Hi everyone: I'm 27 years old and questioning my gender. I can remember as a child always thinking what it would be like if I was a girl. Now as an adult I feel I was born the wrong gender and would like to start transitioning. Does anyone have any advice to offer?

Taylor - welcome to our club.  (See, easy to join )

An administrator will be along shortly to help with some links you can look at BUT the number one thing to do is find a gender therapist to discuss this.  They will be able to help you with some questions you will have.

Susan's site is wonderful and there are centuries of combined wisdom here.  Ask and you will get an answer.

Step 1 - get a Therapist.

- Dee

    Hi Taylor,

    I'm Jeanette. Welcome to The Place and welcome Home.  Probably the best piece of advice I could give you is the one I am going to do myself. In a week or so I am going to start the process of getting gender therapy. As most here will tell you that is a good starting place. I hope it will confirm for myself that what I am doing is the right thing for me. Then I am hoping it will help me with the myriad other aspects associate with becoming a woman and dealing with the fallout  doing so will bring.

    Whatever your course is in your personal journey I wish you well and all the happiness you can stand.

  Hugs,
   Jeanette

Thanks to both of you. I actually have a therapist and she suggested that I reach out to a group or forum for some guidance on this process. Although I feel female in afraid to start presenting as female and when is the right time to do that

When, is simply a matter of when you're ready! I know this is not an answer,  but for myself and many here, it came to a point of need not want anymore. Also each person's situation is different,  job,  family,  friends,  security and safety are all things to consider.

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I personally feel like I need to transition, and I'm having trouble locating a physician that will do HRT without me living full time as female which I think will be challenging with my job. Overall I have a pretty high voice and get mistaken as female over the phone all the time, I have feminine features but I've been body building so I need to tone down some of the muscle I've built to have a more feminine look. I'm working on growing out my hair but have a wig, I get a weekly mani and pedi, I'm pretty hairless but still get waxed, I'm working on my makeup application and have gone out dressed a few times and always incorporate women's clothing into my everyday look but I feel I'm ready to transition just not sure how to handle friends and family and work.

Quote from: TaylorJ on February 14, 2017, 03:27:10 PM
Although I feel female I'm afraid to start presenting as female and when is the right time to do that

   Taylor,

    When you find a good answer to that question please let me know. At present the only ones that know I've start down this road are my primary care doctor and my oncologist. Present as female? No way, I'm not ready.
    Glad to hear you have a therapist (I;m working on it) and I'm glad you have reached out to us here. There are a lot of ladies here that have been through probably every aspect of transitioning that you and I have really started yet. And the best part is that they LOVE to help.

   So welcome. Come on in, grab a seat, get comfortable, let your hair down and join on in the conversations. Share your experiences, ask your questions, cry on our shoulders if that is your need. Let us share your  adventures and by all means share in ours.

Welcome home, Taylor

  Hugs,
   Jeanette

Jeanette:

    Thank you so much for your advice and support. I have a cousin who is a trans maie and I saw how poorly it was received by family and friends which I think made me more nervous.

Taylor,

   Want to talk about nervous? I live with a sister that calls LGBT people "weirdos". I have a grown  married daughter with 5 grand kids I love. Theirs is a religious family. I do not know how I'm going to tell her and m son in law. I feel that when I do I will be jeopardizing being able to see my grand children. I have already had to rebuild my relationship with my daughter once due to my alcoholism many years ago. That is no longer and issue.  So yes I understand being nervous about coming out to family.
   Obviously I don't have that answer for you. If you figure out a magic solution let me know. I'm hoping therapy will help with it.

  Hugs,
   Jeanette

Taylor,

May I ask where you are? Most states do not require 1 year real life experience for hormones. Many do require a month to three of therapy and a letter from the therapist suggesting this is a good step. Some states don't require even that.

No matter where you are from, I highly encourage people to find a therapist and start talking. If they are a gender therapist, so much the better. They help guide you through the maze that is the trans life and whatever path you choose to take(note, you choose to take). That is where I usually suggest people start. However, it is your choose, as in nearly all things.

I am only a moderator but I do want to welcome you to the site.

I also want to share some links with you. They are mostly welcome information and the rules that govern the site. If you have not had a chance to look through them, please take a moment to:

• Site Terms of Service and rules to live by
  
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Once again, welcome to Susan's. Look around, ask questions and join in.

With warmth,

Joanna

I have a therapist that's helping me work through it and she wanted me to start reaching out to other trans women. Jeanette I'm so glad you're persevering and still going through with your transition it's very strong of you

Hello Taylor,
You said you have a therapist already. My question is he/she have gender therapy in his/her background. Most gender therapists can point out a clinic or two, be ready because some places have a wait list.
Larger metropolitan areas will provide more opportunities to find a doctor/clinic that can help you.
I called 3 different clinics (all had 1-2 year wait list) before finding one thanks to my therapist.  Within 3 visits and one round of blood tests I'm now on HRT.
I want to go full time now but family & job is currently preventing that. Both should be settled down by June/July of this year. That is when I will come out to my employers and start living full time... (That's my current plan..written in pencil)


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Hello Taylor,

My family knew ever since I was 2 years old and they did everything in their power to manipulate and control my life to prevent me from being me...

