When you decided that you were going to transition how did you go about it? Interested in both MtF and FtM opinions but my specific questions pertain to MtF.

Did you have a plan? Play it by ear? Did you say to yourself, alright, I'll do electrolysis for a year, then start the whole HRT program, then live full time? How do you decide when to come out to who? Was treatment hard to find and how did you get around that?

My gf knows and we seem to be dealing with it better than I thought we would. My mind races ahead, as if I am already out to everyone, then I remember I am just starting and I have to be patient. Then I think of the things I need to do and it all gets a bit overwhelming.

I intend to start going for laser hair removal before the holidays. SO, six treatments away that will be like nine months or so before my face is a little less male. At least in the facial hair. Will have a few other areas done along the way. Seems like I may want to wait at least until most of that is behind me before HRT? Called a clinic and got on list to see a treatment counselor for an intake. They interview you and I guess do a physical and blood work to see it you are healthy enough for HRT. So if I started HRT in nine months then how long after that will it take before my family and friends will be wanting to know what is behind the change in appearance.

I present full time male now but look forward to the day where that is behind me too. A year? Two? Name change? How is work going to take it? (I am lucky in that I kind of have alternatives as a freelancer)

AM I going to have to morn my old self at all? Lately I have felt a tinge of that and its not so much my old self as the security of relationships and the change in daily interactions that I am concerned with. White male, straight as far as anyone knows, easy to get along and get by. Take that away...what is the guy on the other side of the car parts counter going to think? I am invisible in a crowd...as openly trans I will be noticeable. In other words, nobody remarks either way about me now in public but when I'm out it will likely change. Am I ready for that? Can I just "own it" without apology like I think I can?

I could go on...just a little anxious at the moment.

Thanks in advance for comments. 

    I started with growing out my hair then I got my ears pierced I started changing my  wardrobe about a year before starting transition  Loose denim shirts over my t-shirt bib overalls at work complained about how much of a pain it is to shave every day then started lazer and electrolisis if you make your changes so there seems to be a different reason people will believe that.  In my case I think my prep work will not serve me as long as I thought it would as I am finding living a dual life much harder than I thought it would be and I can not continue much longer and there is no going back for me I have tasted freedom and need more. I wish you the best on your transition do it your way on your time

   bobbisue

I had a good idea (after reading so much helpful info here) of the steps I'd need to take. I did have a rough timeline in my head,  but I didn't set any hard dates. Life gets in the way of things, so a high level plan executed one step at a time. That way I always had something to move towards,  but no pressure or disappointment if I missed a date.
The only time I've worked to specific dates was dealing with external forces like the gender clinic in the UK, we have no choice but to follow their schedule.

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Gimme that plan...write it all out, goals timelines, expected outcomes, things to look out for, watch the timings....then I discovered Liz was driving all this and we were doing this by her timeline...she wanted it all yesterday(always has done)

In the end it came down to when I was ready...I did start to grow my hair out, laser, electrolysis and started to change my appearance...then I started with the hair transplants and nose job and that's when things went off track and I could no longer stop myself presenting as Liz and the more I did it, the more I wanted to do it and the more I did it the less I could be "him"...eventually it was no contest and I was full time over 9 months ahead of "plan".

Yes there are things to get ticked off your list to do but living as who you are can start way earlier that we ever think possible....I knew when flip flopping between presentations became confusing and uncomfortable in the extreme....that was just the start of my learning curve and I continue. 

Having a plan is necessary, but a time table is not.

Many of us have issues with transition. The first and most important is to accept yourself and identify what needs to be changed.  Also, being aware of the consequences of transition is just as important.

Financial issues are the biggest barrier for most of us to overcome. Some of us never fully transition because of this. Others stretch transition over many years to be able to afford necessary surgeries or electrolysis.

And we all want this to happen overnight. When I was much younger, I dreamed of walking into a clinic male and 2 weeks later walking out as a fully transitioned female. Then reality set in and I made a plan.

Once I acknowledged the inevitable, my first priority was to come out to my wife.  Once that was done, I wanted to get moving as quickly as possible, having 'wasted' most of my life in the wrong gender.

