) for hormones, and to pay for laser, so I was lucky as far as that went. As for saving the money, well... my wife did most of the hard work of figuring out where to scrimp and cutting our budget. I did take on two freelance second jobs to help save up faster.
Count me too, please :). I just realised that if I am not going to do something about this all now, then sooner or later I will have to deal with it again... so I thought I would be better starting now - with better looks (more expectations :) ), better health and less common sense :P. I did a lot of things on budget (hair removal), the HRT turned out to be cheaper than I expected, but I still have no idea how to cover the SRS and some minor surgeries (trachea, nose - maybe I would need some minor brow burring too). I have some ideas which would cover about 50% but the rest.... ah well, lets keep going on and see what opportunities will present themselves in the future...
And if I will end with B cup size - and I hope I will, then I probably will never do the BA.
Oh yes it was an adventure. I knew nothing about anything when i started coming out and little when i started to shift to female presentation and hrt. I knew there was srs and legal ways to change name. But I was a student, no money at all and at first living with parents - after coming out then in a shared flat. I did not know how it would go, but luckily insurance covered a lot of the cost. laser was the biggest investment for me. I did not think i needed ffs or ba which are not covered unlike therapy, srs, hrt. Ended up doing ba though but that was affordable as we combined it with second stage of srs.
But to step back at first and plan? no way. no time. when you are thinking about how to arrange your room so that after your suicide everyone will at least know that you are actually a girl, you know there is no more waiting, so I jumped into transition.
I transitioned and had SRS in 1974, at the age of 24. I had the surgery as soon as it became available in North America and it took every penny I could raise (and some charity from the surgeon). There was no "normal path" back then and no list of surgeries but I wasn't going to live much longer without SRS - I just about didn't make it as it was! - so I just jumped. I had NO idea about the future so, like most people, I was willing to take it one day at a time and see where it led. I didn't have much facial hair so I didn't even do electrolysis until 20 years later but I did treat myself to a BA 8 years after SRS. Almost 40 years down the road now and that's all I ever had done.
Hmm - just saying - you DID transition much earlier didnt you, Jane? I read that in another post, that you had even HRT during puberty, so I would consider this exceptional as of course then you dont even get that dreaded facial hair.
But honestly, I know many more people who went into it "blindly" - its one of the markers of being TS I believe and the shrinks also have it on their list. That strong and unavoidable desire to go for it in combination with the thought that anything but that is leading to suicide. If one is that desparate - one will go for it - blind at first but quickly learning what has to be done and what can be done. I know a very few who did plan everything. They were more of the middle aged types. They actually had their coming out, then therapy sessions and then deliberatly chose the date of starting RLE, the timeframe until HRT and surgery and electrolysis and they calculated everything. To stay that much in control may only be possible if you have some decades of life experience. With 23 I had no such thing and just could go for the only option that looked like there is some light in the darkness...
Being in the UK and not wanting to jump through the NHS hoops (let alone the fact that they don't like giving HRT to the unemployed) I had little choice but to wait until I had the money to go private. I am extremely lucky and have money now so I should be fine being able to afford everything I need.
I for one just jumped in really without much of a plan. Money for HRT & living full time. I moved forward some however got set back/$/job. Then jumped back in & moved forward some, then set back. Then jumped back in etc...... Surely one day I will "get it right". It's a roller coaster ride.
I really had no choice, since early in life always female & hated having to be a "male". Some $ for HRT & started living full time as a nice pretty young woman. I was dating some nice men & really thought I might find a nice man to move in with to be his "woman" while I continued HRT & saved my $ for SRS to gradually complete my life. The plan worked some however relationships are difficult & men are unpredictible. Then I was left with very little $ & back supporting myself. However it felt good to try my best to become normal even though it did not work out.
I wouldn't say I did it blindly as I did research a lot before I did it. but even so, I sort of had a half ass plan that I really didn't stick to and been doing it on a shoestring of a budget, so not really blindly, but surely a little sight impaired at least.
I think a lot of us do that because it gets to a point that we feel we don't have much of a choice anymore. The feelings get too strong and life gets too crappy to do otherwise.
