I don't have a very accurate benchmark for when I actually began transitioning, cause I don't remember the exact date I leapt out of bed, after wrestling with a particularly awful bout of social anxiety, and shaved off the beard I had been lovingly cultivating for the last three months. This was the night where I decided, in a manner that was liberating, that since nobody cared who I was, I could be anyone I wanted.
For the next few months, even though I was in my penultimate semester of college, I dove into researching the process of transitioning, looking for answers here on this forum, and in a multitude of books and websites. I wanted to have every answer to rebut any contention anyone could possibly have- including myself.
For years, I had been confiding in my sister and friends about my wish to be a girl- but I deluded myself that I was far to masculine to ever be able to attain that. As I researched, and saw the effects of transitioning, I could see that it was all possible- that I could carry this out.
A couple months after this, I came out to my classmate friends on Facebook, the people in college who had been with me for the three months we were at an archaeological field school- and I found overwhelming acceptance. I could come to class presenting as female, answering to my preferred name. I got into counselling, nominally for my social anxiety, but slipping in my gender dysphoria as well, and got into solo therapy as well as an LGBT group therapy- where I had hoped to look for answers, but I was the only trans person there. When the semester ended, I was shaving my legs, shopping for more feminine clothes in thrift shops, and a long wait for the first visit to the endocrinologist in April. I was out to my family (which only consisted of my sister and my dad- my sister was supportive, my dad was ignorant, but promised to be supportive of the other aspects of my life) and to the rest of my friends on Facebook.
As the next semester started, it was all a wait for April, when I would be able to turn in my script. I wore dresses in public on campus, and got ma'amed and sirred. I came out at work, and continued group therapy. On my graduation day, even though M----- is on the diploma, they announced my name as Harmony.
After graduation, I moved away. I came to a new town, to take a break from my studies and live in the world a bit. I lived a little too hard- I was completely broke after a month, and dad had to help with rent and food. But I got a new job, and stabilized. I made new friends in the LGBT community, one especially good friend who helped me go shopping, making it a comfortable, normalizing experience.
I've been on hormones for about five months now; I grew about an inch in bust, and I'm starting to get hips. My ears are pierced with studs that I got on my birthday in May, and while life's not perfect (I've been single and celibate for a year- I identify as a lesbian, and I was afraid I wouldn't be feminine enough to be appealing) I am pretty happy with my life so far.