First priority: underwear.    Ear piercing.  Therapy to make sure I wasn't crazy and to get my HRT letter.  Dressing part-time for my support group.  Laser.  Voice training.  HRT.  Electrolysis.  Full-time.  Name change. 

Current priorities: continue electrolysis, more therapy to get surgery letters, GRS, official gender change / birth certificate (it's complicated!).

There was never any plan, other than to get it done as quickly as possible.

My first steps were not so much planned as need-based.  Step 1: I was in a rough spot, and I knew I needed a therapist.   Step 2: I was still in a rough spot, so I knew I needed to tell my wife. 

After that, I handed a large part my timeline over to my wife, and let her tell me what she was comfortable with and when (underwear, meet Erika, go to therapy as Erika, starting to grow hair out, etc).

For 2018, I now have the closest thing to a timeline that I've had so far.  Electrolysis as soon as practicable after New Year's.  HRT probably a few months later.  Start coming out socially a few months afterwards. I'm sure some of this may go faster/slower than we expect, but that's the rough timeline for the moment.


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My initial plan was to play it by ear. I started laser and electrolysis immediately (January 2017), but was unable to see the doctor and start HRT (using informed consent) until late March. I planned to wait until I thought the changes were becoming noticeable before coming out, but the woman inside had other ideas!

I still present as male, but this will start changing soon. I have not had a haircut in nearly a year, but I keep it plastered down with mousse, no one has really said anything about it. For the last several months I have only been wearing women's jeans to work, and again no one has said a word. I bought some new glasses last week from the woman's section, I'll see if anyone notices next week. I am staring to look into a trachea shave, but that may be hard to hide.

I work in a company of over 30,000 that is very LGBT+ friendly. I came out to my manager (who works in another start) on Oct 11 (National Coming Out Day in the U.S.), and his response was overwhelming. I had to have someone at work to talk to, so I came out a coworker two days later -- her response made me cry tears of joy. HR also knows, and they have been very supportive. I plan to stay at this company until I retire.

I mentioned this in another post, but a year ago if someone suggested I was transgender I would have laughed at them. Six months ago I was scared to death about coming out. Today I look forward to the day I tell the world 'look out, here I come!'. I currently plan to do that March 23, my one-year HRT anniversary.

My wife is still trying to understand. I went to a therapist last week for the first time in my life, and she was awesome. I have another session next week, and then hopefully she will know me well enough to help my wife understand.

I have two daughters. 'E' is 21, she graduated college a few years ago and has a great job about 1000 miles away. 'K' is 19 and is a senior in college about 500 miles away. They will both be home during the Christmas holidays, and I plan to tell them a day or two after Christmas. Although I don't like the idea of associating my coming out with Christmas, I need to do this in person and that is the only time during the year when we will all be together.

Once I have come out to my daughters, I will come out to the rest of my family - probably in mid-February. Hopefully my name change will be nearly done by then. My parents and siblings all live near each other, but about 1000 miles away from me. I want to tell them all at the same time so my siblings may be able to help my parents understand. I may lose some of them, but I have accepted that the pain of staying 'him' outweighs the pain of losing contact with any members of my family.

I have felt some regret for 'him' occasionally, in a few months 'he' will be gone. 'He' served his purpose - got married, had children, and provided for and protected them until they could be on their own. Now it is time to let 'her' take over.

I am 6ft 1in tall. Will I be passable on the day I come out to the world? Probably not, but I will no longer let that stop me. I will 'own' it. I will hold my head high and be the woman I have always wanted to be.

This is a long process, but the sooner you start the sooner you will finish. It is an amazing journey, and I wish you the best of luck.

February of this year is when I finally decided that I needed to transition. I've already been mail ordering clothes since like 2013 and I've been growing out my hair since 2011 but this is the year I finally decided to do it, and I can thank getting sober for that. I was pretty heavy, so I decided to really focus on weight loss first. I thought that maybe I could start around Labor Day, but the weight loss was going so good that I decided to start HRT earlier, I started on my birthday in July. I started seeing a therapist back in March and she approved me within a month and then I started talking with a gender clinic about transition. I went up and met with them in May and told them my plans and then set up another appointment the weekend before my birthday and they gave me the HRT prescription I had one laser session in May but I concluded that it's not really gunna work for me, so I started electrolysis in July. I started coming out to my friends one or two at a time back in February and I'm still slowly coming out to people.

