What speed transition?

[celeste26]

There are some people who insist on the fastest possible transition and others who suggest a very slow transition.

I happen to hold to the second point of view because all of the people around me really are making the same transition with me and I want them to experience myself as feminine before the final surgery and when it happens that way there is far less rejection and far less trauma from them over the whole issue.

I dont know what the record for speed is for going from only presenting male to complete GRS transition, but I've read over and over again about family, and fellow worker's rejection. I've read of some cases where after a quick transition regret sets in. Not every case includes the years of living in the other gender prior to surery.

is there some magical ideal time frame between diagnosis and finished transition?

[ColleenA]

I am not qualified to answer this question in any way except to say that everyone is different. Thus there cannot be one "magical ideal time frame." You will need to work through this as an individual -- i.e. there is no "one size fits all," rather "your mileage may vary" (for a completely weird mix of metaphors).

[Badtranny]

There are some people who insist on the fastest possible transition and others who suggest a very slow transition.

I would challenge somebody who would insist that I do anything, even if it's something that I wanted to do. Your transition should be done on YOUR timetable. Whatever works in your life. The problem with transition is it's nearly impossible to schedule. Coming out is like a snowball that starts out manageable with just a few friends and eventually becomes out of control as it gathers speed and girth eventually taking out the tiny village below. I had a very carefully planned transition that began to spin out of control after only a year.

No, the speed can be throttled to your liking but in order for it to be called a transition, there must be progress from year to year, however slow it may be.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Ill answer in a different way more in keeping with how it is for a female,

To become a woman you need to grow, that being the case does every female become a woman with in a set time, no because every one matures differently not every girl has her breasts grow at the same rate even thier thinking is different, some are older than thier age some seem to take years to grow up.

So to say we all grow the same body wise or mentaly . its just so very different for each of us,

Transition not a word ill use, as it never applyed to myself, dressing in clothes ment for others even that did not happen ,

Yet i grew to become a woman , to get there i had to be female , how i was born had a big part in who i am now, & really all of my life, Im not compleat as ether male or female part of my difference .

I knew what i was yet that could not be translated in to words, 65 years ago. not something that would be talked about & really its only over the last few years, i knew the significance of the words intersexed, i knew what i was at age 10 . just no words to explain .

yes a lot of changes have taken place over the years, in how iv grown so time is not importaint or as said how quick can you grow to become who you are, many years & no way any regrets as to how my life has come about,

So this is about a female who has grown to become a woman, who lives life as i should & can & be accepted in to socity.

...noeleena...

[AudreyTN]

each person must transition at their own pace as they feel comfortable. for some, the struggles are many, and plentiful, therefore many delays can be expected.

for others, there a few to no doubts, and the process can be expedited. there is no right or wrong answer. it's dependent on each individual.

[Saffron]

There's no ideal timeframe, find one that suits you best.

Here the public health care only prescribes androcur, so you can't delay SRS for too long. Bear in mind that the SRS is mostly a surgery for you, nobody is going to notice it. Ok, your partner is :-)

[FurPus63]

Hi
I've been in transition for almost a year now. Our State requires us to have a year before we can pursue SRS. I personally want it the day I get my one year anniversary! However; I understand that many are not like me. My reason is simple. My age. I'm almost 50 and I don't want to get to the point where I'm too old to have the surgery. Plus...I've been living with this woman inside me for so long and she's finally out and I want her to be whole and complete. Plus, although some people like it, I hate being "inbetween"/"a chic with a dick". I can't stand it. It's driving me crazy. So I am pushing through my transition at lightining speed.

Paulette

[Jorja]

Transition is not a race! One goes at the speed at which they are comfortable with.

[Kathryn Martin]

It really depends on how much work you did over your lifetime before transition. The speed of transition is informed by this work. For me from the moment I could do no more without transition to surgery was 18 months.

[Traci Elizabeth]

If you are purposely slowing down your transition/LIFE for the sake of others then you really need to do some soul-searching.

I can not think a of a single reason to slow transition unless you personally are unsure that transitioning is really for you. If you have doubt within your self then by all means slow way down or stop.

Don't let others edict your life. God forbid you might die before you realize your full womanhood. DO you really want to delay being "Whole, Complete, and Congruent?"

[KellyJameson]

I never had to consider others because these was no marriage or children to consider. My own family was largely indifferent except for the embarrassment they worried about for themselves or any "guilt" they felt for "causing it"

You have to love those self centered parents that make what you are dealing with all about them.

I have not been lucky in love (go figure) but make a good living so the financial resources were there and they did not care what my exterior looked like because I'm bent over a microscope most of the day and the work I do is unusual so they needed me more than I needed them.

Always always the problem has been inside my own head. I started changing my appearance at puberty with long hair and than body hair removal, first with razors and chemicals and than at eighteen with electro,so the gender dysphoria hit hard and early in my case and was actually always there in hindsight.

Half my brain was dragging me toward transition and half my brain was trying to drag me away from transitioning and I lived this back and forth all the way through my twenties.