I did not jump blindly. I have a family and had to consider them first in my life. So I researched heavily and started as soon as it became possible. Since then I have continued my finicial planning and it becomes a little more possible/affordable every day.
My biggest crisis right now is that I have to move out for legal separation to take effect and that means living on a tiny budget and using everything else that I make as a means to pay off debt and keep my credit score as high as possible.
So no blindness here.
I began transition, not knowing if I would ever be able to afford any surgeries at all.
I don't know if I had a "plan" but I have been dreaming about it since I was four so I hardly would think I jumped right in. If anything, I have been too much of a wallflower and waited to long lost and delirious, petrified of the consequences.
Since I was so filled with self hatred for living a lie, and because I based my entire existence on the lie that I was a man when I was nothing more than a male impersonator, I attempted suicide three times. After my third attempt I realized I'd run out of excuses not to transition, and even though I was positive at the time of my 'decision' that I would never pass because of my weight, age and physical problems, there was no real 'decision' to be made. I had to at least really try to transition or my next suicide attempt would be with a gun and it would definitely be successful. My third attempt was on July 12th, 2011, and I quit drinking the next day, (12-16 beers a day, every single day!) ordered progynon depot and spironolactone and made an appt. with my primary care doctor so she could get me an appointment with my endocrinologist. I had no money to speak of, no plan other than starting on then keeping up with my HRT, stay off alcohol, go on a diet, and live under the radar till I had to tell my mom and brother once it became too obvious. I started buying a few ugly peasant blouses at Target, V and boat neck T-shirts at Penney's, 1X and 2X because of my weight, (I'm now medium, or size 8-10) and a few bras and panties over the internet. It had been at least 12 years since I'd worn any women's clothing and I weighed 150-155 then, and at transition I was 226, so I was at a loss on sizing myself, even though you can find sizing info all over the internet.
I had a few miraculous things happen early in my transition that turned my 'plan' on its head. I began HRT on July 22, 2011, and when the opportunity presented itself I began living full time only 47 days later, before the hormones did anything physically beyond softening my skin a little, but what they really did was make me feel at peace, serene and happy for the first time in my entire life. My decision to quit drinking helped everything too, from losing ten lbs. within those 47 days, and feeling the effects of estrogen instead of a hangover was like heaven. My life isn't perfect and will never be, but every single thing in my life is sooo much better than I thought possible, so much so that I know God has been fundamentally involved in helping me become the woman I was always supposed to be. Hugs, Mira
I jumped in because I fear being any more manly than I already am. It was the only way to try and stop it. I have seen my future and the thought of becoming an old man was so disgusting to me I have to try and stop it from happening. I'd rather die. I thought I could do things over my life, like LHR and stuff and that it would alleviate that fear, but it wasn't enough. I don't know where it will lead.
Quote from: TiffanyT on September 16, 2013, 01:56:24 AM
I have seen my future and the thought of becoming an old man was so disgusting to me I have to try and stop it from happening. I'd rather die.
Oh, yes, totally this. I just could not stand the idea of becoming an old balding man with a pouch one day... The idea was indeed disgusting and depressing at the same time, plus there was something totally off in that whole scene :(. If I had to live as a guy, I would rather die young then.
Quote from: j on September 15, 2013, 07:36:31 PM
I think a lot of us do that because it gets to a point that we feel we don't have much of a choice anymore. The feelings get too strong and life gets too crappy to do otherwise.
Quote from: TiffanyT on September 16, 2013, 01:56:24 AM
I jumped in because I fear being any more manly than I already am. It was the only way to try and stop it.
Quote from: -Emily- on September 16, 2013, 02:19:14 AMIf I had to live as a guy, I would rather die young then.
