What defines going full time and RLE? Is it just the document change? Or the document change in combination with being referred to with female pronouns (MTF) and male pronounds (FTM)?

Is a certain amount of effort regarding one's appearance required? What amount of effort? Is it just how you present to the world outside that counts? Or would you have to present as the target gender indoors as well? Is a transgender person

Can I be said to be full time if I still have to take off the wig, remove the make up, and remove the clothes before going to bed and wake up with a 5 o clock beard shadow in the morning? If so then it's not about appearance.

How is RLE proven to have taken place? Can it be said to have taken place if one is completely unconvincing to the rest of society in the new role and isn't treated as the target gender?

  I am full time. By that I mean I live 24 hours a day as myself, as transwoman. Wig on or off, makeup or not I'm only wearing female clothes but I could were guys stuff just like a cis woman has that choice. I'm not doing it for papers and there's nothing official about it for me though if you are seeking to complete RLE for SRS or GCS approval there is probably and official requirement to it. But as far as I am concerned it it only the fact that I am living my life as myself is all I require.

Hugs,
   Laurie

I considered myself full time when I started going by Tamara at work.

I had been part time up until then, being my true self around friends and family.

For me once I had sorted everything with HR and I began going by Tamara & using the women's toilets at work that was the tipping point because all of a sudden Tynan just didn't exist anymore.

There was no more being one person at home and one person at work.. I am just me 24/7

Yes I still wear guys clothes sometimes (particularly when working on the car) and sometimes I have days where I don't feel very feminine (like when u have to let ur bead grow out for electrolysis) but I am Tamara regardless.

To me that is what full time means. It about being yourself 24/7 and not hiding who you are anymore.

-Mara


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In the real world, it means presenting exclusively as your desired gender (though I think wearing your old guy jeans and T-shirt for painting is probably OK), identifying yourself only by your chosen name and requesting others to use it and the appropriate pronouns, only using the appropriate washrooms, etc.  Basically living exclusively as your true gender, with no lapses back to your former gender.  It doesn't necessarily mean that your paperwork has caught up with you, but would suggest that you are in the process of doing so.

I take off the wig at home and remove any makeup (though I don't always wear makeup outside), and I have to shave every morning.  I don't see any reason not to consider that full-time.  Many cis women do the same things.  My wife calls me Kathy and refers to me with feminine pronouns.  When I make phone calls, I identify myself as Kathy.  My old name is permanently retired.

The story is different when talking to government bureaucracies.  Since I have a British birth certificate, I have to follow their rules for my gender change, which require two years of RLE.  They require documentation to support one's claim.  I did take copies of my coming out posts on Facebook and elsewhere, but I don't know if they will accept that.  The one I am sure they will accept is my legal name change.  Unfortunately, that came three months after I started RLE.  So I might end up doing two years and three months before I get my official gender change.

I'm from England too, from and from what I hear, I don't think I'll get very far with the gender clinic system. Ima get honest.

If I go full time ever, I want it to be at my own slow gradual pace.
I don't want to "come out" to anyone. The people who know me on facebook mean nothing to me. No one does. I just want to do what I want and they can think what they want. Coming out implies I want their support or opinions. Which I don't.
I want to keep my birth name. Said name is gender neutral and I have neither the desire or energy to think up a new name, change it and tell everybody and listen to reactions.
I have no desire to ask or insist to be gendered correctly. That's horribly awkward. Either my presentation does the talking or it doesn't. Period.
I have no real desire to use female toilets or enter female spaces. I don't care to be "accepted" as one of the girls. Never have, never will.
I have no desire to put on make up every single day.
I have no desire to to look like a man in a wig or a man in a dress.
I refuse to leave myself open to mockery and loss of dignity.
I refuse to to leave the house feeling like an ugly woman.

So I'm guessing I'll just have to settle for the hair removal and maybe one or two voice sessions and leave it there.

Doing things you don't want to do is called compromise. Sometimes you have to compromise to get what you want. I understood name change to mark the beginning of RLE. If your name is gender neutral, you should be able to compromise with the NHS on that. See, it's not that hard! 

I completely understand your desire to be you. I was fortunate here in Boston that I gave the doctor my non-binary story and they got me what I wanted. It's a tough march for any of us, and your healthcare, while free, makes the march even longer. Frankly, I'd get a second job and pay my own way.

Hugs, Devlyn

I know someone who went to my towns gender clinic who was told the name she chose wasn't feminine enough. So compromise may not be possible. They have their regulations, I have my principles.

Then just buy it, that's what I did. Where there's a will there's a way.

Hugs, Devlyn

I'm absolutely working on that. My mother and my sister who had 2 sets of antibiotics fail, waited 6 hours tonight in hospital  for a  NHS doctor (consultant) that was booked ahead but didn't even bother to turn up.  6 hrs wasted. If that's the way things are going, I don't even see the NHS surviving to the next decade.

I'm still wondering about this myself because I hear conflicting accounts from MTF at some UK gender clinics saying they had some expected RLE and some didn't. Someone asked me the other day about it and I honestly didn't have an answer as to how they "check" you've been presenting.

Nobody ever checked up on me to see what I've been wearing and when, or whether I look a certain way, they just took one look at me in the clinic and said "so I see you've basically been living as a man". I didn't especially think I had, I'd just been dressing the way I usually do. I guess that satisfied them. But from the accounts of others it seems some clinics expect more. I don't know how they "make sure" a patient has been living RLE away from the clinic though?

I also didn't get the impression they were going to enforce it on me. Nobody has said I must do X or Y at any point, although they did ask if I was going to change my name. Another FTM on here suggested they do not put you forward for HRT and surgery until you do that, but that is apparently not correct.

Quote from: JMJW on September 21, 2017, 03:49:02 PM
What defines going full time and RLE?......

Can it be said to have taken place if one is completely unconvincing to the rest of society in the new role and isn't treated as the target gender?

I don't think that is what RLE is about at all. It is a chance for you, the patient, to fully understand what life will be like if you decide to proceed with transition.

Living in the states I felt a need to set a starting point for my one year of RLE for GCS. I asked my gender therapist how that was best done, she asked me when I started full time, I gave her the date that best fit when I made my commitment to fully be me October 15 of 2016. We set that as the starting date. It turns out that my chosen surgeon places great importance on the two "letters" but uses the one year of RLE stated in the WPATH more as a guide line and I was able to obtain surgery at just under eleven months, go figure.

Quote from: JMJW on September 21, 2017, 06:02:33 PM
I'm from England too, from and from what I hear, I don't think I'll get very far with the gender clinic system. Ima get honest.

I was in a similar boat to you and my circumstances don't fit with our archaic system.  I opted for the private route which so far hasn't been anywhere near as expensive as I thought it would be.  In fact the patches and AAs I was on originally were cheaper than the NHS prescription charges.  The real costs come from the doctor's consultancy charges and any therapist fees but these have been pretty reasonable

At least proceeding this way has allowed me to start medically transitioning before any RLE.  It allowed me to regain control mentally and alleviate the GD - buying me some time before I'm comfortable/need to take more public steps.  I'm not sure if I could have survived following the GIC/NHS path