It is amazing how much grief you can cause yourself and others from sitting on the fence, but I had no choice. I simply did not understand why I was this way so did not trust my reasons for wanting to change. Ignorance was my enemy and fear my companion.

I have lived my whole life since birth as a transsexual who refused to acknowledge that I'm a transsexual, first because nobody told me and than second because I refused to tell myself even though myself was trying to tell me.

This is a perfect recipe for mental illness by the way.

Someone once said on the forum, "only do what you have to do" and to me this was brilliant.

I did this on accident so it does have the effect of stretching out the pain so I lived in suffering but I reaped the benefits of now having no self doubt of who I am, what I have done to change or any fear of future change. I have the inner peace of clarity and for me this was vital.

I have done everything backwards from those who I have known who transitioned. I needed to understand the pain before I was willing to escape it, where they escaped the pain to than be able to understand it from being outside of it. What we do with the pain defines us.

I'm comfortably down the path so there is less suffering, but for myself I also know that there will always be the pain of not being born cisgendered. Transition only offers so much and I needed to be clear that I could live within those limits and would not continue to feel tormented for "the loss" of perfect womanhood.

For me the first problem was being able to live with myself. I feared that I would kept trying to repair the unrepairable so continue to live with remorse for what has been taken from me.

I had to know I could always live short of my real needs as a woman before I could than move toward the acceptance of imperfection.

I sat on the fence partly because I could not accept being "less than perfect" and it was this that would drag me back from the changes I would make.

I accepted great suffering because I did not want the suffering of imperfection. Sounds crazy but thats a large part of the war that raged inside my own mind.

I could not compromise my womanhood so I rejected it and lived with the sadness and remorse of my infliction but the infliction was me so it was experienced as apathy toward life itself.

For me all the problems of transition happened inside my own mind, all my struggles were internal and there was little to consider in my relations to others.

I feel like I have suffered less than others because changing has not impacted others to the same degree as those with families. I do not think I would have survived if I had been in the position of hurting others to escape my own pain. I think I would have chosen to end my life and avoid all the pain to everyone under those circumstances.

I'm not very brave when it comes to hurting others to fight for what I need.

Internalized transphobia, desire for perfection, apathy, self-loathing ,confusion of what I am, ect..These and others were my obstacles.

For me changing the body is the easy part. It was everything standing in the way that seemed insurmountable. I had to know "my truth" before I could proceed but to find this truth I had to accept continuing to live in pain.

Moving at your own pace will protect you from yourself "as pain"

You must become comfortable living with this tension pulling you in two different directions but not so comfortable you do not do anything about because you go into apathy and accept the pain.

Apathy is in my opinion one of the things to watch for because it takes you into depression.

Think of it like taking explosive nitroglycerin over a mountain pass on the back of a mule.

You must deliver the explosives but avoid being blown up by it in the process. Very tricky

[BreenaDion]

To answer the quick question read up on 1990 Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. IMHO that would be the legal fast track but some backward states who don't have much for protocol in transitioning, therapy and/or treatment , by way of what I have read in here seams to set their own priorities.

Second and I think my path thou typically traditional is extremely slow. Reasons are for financially screwing the bank because they wouldn't Modify our home loan , not once but I applied 3 times even with the help of counselors. So I dragged not paying for our mortgage for 4 yrs and still not. Even after 7 months living in a new apartment community I still am not forced out.

The major reason for being so slow is PTSD, Yayaya Can't express it enough but my head really got F**KED up from decades of abuse by many different people. I had to take some adverse scenarios out of the equation for my own mental health, was suicidal at first and 4 yrs later I still have thoughts of it but I don't act apon it. 3 Years on HRT and I am finally in the legal process of changing all 3 of my names. If that ain't altra slow then I yeald the trophy LOL.

We are all individuals and most every one has their own time table that they feel comfortable with, / or wish they did. Its what makes you You, your own pase. I'll just let every one pass me out for I will get wherever I NEED TO BE in my own time and in my own pase!!!

[Michelle.M]

There are some people who insist on the fastest possible transition and others who suggest a very slow transition.

That's absurd. Any timeline only is applicable for one person - she who makes it.

And besides, any "timeline", once established, will almost immediately begin to change due to the impact of that pesky reality. In my case, my "timeline" became much shorter than I had anticipated, and the changes are quite appropriate.


I dont know what the record for speed is for going from only presenting male to complete GRS transition

Fastest I've seen is 6 months from diagnosis of gender dysphoria to GRS. Great, right? Well, this particular person ended up having to do most of the real work of transition (all the internal changes) afterwards and it was a real challenge! It was a successful transition, but one with some unique struggles.


I've read over and over again about family, and fellow worker's rejection.

Yes, but if it happens it's irrespective of the speed at which one transitions. The two things are not necessarily related.


I've read of some cases where after a quick transition regret sets in.

Again, not so much related to speed of transition but more due to other factors. This is why RLE is so important.


Is there some magical ideal time frame between diagnosis and finished transition?

No. WPATH guidelines have proven very useful and work well in most cases, but transition is a very individual thing and really ought to be done with a competent therapist to help the patient develop her own timeline.

