Hi there peeps
So I figured it was time I joined up, I've been reading threads on here for years but didn't sign up as I thought I was just being crazy with this whole trans thing.
Anyway, suppose I should the life story out of the way. I'm a 31 year old MTF (living in Leeds, Yorkshire), that has recently gone fulltime, which has been an interesting experience! I've had an inkling for years as to who I really was inside, but was always too scared of the reaction I'd receive from people to do anything about. I'd go through phases where I'd get intense bouts of dysphoria, followed by extended periods of it not being any issue.
I have never considered myself very blokey, and was quite proud of the fact that all of my close friends (most of which are female) would put an exception in for me when talking about men.
As I got older I started to notice just what happens to the men as they age and realised just how much the thought of ending up like that terrified me. I started to dwell on it more and more, not wanting to admit to myself out loud something that was obvious deep down, that I needed to transition. I was still terrified of what would happen, how people would react, it was only when Laura Jane Grace from Against Me! and Lana Wachowski came out and received masses of support from fans that I started to think, maybe I was scared for no reason, maybe everything would be ok?
I just didn't know 100% what was right for me so I did the only thing that I could do without speaking to anyone, I did the stupid thing of ordering E and spiro online and started taking low, low doses to see how I felt. I know that this was a daft thing to do, but I just couldn't face talking to anyone about this,m not until I was totally sure for myself.
Almost immediately I felt massively better, life just became so much better. I was able to enjoy loving life. It no longer felt like I was I bystander in life, I was in control, my confidence jumped up in leaps and bounds, I grew a closer to a lot of people that had been apart of our social circle, but had never really connected with, that I would now consider friends for life. I had a constant smile on my face, embraced living and spent a month randomly going to music festivals just because I felt like it. I played more gigs in 6 months than I had in 6 years. I dropped from 189 pounds down 142 purely through healthy eating and walking everywhere, I even started being able to smile when I saw myself in a mirror (I could see me starting to come out). Total gear shift, I knew this was right, I knew what I had to do...
I supped my dosage slightly and soon started to see the physical effects of hormones kick in, but still hadn't spoken to anyone else. I started to get scared of how to tell people, what should be the next step. Work became difficult as I became more and more dissatisfied with who I was living my life as until one day I cracked. I'd told a friend how I felt 5-6 years ago, but beyond a single phone call after that we never discussed again. After leaving work early in tears I turned up with a bottle of wine and told her everything, no holds barred. We talked for hours, it was absolutely fantastic to get things out there with someone, a massive weight was lifted off my mind.
In slowly started telling my close friends, experimenting with clothes/make up (turns out I have much more girlish tastes than I thought I'd have!) and developed a serious hotpants addiction (one of the benefits of being 6ft is the awesomely long legs!), went to a Doctor and told them straight up what I needed (and finally started getting my bloods checked, luckily everything is ok). I came out to my boss at work, he was fantastic - told me to take whatever time off I needed to and go back when I was ready. I started living full time outside of work, all of my friends were awesome, even the people that I was worried would reject me, life was good.
I got my referral to the mental health officer and by the end of the appointment with her she confirmed she would refer me onto the local GIC. It was getting more and more difficult to put on male mode for work (mentally that is), until one day when I had a morning doctors appointment as me and had to go into the officer after... I couldn't do it, I couldn't bring myself to get changed back into 'him'. I phoned my boss in tears and had a chat, while talking I decided it was time...
I was given a few days off to give my boss time to prepare, he spoke to the higher ups and HR to see what needed to be done, I went back in on the Monday as Paul and we did it, we told my team, then the rest of I.S were informed, then the rest of the business...The response was amazing, the next day I was inundated with emails from colleagues showing there support, At the end of the day I went home and phoned my mother, not knowing what to expect, and was flabbergasted by the response of "I love you, do whatever makes you happy", my knee high rainbow striped socks were knocked clean off!
I immediately went home, uploaded the best pic I could find and did the final, scariest step...updating Facebook! Again I received nothing but amazing responses. Friends I hadn't seen for years messaged to say congratulations, a fair few of them stated that it had taken quite a bit of digging to figure out who I was (which fed my continually growing ego to no end). The next day I went to work as Kaylee and boom, it was down, I was fulltime!
It's been 6 weeks now, and apart from 1-2 random strangers making comments to their friends when they think I'm out of earshot I haven't had any trouble,in fact I've been hassled for my number more often than for being trans! Life appears to be going swimmingly :-)
All in all I've received an outstandingly positive response from all my friends and the majority of my family (well, I still haven't heard from one of my brothers and his missus ha defriended me, but we have never been that close anyway).
And that leads to the here and now, I figured it was time to start talking to people that are in/have been/will be in my position.
I know that I've just a mountain of text, but I figure there are people lurking that like me are terrified of the response they'll receive from friends/family/colleagues. You maybe worrying for nothing, the response I've received has made me regret so much not getting help years ago. Looking back 10-15 years, I did know then who I should be, but was too afraid of the consequences.
I know it's probably silly but if only person reads my story and be filled with hope they might not make the mistake I made waiting till 30 before figuring out who they are. All you need is a little energon, and a lot of luck :-)
Anyway, that's enough for now I think, hope to chat to some nice people here in the future, catch ya soon!
Oh yeah. Hi I'm Kaylee btw!!