Yes - that sums it up pretty well. I was noticing some hair loss at the temples with 23 so so way I would wait even a year longer. I could not stand it. Luckily I did not actually try suicide but the constant thought of it was bad enough. But thats so much of a common story - one waits for any reason for a long time (fear, doubt, social pressure, family, lack of information) until one day it just wont work anymore. It just doesnt. One hits the rock bottom and at that point it becomes clear what is going on and there is only one way that looks at least promising at that point and that is transition and then one can only go that way. In some of us this coincides with a general rock-bottom experience like Mirandas alcoholism she wrote about. So actually this situation is IMO one where one has to rely on faith a lot, what was called "going blindly". At that point, the faith that transition will work in some way is the only thing that keeps us going and hopeful - it does not matter how or even if we think it will work out. Lack of other options. To remain resonable enough to at that time plan everything, maybe even delay transition some more time for practical purposes - thats really tough and my respect to those who muster up that strength. I guess the knowledge that transition is in planning and will happen soon is what gives them new energy and hope enough.
I think we all do.
I ended up going for it because like so many others have said, there was no choice. Was it blind?
You bet.
Every day has been an adventure. In every sense of the word.
Quote from: anjaq on September 15, 2013, 06:01:18 PM
Hmm - just saying - you DID transition much earlier didnt you, Jane? I read that in another post, that you had even HRT during puberty, so I would consider this exceptional as of course then you dont even get that dreaded facial hair. .....
Yes, that's true. The desperation started to get really bad at puberty and I did DIY hormones for awhile but it was very difficult to get prescription meds then.
I started living part-time around age 14, whenever I could get away from my parents house but I quit about age 19 because going back was so damned painful. That time did, however, give me the very strong sense that life as a girl was a thousand times better than trying to pass for a guy and it also gave me the confidence that life as a girl (for me) was just totally natural.
Northern Jane. Good for you to become normal as early in life as possible. I wish I had also followed through in my early years. Please have a great day & thanks for your posts.
Thank you Francis Ann.
The really rotten part was that I was already to go at 17 and would have jumped at the chance for SRS and transition at that point but it was another 7 years before surgery came to North America and I almost didn't survive that long.
Actually, I had the chance for SRS at 17 but couldn't do it. A young man from a wealthy background was very much in love with me and offered to send me to Morocco if I would only marry him. I just couldn't do it, as much as I wanted to! I couldn't marry someone I didn't love and I was too honest to accept the trip overseas and then abandon him afterwards.
The lowest point came when I was 24. I had told my doctor I didn't expect to live to see 25 and one evening near Christmas the depression was so bad I loaded a gun and put it to my head. When I pulled the trigger, the gun misfired - it had NEVER misfired before! - and a voice in the darkness said "No, not yet. Wait just a little longer." I was NOT in the habit of hearing voices and that startled me. I did wait and within a few weeks I found out about Dr. Biber in Colorado. A flurry of correspondence followed in the new year, a rush to liquidate everything I owned, getting thrown out of my parents house, and I was off to Colorado with half of the required fee for SRS and to meet with Dr. Biber. The interview was short, he agreed to do my surgery for the amount that I had, and that was it!
As long as I live I will never forget the voice from the darkness! Somebody or some thing was looking out for me and I came so close to throwing it all away.
That is one hell of an experience, Jane. Wow, you really had a guardian there. And also a big wow to Dr Biber that he did this without all the money. I wonder if any SRS surgeon in the world right now would do that if someone came to him like that. I severly doubt it.
Quote from: TiffanyT on September 16, 2013, 01:56:24 AM
I jumped in because I fear being any more manly than I already am. It was the only way to try and stop it. I have seen my future and the thought of becoming an old man was so disgusting to me I have to try and stop it from happening. I'd rather die. I thought I could do things over my life, like LHR and stuff and that it would alleviate that fear, but it wasn't enough. I don't know where it will lead.
+1 This is the exact same for me as well. The finale straw that set me over the top was when I was sitting at a beach and an old man bent over in front of me in tight cotton shorts, I could clearly see this repulsive stretched out scrotum and balls hanging down one leg, I thought I's throw up! :icon_yikes: I couldn't wait to get an orchiectomy and be rid of those damned things!
Quote from: Shantel on September 16, 2013, 11:52:40 AM
+1 This is the exact same for me as well. The finale straw that set me over the top was when I was sitting at a beach and an old man bent over in front of me in tight cotton shorts, I could clearly see this repulsive stretched out scrotum and balls hanging down one leg, I thought I's throw up! :icon_yikes: I couldn't wait to get an orchiectomy and be rid of those damned things!