[FurPus63]

Something happened yesterday at my support group that has me thinking about all this and it is related to the original question in this post. First of all, I'm wondering about the definition of "transition" or "transition time-period." For me, my transition began last February when I decided to live my life presenting as a woman 24/7 but had not come out at work yet. It wasn't 'till May that I did that and when I met my surgeon he told me we had to stick with the date in May not February because that's when I began to live 24/7 including work. I also began HRT that same month. So my question is: What do we consider to be transition and when does it start/begin? Does it start when the person makes a conscious decision they want to be a woman and identify themselves as transexual, when they live their lives presenting as a woman 24/7 with certain exceptions (i.e. work, school, the parents, the children/grandchildren, etc...) or does it begin when it's legitimately definately every day 24/7 no exceptions??? Does it begin when we start HRT? What if we stop HRT does our transition stop? What if we go "on & off" hormones; does our transition stop and go accordingly?

Just some food for thought and questions I pondered after a rather interesting yet frustrating meeting.

A final thought: IMO transition is a serious medical, physiological, psychological and even spiritual process. I feel that anyone who has been taking hormones "on & off for years," or fooling around with some forms of experimental suppliments or drugs from Europe or outside the U.S. and/or just taking "God knows what...." are making a mockery of the MTF/FTM transition and what it means to be transexual. I take my transition very seriously. Someday (sooner rather than later, God willing) a man is going to take a scaple, cut and "reconstruct/reorganize" my genitals from a penis to a beautiful vagina. In the meantime, I take strong doses of medication to extremely increase my level of Estrogeon and keep my Testostorone near zero. My face, breasts, hair, in fact my entire body is adjusting and changing with each day that passess. This is some damn serious s**t here folks! I can't believe that there are some people who fool around with this process like it's some kind of a joke or they want part of some new social group. It's sad and ridiculous. Just my opinion.

Paulette

[Rianna Humble]

Something happened yesterday at my support group that has me thinking about all this and it is related to the original question in this post. First of all, I'm wondering about the definition of "transition" or "transition time-period." For me, my transition began last February when I decided to live my life presenting as a woman 24/7 but had not come out at work yet. It wasn't 'till May that I did that and when I met my surgeon he told me we had to stick with the date in May not February because that's when I began to live 24/7 including work.

I agree with the surgeon, you only began your transition when you started living full time. For me your period from February to May was planning / preparing for your transition.


I also began HRT that same month. So my question is: What do we consider to be transition and when does it start/begin? Does it start when the person makes a conscious decision they want to be a woman and identify themselves as transexual, when they live their lives presenting as a woman 24/7 with certain exceptions (i.e. work, school, the parents, the children/grandchildren, etc...) or does it begin when it's legitimately definately every day 24/7 no exceptions??? Does it begin when we start HRT? What if we stop HRT does our transition stop? What if we go "on & off" hormones; does our transition stop and go accordingly?

I never had to make a choice that I wanted to be a woman. The choice that I had to make was when to start living as the woman I have always been.

In my case, the decision was taken in 2009 but due to other factors, I was not able to act upon it until 1st July 2010. That is the date that I stopped dressing up as a man for work and that I began my RLE. It is also the date when I consider that I started to transition. Since that date my identity has been that of the woman I have always known myself to be.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, it was nearly 18 months after that before I was able to start HRT, so I would not make any causal link from HRT to Transition (rather the opposite). If someone has to suspend the HRT, that does not prevent them from being in transition unless they go back to living as their natal sex at the same time.


A final thought: IMO transition is a serious medical, physiological, psychological and even spiritual process. I feel that anyone who has been taking hormones "on & off for years," or fooling around with some forms of experimental suppliments or drugs from Europe or outside the U.S. and/or just taking "God knows what...." are making a mockery of the MTF/FTM transition and what it means to be transexual.

I hope that you understand that this is a global forum and that you did not mean this quote to come across as xenophobic.

There is nothing wrong with drugs that come from outside the USA - the majority of people in the world live outside the USA and often take locally produced pharmaceuticals on prescription.

However, I believe that the main thrust of your point was that if you are serious about transition then you do not want to be messing around with untried supplements of unknown quality. I agree with that sentiment.

[FurPus63]

Rianna; thanks for your words of support. I realize I might have used the wrong language a few times; but I did have questions regarding the transition issue and you answered them for me. I didn't mean "choose to be a woman" I meant, "choose to live my life as a woman" so thank you for correcting me on that. You are also correct about the global thing and I didn't mean to say that drugs/medicine from other countries is bad, I was just saying that some people will get drugs without a doctor's concent and buy them online; and that can be very dangerous. It shows that person isn't really serious about what they are doing and are experimenting and/or they have been warned not to do HRT and are ignoring it, which also is a bad/poor decision. I just wanted to make the point that this really is a serious situation for all of us who are truly transexual and people need to take it seriously.

It bothered me when someone at our meeting said they had been taking hormones "on and off" for several years. I guess despite being a professional counselor and therapist, I just don't get that. It seems foolish to use these very strong and powerful meds as if they're somekind of recreational drug or something. Thanks again for your support.

Paulette