I am rapidly changing on HRT, face, skin, weight/muscle loss, long hair, nails and things are going as I want them.

My friends have received subtle personal hints that I'm doing a few 'drastic things' to "save my hair" and there would probably be some side effects. I will "start to change 'for the better', my facial features will soften and I will probably become androgynous - to what end I don't know yet." And that, "I actually would be perfectly fine if I literally had to become a gal to save my hair."

(internally I knew I wanted this to be so)

Recently however, upon catching up with my best friends which is every other few weeks, I catch them in moments of gazing bewilderment at the changes they are witnessing.

These are old school people (Asian) and I don't think they understand the biology happening here. That these things where even possible. (Not that I will explain it to them)

But I am now sensing fear and some distancing. I know I don't look freakish, I'm very well on my way to passing (asian/european features helps a lot).

So should I let them adapt? Should I make the effort to reach out to them to explain what is happening to assuage what they might not understand?

If you're willing to give it to them, then an explanation sounds like it might help.

-Teg

My personal opinion is it is time to be honest and come out to them. Your explanation of the changes will probably not last too much longer and they could start to mistrust you if they haven't already. Good luck sweetie!

Tell them. In my experience, the friends that I really care about, and who care about me have all been incredibly supportive. Some of them - hell, most of them - find it hard to get their heads round the idea that I really am transsexual - I don't come across as effeminate in my male presentation - but once they get that this is something that really matters to me and that has been hurting me for years, they just want me to be happy and they all say they'll be there for me. (Easy to say that, of course: harder to live up to those words).

My parents, sisters and mother-in-law have also been really cool.

It's just my wife and children who've really had a problem. And as painful as that is, I can hardly deny them the right to be hurt. I am their husband/father, after all. They feel as if they're going to lose me, and they can't help but feel as though they've been cheated or lied to all these years because I'm not the man they thought I was. Only time will change that, if it changes at all.

But friends, well, it's a case of that old saying: the ones who mind don't matter, and the ones who matter don't mind.