Why is the second year of full-time harder than the first year?

[Michelle789]

The RLE thread brought up some interesting side topics. I'm starting a new thread because this topic is off-topic from RLE.

I would go as far to say that the second year full time even with the benefit of FFS is exponentially more difficult than early transition before full time and even the first year of full time.

Why is the second year of full-time exponentially more difficult than early transition or first year of full-time?

Please do not discuss what constitutes RLE or full-time - that is for another thread. Please do not debate whether you, or any other members of this forum, is full-time or at any given point in their transition.

[Kimberly Kael]

I'm not sure I'd be so unequivocal about year two being harder than year one. It can be, sure. There's definitely a period where it's novel to be able to get up every day and just be yourself but eventually that fades. A year's worth of milestones pass and anyone who expected their life to be substantially different is finally going to come to their senses and realize that transition doesn't actually fix anything life except handing you an opportunity to be authentic. Even that doesn't come easy. Most have probably passed a review milestone at work and are starting to realize that subtle forms of discrimination really do suck just like every minority has reported from the dawn of time, and they're generally not so blatant as to be actionable.

Whether it's a year in, less, or more, at some point it dawns that you've made your life significantly more complicated and what you've gained is rather ephemeral. If you started out with realistic expectations this can be perfectly fine. If you didn't, it can be anything from disappointing to devastating.

[Michelle789]

Another thing is that life will inevitably happen. January through October of 2014 were pretty much free of any major life circumstances happening. I didn't even get a cold during those months. This facilitated a strong start to my transition. Reality hit in several ways possible.

1. Coming out to my family. That created a whole host of problems.

2. Getting bronchitis. Sure, illnesses are not related to being transgender. But life happens. And some difficult life circumstance, including illness, is inevitably going to happen. I'm still not 100% better from my cough btw. Sure, I can function again. But the cough is still triggered when I laugh too hard, or possibly for no apparent reason.

3. Getting mis-gendered. Sure, we expect it when we first start our transitions. We expect that it will get less as time goes on. The reality is that you may find the worst of your getting mis-gendered and clocked may happen during year two of your transition. I have found that the past three months has been the worst of the mis-gendering for me. Now, maybe it has something to do with Caitlyn Jenner coming out, making us more visible, and triggering transphobic knee-jerk reactions. Maybe it's just my luck. Maybe the contrast between my masculine and feminine features has got so great that it causes people to question me more, or at least call me out on it, than they would have a year ago. I was discussing this with someone else in my local trans community, and we were saying how when you first start your transition, and you're an obvious dude in a dress, people might leave you alone. While when you're a year on hormones, and you've gone through some facial and body feminization, people may be tipped off more now than they were a year ago. Especially when I open my mouth.

A few other things are going on with me too that are probably more psychological than circumstantial.

1. Expectation to pass. We expect that we'll look better, carry ourselves more femininely. If we've worked on our voices, we expect to be gendered properly. So when we're getting mis-gendered or otherwise clocked, it can cause us more emotional pain than it did a year ago.

2. We question our own abilities and values. We start to question everything we know about ourselves. It's no longer just about our gender identity. Now we question our career. We question our personality preferences. We discover we might be good at something that we were not previously good at but at the same time think that we can never be good at it, because we've been always told what we're good at and what we're not good at. I was used to being good at logic, math, and computers. Now I'm discovering that I'm more emotional, that I'm more social, that I have better people skills, and that I have a stronger sense of intuition, than I could have ever imagined. But I was always told that I can only be good at logic, math, and computers. So I doubt myself that I could be good at anything that requires me to use the other side of my brain. I know that I'm good at using the other side of the brain, but society has told me that I'm not. So I doubt myself. And it becomes frustrating.

3. Social difficulties. Part of it is learning to navigate the social world of women. Part of it is facing subtle discrimination from transphobic cis-women. And part of it may be constantly attracting the most toxic of transwomen. Some of it may be my own personal confidence. Some of it may be caused by my father's programming. For various reasons, I seem to be facing difficulties socially. I debate whether or not it is necessary to pass to be able to socialize among cis-women. It probably depends on where you live, your age, and what kind of women you're trying to socialize with.

