Hey guys, my name is Ryan. I'm a high school senior this year and will be graduating in May, so I thought it would be a good idea to join a trans* forum for support and advice in the upcoming months, considering I'm not quite sure how (or if) I'll be able to transition straight out of high school.

So my story, in as few words as possible, is this: I've known I was transgender since I was 13, and had feelings of not fitting in or being comfortable as a girl for a while before that. My parents know I am trans and have since chosen to ignore the issue. I live in a Mormon home, so my parents are very religious and not at all supportive.

My problem has been that since they are so unsupportive, I'm afraid they will not pay for college, and will kick me out of the house after graduation, so at least I'll have my high school diploma.

I'm afraid of what will happen. As a kid fresh out of high school I know job opportunities will be limited. I'm terrified of not having enough money to get by with my life, let alone afford appointments with a therapist who will then recommend me to an endocrinologist, hormones, surgery, new wardrobe, etc.

I have been thinking about sharing my concerns with my school guidance counselor, but first I wanted to see if I could get any worthwhile advice. Specifically if anyone reading this has had any experience living on a low income, I would love to have some advice from you and hear how you got through it, and how much money you had available. I myself am counting on earning only minimum wage.

Wow that was long. To anyone who read it, thank you, and to those who might have any advice for me, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm happy to be here with all of you on Susan's Place and hopefully I'll be here for a while! 

Hey Ryan

Welcome to Susan's Great to have you here - looking forward to seeing you around the forum.

I hope that your parents are a little more compassionate than that but you should probably start thinking about contingencies. Please have a look around and see if there are answers, if not please ask.

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Cheers

Grace

Hi Ryan,
welcome to the forum
There may be scholarships and bursaries available for you, depending where you choose to continue your education. As regards psychotherapy, that may be available from your college. There are options. Your guidance counselor may be able to help you find those options. That being said, I offer this: keep your eye on the prize, study hard, get great grades, all of these will help you towards more independence. You may have to delay certain phases of your transition, but you will get there.
hope this helps,
-ellie

It's tough when parents aren't supportive. I've lived on low income in the past but not lately and I think jobs were more available. If college is not available another option is to look into some kind of apprenticeship. You can google your state name with the word apprentice to find opportunities.

It's good to have an ultimate goal, but when you are dealing with really big challenges it's also good to break things into steps. If you start thinking about everything it will be really easy to get overwhelmed. So, just focus on the next step. Back up schooling/job/apprenticeship plan in case your parents won't help you.

A lot of how you go forward is going to depend on what country you live in or plan to live in. You can search this site for info on a lot of the particular obstacles you may be facing.

You don't need your parents to pay for college, you only need to prove that parental support is not an option. That can be weirdly difficult. When I went to college I was given an exception because I was a parent myself. I was also sometimes able to keep my parents' income from being calculated because I had some amount of foster care in my upbringing. After I turned 25, I stopped having to attest to anything about my family. If the dept of ed or your college harangues you too much, it might be easiest to just wait until you are old enough to get around the assumption of parental support.

There are a LOT of merit-based grants and scholarships out there. If you can treat essays and applications like a part-time job, you should be able to get your schooling entirely paid for, but that's hard. Presenting yourself in the best light to strangers while transitioning is going to take a lot of strength, and you may have to prioritize and make difficult decisions about which steps to take and when. I used to always have two or three low-pay jobs, but I don't recommend working more than one while in college unless you think you can maintain your scholarships on less than stellar grades.

If you call around enough and ask enough questions, you should be able to get free or very low cost counseling in almost any city, or by skype or phone if you have to. You can get gender counseling and a hormone letter from a person who does not have experience with transgender people if you can't manage access to a trained gender therapist.

I don't know what to say specifically about transitioning without much money. I've treated it the way I treat anything else I need or want - I just focus on one thing at a time, and put all my thinking into accomplishing whatever it is that feels vital, and then when that gets solved I move on to the next thing. I can't think of anything but cliches about it, but don't hesitate to think outside the box and take risks to get to where you need to be.

Mostly though if you want to do something and you don't have money or emotional support, you are going to have to be really patient and just grind it out.