Yes, I can't concieve of anyone enjoying a nutsack in any way... They can be interesting watching things shift around in response to temperature changes but always looks like some alien egg thing... :P
As for the OP, personally, I'm not really planning on saving up for any surgery, but I'll probably start looking at insurance plans rather closely next time I am allowed to make changes. I work for a large company with good benefits, and I'm hoping that one of my available plans might be more inclusive and at the very least allow me to direct pre-tax contributions to an HSA towards therapy/HRT, but I have a lot of research to do on that front. Other than that, I don't think that I'll be planning much of anything as I've always been much more of a "go with the flow" kinda person.
I didn't try suicide but got so that I was afraid I was going to commit passive suicide - ever riskier behavior that might end in my death. I knew I had to move toward resolution.
I started hoping only to be able to dress in women's clothes in public when I wanted to, then I wanted hormones to soften my features. Each time I opened a door, I wanted to open the next one. I was lucky - I could open the next one when I was ready. (A year after I had come out to a close male friend, I told him that I was going to get SRS. He complained: "You said in the beginning you weren't going to become a woman." I could only reply: "Just goes to show you I didn't know what I needed." He accepted that.)
It took me a long time before I got to the point of 'if not now, I may never get another chance,' but once I got to that point I knew I would rather live as an ugly old woman than any kind of man. I think if I had realized how wonderful my life would become I would have hated the waiting more.
- Kate
Oh that dreaded old man ball sack syndrome, lol. Yes nude beaches can be alarming?
I had way too much misinformation and my own overwrought fears to break through but I still do not think of having a real life plan or goal that leads to specifics. We all are potentially taking a leap and I was certainly naive about my ability to stop or go back. The intoxicating power of finally being myself was stronger than the fear of ridicule and moving forward has huge rewards.
At first I was disinterested in bottom surgery but my evolving self is now open to that consideration too.
Blind no, uncertainty, well that was more of a starting point for this girl.
I was desperate but also trying not to destroy 35 years of marriage and my relationships with my adult children. So I worked with my therapist and developed a very slow, conservative plan to give people time to adjust... except right at the start they refused to adjust and my marriage will be ending (we'll remain friends but still...) and my relationship to my two adult sons has become very problematic, though the younger one is improving slowly. The only positive in this mess was my daughter.
My other problem was like many born in the 1950s - we had been fed a pack of lies and I believed most of those lies. As those lies slowly began to be falsified, as I learned the truth about the medical science about being transgender, that a trans woman can be fully orgasmic, that we really do have a real reason for feeling as we do, as I learned more and more, it became harder and harder to shove my dysphoria back under a rock after each appearance.
But yes, I planned everything and that plan keeps getting updated as circumstances shift and as I learn more.
Having lived through the process I can say that nothing I had ever planned was exactly what I expected. So many things change once those hormones kick in that its impossible to plan much of anything.
If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences. I always knew I was a woman but it took some time to learn that there was no reason to voluntarily out myself as something different.
Katie
Quote from: Katie on September 16, 2013, 08:13:06 PM
If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences.
I'm learning this myself. Lately, I've been tinking I should talk less and less about transition at all. It's been such an obssessive process that it has been hard as I have foot in mouth syndrome but I'm going to try my hardest. I also think it is easier for people to view you as female if you don't constantly remind them of the condition.
Jonna I will say one thing. If you could sit down and ask people like Boylan and Rose if they could do it over again would they not have wrote their books, I would bet money they would say they regret writing the books. Why? Well forever they are trans women. Not women trans women.
I can point out something else that might be hard to understand but after you have surgery everything changes and most just want to live a normal life. Sadly some cannot because they ran their mouths or wrote books, or you name it.