[emma5410]

I think Kimberly's points are very valid. As many have said transitioning only cures gender dysphoria and nothing else. All of life's other problems are still there. When the gender dysphoria starts to diminish then the other issues can become a major problem. Dealing with these issues as a woman may be more difficult than as a man.
I had great support but I noticed subtle changes. My old male colleagues at work treated me differently and our friendships were never quite the same. The women were far more friendlier but these friendships were new and took time to build.
The company I work for have been great but my salary has suffered since my transition although I had a promotion. There also seems a reluctance to expose me to clients.
Despite all this I found the second year better. I was more confident and seemed to be passing better. The only problem was my gender dysphoria started to come back and it was only having SRS early this year that finally got rid of of it.

[I Am Paula]

In a few months into year 3. Year two was a breeze. My hair started cooperating, I got my implants, my 'new normal' was fully formed, and my social life took off like never before. Since starting transition, every aspect of my life improved, and the biggest, and most noticeable improvements came in the second year. Sorry.

[Janice Ashton]

Perhaps sometime we try too hard to be what we think we should be and we tend to drift away from the person we really are!!

We all say we are being ourself that's why we change, but just perhaps that the change we introduce as the new you is not the real person inside.

As said above, we may often try too hard to be someone we visualise in our mind to present to the world but this is not how we should be presenting ourselves and I think this inflicts more pressure on us than is necessary and in turn this can lead to tension and in some cases depression?? It's a tough one!!! I know I worry a lot about my change but would never be without it or even contemplate going back to the dark days...

[arbon]

My second year after name change was relatively easy compare to the first year or the two years prior to that which were really rough.

[Angela Campbell]

Hard to say for me. First year was exciting, stressful and. ..very unusual. I am half way through my second year now. Much different, a good deal of time was centered around SRS and recovery. But not really better or worse than the first year. I really had no issues dealing with my gender at all for a while, but post Srs I seem to have it on my mind more. Maybe because of it kinda monopolizing my time.

[Michelle789]

In our RLE series of threads, another thing has been brought up, that the second year of transition for some of us is harder than our first one. One thing that has been happening to me has been that I seem to be getting mis-gendered more consistently in the past several months. During my first year of transition, I hardly got mis-gendered, and the amount of mis-gendering decreased until I had gone several months without getting mis-gendered by strangers. The exception was I would be occasionally mis-genedered by people who knew me as a guy - that's obvious since they have to overcome years of knowing me as a male. But in general public, I was getting mis-gendered not very often.

That all changed in June. Since the beginning of June, I seem to get "sir" or "he" about every other day on average. This is worse than it was before I started HRT. Before starting HRT, I would get mis-gendered about once every other week. I have one year HRT, and although I haven't yet had FFS, my face has significantly feminized in one year.

I know some other people on the forum mentioned they had similar experiences where in earlier part of transition they would get mis-gendered less and at some point later on they would get mis-gendered more. Even after FFS or working on voice, you seem to get mis-gendered even more.

Then inexplicably the past month. Things didn't go so well. For whatever reason I was being gendered male more frequently. It was disheartening especially after spending a huge chunk of pesos and time on facial reconstruction. I've had to sit back and reflect what am i doing wrong?

Stefan37, I can totally relate. Although I haven't had FFS yet, I have been on HRT for a year and my face has experienced some facial feminization. I have also had my beard lasered off and it's no longer noticeable. I have been wondering for the past several months, why am I inexplicably getting mis-gendered more now even though I should look and act more feminine now than I did a year ago? I see a few possibilities.

