I had a session with my therapist today and I got THE letter. You know that magical little work of prose that opens the door to the first steps of medical transition. Yes I got my HRT letter!! One copy for me, one copy mailed directly to the OB/GYN who will be overseeing my treatment. I have an initial consultation coming up at the end of March. I've already exchanged a message with the doctor and it sounds like it's a pretty fast process to get started once I meet with her. A little blood work and barring any surprises the necessary meds to prevent testosterone from damaging my body any further.
For most of my 39 years, I denied who I was. Now that I've accepted and connected with the reality that I am a trans woman, the ball is rolling quickly. I'm excited and terrified. Ecstatic and anxious. I see many great things on the horizon but I've got some major challenges to deal with as well.
The first of those is the loss of my marriage. When I came out to my wife as Transgender, she told me then that if I needed to seek any permanent body modifications (HRT, FFS, BA, GRS) that she could not stay with me. When I informed her today of the letter and the appointment, she held true to that. She broke down, said some hurtful things, removed all our photos from the walls and her wedding ring from her hand. Right now I'm getting a mixture of grief and anger from her. She's trying to figure out where she'll go and how she'll live as I'm the bread-winner in our house. I love her and don't want to leave her abandoned, so I'm sure for some period to come I'll still support her financially.
I'll admit, I had the vain hope somewhere in the back of my mind that we'd work through this and she'd find a way to stay with me. It's pretty clear now that is not going to happen. We tried couples therapy, in addition to each seeing our own therapists, but that didn't produce any fruitful results. So my 18 years with her becomes the first true casualty of my gender conflict. It sucks, it hurts, I've cried a ton. But at the same time, I'm confident I'm making the right decision for all of us. I'm not sure how I could possibly continue to be a good husband and father with all these repressed emotions bubbling to the surface. It's time for me to finally face who I am, become the woman I have deep down always been, and start that new chapter in my life.
So it begins......the first day of the rest of my life.
