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Kath: Welcome.
Allow me to refer you and your family to 'Liz - Day by Day' ('lizdaybyday.wordpress.com'). Her site has insight of her life and transition. She has had to deal with the family issues of a wife, children, and grandchild. Coming out is difficult - you never really know who are your support until put to the test.
Liz is in your (our) age group. I am inter-sex (F-M-F) and still had to face un-caring medical professionals as a child (1950s - 1960s - 1970s) and a family who could not suppress my feminine protesting.
You wrote that you hate that term 'transsexual'. What do your prefer? You used 'transgender', that seems to be the more current term.
You describe yourself in what seems to fit the classic 'true transsexual' symptoms - you rode that super macho man 'wagon' as best as you could and now you feel your world has collapsed. You are okay; your world did not collapse, it blossomed open to a whole new range of possibilities. All will get better now that you found your true female identity.
I empathise with your frustration - there was so little information during the 1960s and 1970s when you needed it.
My good fortune began when I met Denise (1974), a transsexual, who gave support to me and showed that my prospects were real. It took a few years of research (yep - no Internet - plenty of books from the Public Library). I made all the moves: first medical appointment (1978), Social Security corrected my gender to female (1978), first ERT (1979), my state affirmed me female (1980), exploratory procedure that confirmed inter-sex female (1982), corrective surgery to female (1983), and completed transition from male to female (1985). I have been female more than 30 years and have no regrets.
I led a childhood life of persistent feminine protesting. As such, I had no real 'coming out'. My family was separated by divorce and living distantly across the country. It was more a matter of when they would last see me as a male and next see me as a female. First it was my sister and then my father (both in 1985). I travelled from Utah to Louisiana to visit my mother twice (1983 and 1984) but as male because other issues prevented my presenting myself to her as female at those visits (the first was on a work assignment and the second was to attend my cousin's wedding - it would have been selfishly awkward to up-stage the wedding). My mother finally saw me as female in 1989.
I conducted independent study and research about transsexualism at medical school (University of Utah - 1981-1985). I must admit that I then became a Rip van Winkle once I completed my own transition (1985) and lived a quiet, anonymous life until recent events (personally and elsewhere) brought me to the public. So much has changed yet so much remains steady.
Looking to your future it seems so difficult; you will look back at today and it will appear as nothing but a blip. Do everything you can to get things moving - counselling and ERT are the start.
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