I don't know when I will finally be out, that's gunna be longer than I initially hoped. I was hoping maybe New Year's but now I'm thinking the spring. I wish electrolysis had faster results, I don't wanna come out and then have to grow my beard out for a couple days at a time for sessions. I also need my own apartment first and I need a new job too. It's a little overwhelming lol

It was a bit like this:  Therapy, hair removal, HRT, , profit.


January is when I hit rock bottom and decided to get help, I started therapy in mid-February, I wasn't even sure if I could pull this off until late March, and here I am.

My therapist had me come up with a general timeline mostly as an exercise in not having unrealistic expectations.  The big parts were to start hair removal immediately and continue until done, start HRT (ended up starting in April), start presenting female everywhere but work as soon as I started male failing, get FFS around the new year and go full time at work then as well.  I would work in voice training, ID document swaps, and such wherever I could and I could adjust things as needed. 

When I drafted that timeline in March, it seemed a bit optimistic (I had little confidence in me male failing after only 8-9 months on HRT) but my therapist said it was good so we stuck with it. 

While the order of things pretty much stayed the same, the speed at which things progressed was faster than I had expected.  I went full time outside of work in September, went completely full time a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm not even sure if I need FFS.  All of my docs are swapped over, aside from my passport and one bank account.  As for SRS?  Probably year's end.

So I guess the big thing is don't be afraid to be flexible, biology and psychology rarely follow the plans we make.

I didn't really have a specific timeline planned for my transition. My dad found a gender therapist and after a few visits with her she gave me the letter to start hrt. Then my dad found a Dr that would do hrt for me and signed the consent forms. A lawyer did my name change and then I got all my ID changed to my female name and with female on the gender marker. I didn't present fully female full time until I finished high school. My dad suggested I not go full female while I was still in school and I had to agree. I had enough problems with the kids at school without giving them more ammunition.

Waiting to go full female wasn't that bad for me because
I already wore makeup, had long hair and wore gender neutral clothes. People who didn't know me gendered me female already anyway. After a lot of research we decided on a surgeon. I saw another therapist a couple of times and he gave me the second letter for SRS. I booked SRS for May of next year and my dad sent a deposit for the surgery date. I was lucky that I never had facial or body hair so I didn't need hair removal. Because I was so androgynous it wasn't that drastic when I started presenting fully female. From beginning to SRS will have been a little over 3 years. If it hadn't been for my dad I doubt my transition would have been so organized. People have told me how surprised they were that my dad was so involved with my transition. For him that's not unusual. He's always been very involved with anything involving me.

I think the only important thing about the timeline of transition is how comfortable the person transitioning is with each change.

I made a mind map and from that made a list with relative importance and ease of doing as factors. Then I made a Gantt chart for my transition.

I had a difficult time getting permission to come out and transition at work. My boss delayed my coming out about 12 months. It got to the point where I had a meeting with my boss and HR. I showed them my Gantt chart, cost of procedures from doctors in the USA and abroad. I explained I started telling people at work. My boss got upset saying if you tell people then they will know. I listed a dozen people I told and gave him and HR my new business card. I explained I tried to kill myself on I76 the previous week and that I was going to tell everyone. My boss agreed to allow me to come out at work but to delay telling people. 11/13/2015 I came out at work (Friday the 13th). I had 8 meetings with portions of the department. My boss and HR were to be there. They were a no show.

I have a plan, mostly built around a bit of fortuitous timing with my going back to school and degree time frame.

My plan so far was therapy for a while, start HRT sometime beginning of next year, and keep losing weight.

The reality so far: Therapy for a very short while, start HRT in a few days, and try to not gain weight (it's the holidays and pizza is delicious, that is a deadly combination). So yeah. Kind of snowballed.

Moving forward into the future I am planning to start hair removal as soon as I get transportation sorted out. Maybe as early as a few weeks from now, maybe not until my birthday in Feb. Then in July or August or thereabouts I am relocating to Atlanta, and having a bit of a fresh start. At that point, I expect to be a full 8-10 months on hormones, and I have a very vague notion of using that move (to hopefully one of the trans friendly areas of Atlanta) to start going publi. Maybe even full time, who knows? But that's going to heavily depend on how hair removal and hrt go. Around the same time I will start consulting doctors about hair transplants as that will give me a one year mark on Finast/Minox combo.

