How did you transition?

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This is mainly aimed at the transwomen here. How did you transition - what were the steps, and in what order? Did you go for electrolysis first? How long did it take after starting hormones before you transitioned socially?

Personally, I'm thinking it best to demasculinise first - removing the testosterone (through anti-androgens and an orchiectomy), electrolysis, and FFS (obviously, bone only), and mastering the female voice, *then* starting a full hormone regime. The idea being, people take a lot better to a feminine looking man, or woman in mens clothing, that they do to a manly woman. Hopefully, it'll be possible to cross from the outer edge of one normal distribution straight into the other (I'm sure they overlap *somewhere*...).

Magic.

Seriously though, I had to socially transition first, because the NHS wants you to do that before hormones... I was lucky however I always have looked quite androgynous and I could get around just about, aside from a few stares ... which to be honest could have been about anything but I don't know. Though also I started growing my hair out looong before anything..so that helped a ton.

Haven't they changed their policy now?

I started hormones in June 2010, which were paid for by my insurance, even as the endo office visits were being coded GID. I had a social transition in January 2012 when I went full time. I did electrolysis at E3k for 5 sessions, but I still have most of my facial hair. However, rather belatedly, I found on my insurance's evidence of coverage that under the category of reconstructive surgery, transgender surgery is specifically excluded. I had gotten my hopes up. I have had poor adjustment to the fact that I will probably not get SRS any time soon and my functioning has severely declined, and I have basically no support beyond my mental health professionals.

The belief it would not be covered got me hospitalized with the men thrice because I hadn't had SRS yet. I thought it would be covered but discovered it would not, and my psychological functioning has been declining steadily since October 2012, when I had panic and rage attacks about not being covered for SRS. When I was denied, I stopped attending work as much and have since gone on Social Security Disability, short-term disability from work, and now long-term disability. I had problems with anger and fighting but I was put on Prozac which seemed to instill in me a blaise attitude of not caring about anything.

I now have a very male-like urinary incontinence, but I don't want to go to the doctor about my penis.

I have good reason to believe that I am vulnerable to schizophrenia and may develop it soon, as per the diathesis-stress model. If only SRS were covered commonly by insurance, none of this would have happened. I may get SRS yet if I go on Medicare (which you are eligible for after 24 months of being on Social Security Disability), as the Medicare ban on funding has been removed, but I'll tell you, The surgery cannot do for me what it would have done for me 10 years ago when I was first seriously contemplating transition.

I also learned that despite specifically talking to the diversity manager at my work, next year no SRS coverage will be forthcoming, even as my company tries to make a name for itself on the Corporate Equality Index.

Also, my dad has repeatedly blamed my current mental impairments on transitioning to begin with. He said he could tell I was changing, becoming more isolated as I contemplated transition and thought transitioning was the completely wrong choice. In fact, during that period, I knew a couple, and the husband of the couple always commented that my face seemed very pale.

What he doesn't understand is that I became more isolated and withdrawn under the weight of a lack of perceived support, family, financial, and occupational. My thoughts became darker as I contemplated the insurance companies' common practice of discriminating against the diagnosis of GID, perceived lack of support from family, and other issues, but I still pressed forward with transition anyway, knowing that my years were passing me by.

Even my well-off LGBT paternal uncle who lives in California would not extend a place of refuge for me in a state that would be so much better than my current one. He's the only relative I have who also is LGBT, but he's a masculine gay man, so I guess he doesn't understand the T that well. We suspect my paternal aunt may be LGBT, hidden behind religious conservatism, marriage, and many children (I have lots of cousins because of her), but we can't confirm it.

When I told him I went on SSDI, he told me straight up, I'm not disabled, I'm just playing victim and not taking control of my life. But was he there when I was struggling to maintain consistent performance and attendance at work and I knew I needed a lifeline? No. Because if he did, he would have realized I did take control.

I have lost all interest in social interaction beyond structured interactions to conduct my daily affairs (e.g. shopping, going to the bank, communicating with our disability company, going to my mental health professionals) and interaction with my parents. I can no longer stand to interact with my sister, as she has been absent so long in the military and then living in a completely different state, with right-wing harsh views of transgenderism, she's almost not even my first-degree relative anymore, though she is listed as my next of kin on my life insurance policy. I cannot stand to interact with anyone in any kind of unstructured way anymore and I barely even understand other people now.

You are beautiful, beneficii, as is everyone else here on this post and forum. Don't let anyone try and tell you otherwise.

I started a low level of oestrogen in August 2010 and started dressing as myself regularly when I moved into my own flat in May 2011. I went full time in October 2011, now on a proper hormone regime, although it was October 2012 before the hospital started prescribing hormones.

I had already done quite a lot of work on my voice and the hospital sent me to a speech therapist who had experience with MtF. I still shave every day, and use Eflora cream to reduce regrowth. I'm considering electrolysis but it is a big expense.

It was March 2014 before I got my Gender Recognition Certificate and my new Birth Certificate. The delaying factor was completing the divorce. I gave up waiting for the NHS and had my gender confirmation surgery (the hospital's wording) privately in August 2014 so I'm still very new in that respect.

I transitioned nearly seventeen years ago, going full-time in January 1998. I had started on hormones six months prior. Had surgery in Phuket Thailand compliments of Dr Sanguan ten years ago. Having been born in the UK I was able to apply to their Gender Recognition Panel, and received my new birth certificate late 2005. When I read that I had been born a baby girl I cried. The landscape version of the UK's BC actually says girl not female.

For most of my life I sincerely believed that my inability to make friends or get on with people was entirely due to my transsexuality. It has been one of my greatest disappointments that becoming the woman Nature had intended me to be did nothing to improve my social life, ability to make friends or any reduction in the intense loneliness that I have experienced all my life.

My research would suggest that there is a statistical correlation between Gender Identity Dysphoria and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Those with one have an increased probability of having the other. So lets hear it for all the Trans-Aspies out there. I cannot think of a worse combination than GID and ASD. For me none of the libido or sexual imperative that drives co-habiting, along with an inability to relate to people socially has made for a truly horrendous life. Whilst a diagnosis of Asperger's explains so much, it has done little to ease the pain.

Hugs Alison