Hello, everyone. I'm Cassie. I signed up for the forum a while back (late 2015 or early 2016, I think) but never really did anything on here beyond reading some of the posts. I wasn't sure where to begin and had had a lot on my mind at the time.
I'm not sure how detailed I should get here, so I'll just let the words flow and see where I end up.
I'm trans - MTF. I started HRT back in November of 2016 and started seeing a therapist in January who confirmed what I was almost sure of beyond the slight sliver of a doubt - that I hit most of the signs of gender dysphoria.
On the day of that first therapy session, I was terrified. I wasn't terrified that he was going to tell me that I was, in fact, transgender but that he would tell me that I'm not - that all of this was some variant of the garden-variety mid-life crisis, albeit one that didn't involve a Corvette and a girlfriend on the side. Unlike what seemed to me at the time to be the majority of trans folks, I didn't know the truth about myself from an early age. I just grew up with an underlying feeling of "wrongness" - born of which was an underlying depression that would taint nearly every aspect of my life and personality. It was a feeling that for every high point in life, a payment in the form of an exceedingly low moment would inevitably be exacted from me. Not a nice place to spend decades of ones life, as I'm sure many here can relate.
About 20 years ago, I had heard of folks who, at the time, were referred to by the term "transsexual", who were shifting from male to female and living successfully in their new gender. I had had no idea that there were FTM transgender folks until much, much later. The thought crossed my mind about doing that myself but I was unable to conceive of any world in which I could possibly make a life for myself as a woman. That was a sure indicator of the lack of confidence I used to have.
Going forward to the middle of 2016, I was very overweight, which I had been for most of my life - not caring at all about the body I never should have had in the first place. My doctor had been telling me that I needed to lose just over 1/3 of the weight I was carrying around back then. It was around June of 2016 that I started to think seriously about seeking medically-supervised transition. That's what drove me to get up and start walking. At the time, I didn't know whether I truly was going to go forward with everything but even the possibility was a strong enough motivator. I did a lot of walking during my lunch breaks at work. I walked with a backpack slung over my shoulders, containing food, water, and a small gas stove so I could get to where I was going, cook and eat lunch, and walk back. Each day, that walk had a purpose above and beyond just exercise. They were mini-getaways from the drudgery of the workplace. Sometimes, I would have my little cookout in a quiet forest under the shade of the oak canopy. Other days, I'd sit on a bench by the cypress trees and watch the boats pass back and forth on the lake.
Over time, I started to see some improvement - my pace increased, I was no longer running out of breath while walking those miles. Bit by bit, the weight started coming off. After the first 10 pounds I had lost, I started throwing extra things in the backpack to add that weight back on and burn more calories. First, it was my laptop. Next, a full 3-liter water bladder. It started to get ridiculous when I was contemplating throwing in the old brake rotors from my truck. That's where I drew the line, but the whole time I was telling myself, "You can do this, girl, you can do it."
Back then, I wasn't accustomed to thinking of myself with feminine terms, but it did seem comforting in a way. I knew that even if I decided against going forward with the transition process that this exercise and weight loss would still do me a world of good.
During this whole period which lasted about 14 months, I became more and more sure that I was going to transition - that I *could* do this and that I *needed* to do it. My mind was made up and my heart set on its course.
While I was undergoing this self-imposed weight loss program, I started making some subtle changes. I gradually pushed my personal style toward the feminine side, in the way I dressed, what I did with my hair, and the mannerisms I presented to the world. All of that took surprisingly little effort, thus further reinforcing the notion that I had made the right choice.
In the middle of December of 2016, I had made up my mind as to what I needed to do. I held off on coming out to my wife and telling her everything until a few days after the 25th. I knew how a lot of relationships end up when one partner comes out as trans and I was afraid that it might be our last Christmas together. On December 28, 2016, I sat down with her and told her everything. She listened quietly and took it all in, saying only, "Well, if that's who you really are..."
After two days to process it all, she fired back at me with both barrels. I had never, in the over twenty years I knew her, seen her this angry. She said she felt betrayed and like the rug was just pulled out from under her, that she had wanted a husband, not a wife - in hindsight, all perfectly reasonable feelings, given the situation. That was the beginning of the end of our marriage - the prophecy was being fulfilled right before my tear-filled eyes.
In the following weeks, I came out to my closest friends, then the friends with whom I worked. I gave each and every one of them "the chat" as I'd come to call it - usually after a nice lunch when everyone is calm and mellow. My preamble would go something like, "In the last several months, you may have noticed some...differences about me..." So it went, up until the point I thought I was ready to take the next great leap and talk to the managers at my job. I started out with my department's director with whom I had been friends for quite a few years. Oddly enough, things worked out that the day I ended up doing this was on the Transgender Day of Visibility 2017. I thought it apropos since I was setting myself up to be *very* visible at that point. After having spent most of the afternoon up and down in a bucket truck, he and I went to a local pizza place. We sat down at the bar with pints in hand and I poured my heart out to him. I told him my story and that I love my job and the people I work with and wanted to transition on the job.
That evening, we fleshed out the framework of a plan, building upon the hours of research I had done on how best to do this right so that it would make a positive impact on both my future and the future of any other trans folks who might be waiting in the wings for just the right time to begin their own journey. With the plan set in motion, the next stop was the HR Manager's office where I heard some of the scariest words I had ever heard while sitting at a conference table - "Well, it's your meeting," as they looked expectantly in my direction.
A mere 90 days later, I showed up to work for the first time as Cassandra. I finally got to share with my work family, my true self which I had been showing to the outside world for several months. I also finally and for the first time ever, got to be only one person. That day was July 3rd - *my* Independence Day, and one of the happiest days of my life!
Several weeks afterward, I had hit my goal weight, having lost a full 100 pounds since June of the previous year. People who hadn't seen me in a while didn't even recognize me. One woman, our nurse coach, started to introduce herself to me as if I were a new employee which, in a way, was entirely accurate. It was a wonderful time, further magnified by by the new compounds coursing through my body, driving the programmed changes to cells all over, awakening bits that had been dormant for decades and indeed go unused in the body of most people assigned male at birth. Life had its ups and downs but it had become *so many* more ups than downs.
I was finally starting to be at peace with myself and in fact, I really started to like myself, for the first time in longer than I can remember. Everything was going so well, it went beyond my wildest dreams and for the most part, it still is. I'm getting around to starting to celebrate one-year anniversaries for some of these events and I hope to see many more in the future.
I'm glad I stuck around to live in this wondrous, joy-filled future which had never looked brighter than it does today.
