I'm running into a bit of a paradox and it's making me sad. I'm in a slow motion transition - not out to anyone but my partner, my doctor and of course my therapist. I've got my appointment for HRT in September. Intending to do the low dose thing to start. Moving forward slowly.

Anyhow...

Over the past few years I've been distancing myself from my old male friends. That's the easy part. I still occasionally see them but our connection is more social mixed gender and I've come to realize I never really had much in common with them. In fact, at social events, I sometimes end up talking to their wives. At this stage I really feel that I don't want to be around men. They make my dysphoria spike and it just wastes my time.

Similarly, over the past few years, I've made several female friends - mostly because of our common gardening club interests. That's been great and I appreciate them so much. But because they view me not as a woman, but as a married man (albeit a feminine-ish man), it's difficult to get close enough to build a true friendship.

And this is what I crave. To have a couple close female friends that know and accept me as who I really am. I suppose I could come out to them and see how it goes but I'm not comfortable doing that until we better friends and I can trust them. It's hard to get there as they might think I'm coming on to them or they might develop romantic feelings for me which I don't want. So that's the catch-22.

I also would really really like to form a friendship with a trans person who is in a similar situation as me. A face to face, local, eat-and-drink-wine-and-cry friend. Someone that can understand what's going on and someone that I can support as well. Finding trans people in real life especially ones that aren't fully out is like finding dark matter in space....

All this being said, I want you to know that my partner (my wife - but I hate that term - co-wife?) is and always will be my best friend. She has a chronic illness and cannot do many active things with me. That's not a problem. I depend on her so much already as she depends on me for so much. A friend or friends would take some of the burden off of her.

I feel like I have so much to offer a friend.

Any suggestions? Is this just a phase that passes as I get further down the road? 

Wanting and needing friends is perfectly natural...irrespective of the reason. I'm totally with you on the friends with women but still treated as a dude so not really able to form a close friendship... been there, done that. It drove me crazy. And of course, trying to be friends with women who were married or in relationships was difficult as their male partners would start getting suspicious, with single women they wondered if I was too shy to hit on them. ugh.

If there is a local LGBT support group you might be able to find someone to meet up with.

Thanks Grace. My therapist said a similar thing. She also said that I could possibly come out to potential new friends so they only know Lauren (even if I'm still presenting male). It's a risky gamble but at least I would know the score before investing much time into a new friend and then try and come out.