1. Caitlyn Jenner. My mis-gendering problem started conveniently when Caitlyn Jenner came out. Could people really have turned their transdar on overdrive since then? Could people who are transphobic simply be getting more vocal - maybe the haters who would have clocked me before Caitlyn Jenner would have stayed quiet, and how they vocalize how they feel by mis-gendering me or some making some other microagressions. Of course, some of us may have experienced a spike in being mis-gendered without the Caitlyn Jenner effect. Maybe it's just a coincidence and has absolutely nothing to do with CJ.

2. Lack of confidence. I got hit with bronchitis back in April, and that sucked my confidence. My father heard me talk on the phone and blamed the hormones for making me sick. This finally took away any confidence I had. And because I have been consistently mis-gendered a lot, I am having trouble breaking out of the vicious cycle. People sense vibes that I am not confident and mis-gender me, while before getting sick I had more confidence in myself.

3. Sharper contrast of masculine and feminine features. Before HRT, and in the early months on HRT, I was an obvious dude in a dress. Maybe people simply left me alone because I was so obvious. Maybe now with the features that scream female, and then they see features (or hear my voice) that scream male, maybe the sharper contrast is quite offputting to some people.

4. Most of the mis-gendering has been from men. Maybe when I was more obvious, I was less feminine looking so men weren't easily attracted to me, so they gave me a pass. Now men might be attracted to me and once they realize I'm trans, they take it out on me by giving me "sir" or "he".

5. Luck. Could I have just been incredibly lucky for a whole year, and now reality is hitting? Sometimes we might go a whole year without getting sick, and the following year we're always getting sick. Of course, that might have an explanation too. Like changes in virus strands, or weather changes.

6. The really good year followed by the really bad year? Does this sound familiar? I have seen this happen many times in the past. I had a good 6th grade. 7th grade was miserable. It's just part of life. And 2014 was an exceptionally good year circumstantially, and I didn't get mis-gendered a whole lot either. 2015 has been an exceptionally rough year circumstantially, and I have been mis-gendered a lot lately.


For those of you who have experienced something similar to me, where you seem to get mis-gendered more after you've been in transition for a while than you did earlier in your transition, why do you think this happens? What do you think causes you to be clocked and mis-gendered or receive microagressions more when you seemingly should be passing better. You should be getting mis-gendered less, but instead you get it more often? Why do you think this happens to you?

[Brooklyn]

One or two years on HRT in middle age isn’t going to make a huge difference; for now I still have a dude’s body in most respects. Even though I’ve had FFS, I still assume that I am clocked most everywhere I go - so when I find out that I pass sometimes, it really brightens my day! I have found that this year I am emboldened to be in some public situations that I would have avoided a year ago, like going to a beach or a waterpark with my kids.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

its not about the number of years..

its the end of the excitement and the change...its when things feel plain and normal... this in some ways is wonderful, but if you've spent a lifetime wondering and suffering, and then what seems like another lifetime "becoming" yourself and living out in the world with all those ups and downs, at some point it may hit you that you are just one of the girls, that all of your problems are not solved, that you are not the woman of your dreams and never will be and you are challenged by the fact that all your energy went into transition and now what??

its a big deal to get rid of your boogeyman and not be sure what to do next..

[charlenesomeone]

Kaitlyn, you bring up an interesting point. Transitioning is consuming, mind and resources, once one has fully "transitioned"
the mental void needs filling, and resources need to be replenished.
The OP asked why the second year is more difficult, it would seem that one is still in the transitional phase, and actually not of member of any "side" except here.
Since society refuses, in general, to accept a third or more "side" maybe that's the reason for misgendering.
Do those who are along the journey further live more as casual cis women, ie less makeup, more casual dress, etc,
and could that be a reason, not excuse, for misgendering?

[Michaella]

I am reminded of the Grateful Dead line: "When life looks like easy street there is danger at the door."

[karenpayneoregon]

I am close to two years as a female but only seven months post-op. Everyday for me (on average) is better than the day before except for times of indecision in daily routines like what should be simple, what clothes to wear, dang, going to be a bad hair day etc. Last time I was misgendered was prior to my RLT, strange looks from men when in the men's restroom dressed in male clothes or Can I help you Miss in stores etc.