Throughout all of this I plan to be finishing my bachelors and hopefully move into a masters program, all online, so I will be able to avoid the daily work or school while transitioning hassle. The schooling will probably take through Spring 2020 or sooner depending how how fast they let me go through the masters(bachelors in Spring of 19), so at that point I will be past the two year mark well into transition, and a degree that should help me immensely in paying for any potential BA, FFS, or GCS going forward.

But who knows how much of that I'll stick to.

Quote from: Rachel on November 12, 2017, 09:13:10 AM
Then I made a Gantt chart for my transition.

DESTROY ALL GANTT CHARTS, THEY ARE EVIL. .... ... Sorry, bad experience in a few courses that hinged on them.

 Hello, Virginia 71.

I'm so bored with the whole " Trans " thing...

I had; and indeed have, no plan. It was simply a matter of cake or death ? I had to choose cake...


Paula, X. ( Dame you Dyslexia )

I started by coming out to my best friends, starting therapy, and laser for my face in late May / early June. Then came out to others - family, the rest of my friends, and my bosses at work. I started HRT in July (right when I planned it oddly enough!). I went dressed female for the first time to my 2nd therapist visit in June, and have been out as Sarah every chance I get, pretty much any time I go out of town.
I just finished the last of my 6 laser treatments, and will be looking into electrolysis soon. I have the added difficulty of needing to move, and because of that finding a new job. I currently live in a small intolerant Kansas town, so I'm not going full time until I move.
So, after moving (hopefully in the next month or 2) will be when I start electrolysis, get my name changed, & go full-time. GCS will be down the line, hopefully as soon as I'm able.

Is it on a schedule or timeline? Kind of. There's been a hiccup or two along the way, but nothing major.

So far I'm doing hrt, facial hair removal, growing out my hair. Buying undergarments, shoewear and outfits for nights out right now

Next will be ffs (a year or so) which I'm very nervous about yet I know I need/want.
I'll start buying work clothes and casual daily wear
Then srs maybe another 2 or so years

I figure by ffs my hair will have grown out a decent length to where I can go full time

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Thanks for sharing there everyone! it has been really helpful reading these.

I don't have a timeline outside of a few things. Like coming out to my immediate family, I want to do at least once I have moved out and I am independent from them. I think given my job and money at the moment, I need to focus more on that area first before I put down a solid timeline.

Plan wise? I didn't have one at the beginning of this year. I was working on accepting myself and getting the help I needed through therapy. I did start buying clothes for myself. Which was something I have wanted to do for a long time, but never thought I was "worth it", so to speak.

No timeline. I just started. September 2015 I found a gender therapist. October 2015 I was full-time. November 2015 I started HRT. I attended a community college and took a leave of absence for a semester then came back, started fresh.

But I was young. Obviously things are different when you're older and have a well established life as someone of your birth sex.

I didn't have a timeline, because there's no way to know for sure how long it will take for the effects of HRT to happen and what financial crises may pop up. But I did have a rough idea of the order I wanted to do things in.

I started by binding and gradually dressing more masculine, replacing most of my women's clothes will men's ones as old stuff wore out. As FTM, this was low risk enough that there wasn't really a reason not to. Women can get away with more androgynous presentation, and I'm in a pretty liberal area where being misread as a butch lesbian isn't a huge deal.

I told myself I would start HRT as soon as I got hired by an employer I knew was trans friendly. I went to an informed consent clinic and thus didn't have to wait for a letter or anything.

I told myself I would come out at work once I managed to legally change my name or the effects of T became too obvious to hide. I managed to scrape up the funds for the name change first, so that's how it went.

I'm only waiting on surgery at this point. And that's entirely a matter of money.

My plan is I am almost 11 months on HRT right now I am still working on facial hair that is hard to get rid of. My hair is still not as long as I want it but making do with it. I have over half my winter clothes bought mostly all different shades of pink. I plan on having my legal name changed and sex marker done for February I don't know how long it will take. I plan on having a nose job and breast implants done by may before my birthday and than have srs as soon possible hopefully before 2019 is my plan