We spend our whole lives living for them and their acceptance, along with society's as well.  If and when you are truly ready to transition, you will take yourself from that back burner and put yourself first and at the top of your priority list.  It's scary and it may take some time.  It took me 2 tries.  I thought I was ready 2 years ago, but I really wasn't.  So I fell apart and told myself that there's no way I could do this.  This was only because I wasn't truly ready yet.  I stayed with my therapist and realized that the true me will never go away no matter how much I try to suppress her.  So I resumed HRT once again in the end of 2015 and just had FFS after one year of being on hormones.  I lost everyone.  My family and my friends turned their backs on me, but I had to let them go because it was time for me to put me first.  I have since made new friends that accept and love me like family and that is what you will find as well.

Family is family... If they turn their backs on you or don't receive you how you wanted it to be, then so be it, but they will always love you and will likely change once it's all settled and done.

Some doors may shut but others will open for you once you are ready.


hugs

Well said, Gatita.
Friends can come and go new ones can be made. Family is who you at stuck and all you can do is hope they realize shutting you I it was wrong. Sometimes people just need time to think, educate themselves and think some more.
One of our sisters on here told me it was like a death in the family and they have to go through the stages of that loss. Some may be qicker than others but they have to process.

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Hi Taylor,

It sounds like you know who you are and what you have to do about.  Now it's just a matter of figuring out how. 

You're already on the right track seeing a gender therapist.  If you want to start HRT now, get a letter from your therapist indicating that you're under their care and that HRT is the next treatment indicated in their protocol, which is usually all an endocrinologist needs to prescribe your hormones.

If you haven't started already, start electrolysis for any facial hair.  Even if there isn't much there, it takes time to get it all cleared and under control, so get cracking on that.  The longer transition goes on, the more internal pressure you'll feel to go full-time, and it's so much easier when this has already been attended to.

Hone your voice.  Study how other women speak, and what they talk about.  Learn... or remember, as the case may be.

Reach out to your local community -- a local trans support group -- even if that means a two-hour drive to a major city.  Just having people to talk to in person who are already in the process and know the lay of the land where you live can be an incredible boon.  (They can also generally provide good references for an electrologist and an HRT doctor.)  Also, identify a second therapist, someone known for being accommodating if a second letter is needed for surgery. 

Do not come out at work until your presentation is up to your own standards.  I think it also helps to wait coming out to family until that time as well, it'll generally be easier for them to support this major change when it "looks" doable. 

Save money.  So much of this can get expensive.

No more bodybuilding.  Switch to lots of cardio.

Study YouTube videos on makeup application, and practice practice practice.

Research the surgeries you think you'll need and who you'll want to get them with.  Many surgeons have waiting lists -- you don't want to do this after you're full time, only to realize you've got to wait another two years to get everything finished. 

And finally, think about what kind of life you're going to want to live once transition is over.  Are you going to be out?  Or will you be happier just receiving unmitigated female gendering?  If it's the latter, start planning now -- which means limiting the number of people who know your story, culling those relationships that won't respect your womanhood or your need for privacy, and preparing for a new career.

Transition is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Sophia thank you for all of your advice and guidance. I'm the beginning it all seems so overwhelming but at the same time exciting to start living as I've always felt.

Taylor, everyone is different.  Some people jump in the deep end, others stick a toe in and pull it out. 

Sophia has lots of advice.  I did things differently.  I came out to everyone I could think of over the past year.  Slowly at first then with great haste lately.  I told key people (family, HR, my Boss) BEFORE anything started to show.  I wanted them to be aware and get used to the idea from the beginning.

I was in a situation that could have gone badly when Denise showed up at a dinner party.  Everyone was supportive, but had someone been a jerk, .... who knows what would have happened at the party.  From that day forward I've been telling everyone.

Full-time for me starts 3/3 (17.5 months from when I told the first person that something was wrong and I don't know what.  - 55yo, 31 year marriage, 2 grown kids)

Quote from: Denise on February 17, 2017, 09:36:36 AMTaylor, everyone is different.  Some people jump in the deep end, others stick a toe in and pull it out. 

Sophia has lots of advice.  I did things differently.  I came out to everyone I could think of over the past year.  Slowly at first then with great haste lately.  I told key people (family, HR, my Boss) BEFORE anything started to show.  I wanted them to be aware and get used to the idea from the beginning.

Yes, everyone is different. 

Part of figuring out how to approach transition really depends on where we are in life, and just as important (as I said before) where we want to end up when we've gotten through it.  If you've built up a life with a partner and children and a career, and you have a responsibility to integrate this life, your needs are going to be very different, and so your transition is going to be very different.