Katie
I knew what I wanted to do when I was about 15-16. But because I felt as if I needed "Permission" to get started I waited. For a long time being that young I didn't know who to go to for help. Because puberty hit me around 13-14 I felt sad because I knew there was no way to stop what was already starting. I wasted so much time over 20 yrs. And now that I'm both feet in all I do is think about how I'll get the money I need to be complete. The only comfort I have is that I've found some great surgeons who's prices will make things a lot easier to obtain when I have the money. What I wasn't expecting is how much stress, depression, and loneliness would follow. Even though I'm still in the early stages, I just want to be done so I can move on to more pressing goals I want to achieve.
Quote from: Katie on September 16, 2013, 08:13:06 PM
If I could go back and do it again the one thing I wish I had learned earlier was to keep my mouth shut and not talk to non trans people about my experiences. I always knew I was a woman but it took some time to learn that there was no reason to voluntarily out myself as something different.
I got enormous help from my non-trans friends during my transition. It was the most difficult, exciting, wonderful thing I had ever done, and I needed to talk about it during the process. I owe part of my success to their patience, encouragement, and willingness to listen. Some still think of me as a trans-woman but others just accept me as a woman. I wouldn't change any of it. And I know that I was very lucky. :)
- Kate
I guess I could answer yes and no to this question. If I take the beginning of HRT, Sept 2008, as my starting point I definitely began not having a clue where it would lead. It was totally DIY, based on internet research and I had no external support whatsoever. It wasn't that I didn't want support, there was simply nothing available anywhere remotely close to where I was living at the time and I hadn't yet discovered Susan's.. ;)
My first FFS surgery was pretty similar. Starting in 2008, I had done some internet research even contacting Dr Spiegel in Boston at the time.I also read Dr Ousterhout's book on the subject so before I took the leap I did know a little. However end of the day, I decided really quickly. I had an opening between two jobs during the summer of 2011 and decided to go for it.
I got an appointment with Dr Van de Ven in Ghent Belgium on 1st of July, liked him and opted to use the last slot he had available before his summer vacation to do my upper face FFS just a little more than 2 weeks later.
The whole organisation was rushed and my post-surgery accomodation was very poor. I was also far more beaten up after the surgery than I ever expected, so swollen that I could hardly see for several days. As I was alone, that was not a fun moment.
However that whole experience was my real moment of truth. The emotion I went through at finally taking this huge step was greater than anything I had imagined and had me completely submerged at times. The experience was very different from HRT which is far more gradual and largely reversible, at least it was for me, even after months of treatment.
Since summer 2011 however, when I finally became sure that I was going to through with this, I have planned things far more carefully and can only say, so far so good. I have come through coming out to my kids, close friends, siblings, outer circle of friends and my immediate colleagues at work without any significant issues and already live 100% as a woman in my private life. I thought I would finally get to transition completely summer 2013 and this didn't quite happen. However, everything is now set for it to happen over the months ahead. I just need to get my Civil Identity Change approved to be able to take the final step.
As it happens the filing will be made this week and today I saw the first draft of my attorney's submittal. I was alone in my office and just couldn't fight back the tears as I went through her text. It really does look like a life of fighting with myself is finally coming to an end and in a far more positive manner than I imagined at the outset.
It hasn't been linear by any manner or means and I came close to total disaster at work in spite of all my precautions and planning. That's why I'm inclined to believe that if we don't accept at the outset that there are significant unknowns, this is as journey that is probably best avoided. However, it also why I strongly favour a gradual approach. Until you start coming out to all and sundry and/or doing surgeries, turning back is not too difficult. Afterwards it becomes much much harder so I guess the first months of HRT are best used just to start to get to know a more female you that much better, see how you like her and only then push forward a bit harder.
My 2C's worth...
Bises
Donna
Kia Ora,
Prior to transitioning, (one could say I entered it blindly) I had no set plans to speak of, nothing was mapped out, I just went with the flow...Fortunately it turned out alright...I've no regrets...
Metta Zenda :)
*raises hand*
I had no idea if it would be ok with my work. No idea what my family would say. No idea how I would pay for it. No idea what the future held for me. I expected the worst and the best happened. Work is great! Family is wonderful and the funds are coming together. Transition is one of those things you have to dive in. Move forward and life will find a way. That is what I told myself and still do everyday!