I agree with the others, and definitely think you should seek out and speak with a gender therapist to help you understand your feelings.Originally Posted by JuliaC
Do you want to be a woman - or ARE you a woman? That is a key question you have to answer.
I'm transsexual, I've been on HRT four months now. I'm living 24/7. If I can arrange to get SRS by this time next year, I'll do it. (I have lots of red tape and scheduling to fight though.) So understand that I believe that transition can help enormously - HRT is saving my life. I was suicidal before starting it, and now I have hope and want to live.
That said, transition is not something to be considered lightly. I am not trying to be negative here - there is plenty of that on this forum - but I'll give you my honest observations from my own personal experience:
1. If I'd had a choice between being trans, or having cancer, I'd pick cancer without a second thought. I'd still have a wife. My life would be intact. I wouldn't feel that every part of it up until August had been a lie. I'm serious about this. But I didn't get to choose.
2. The process of transition is designed to be as degrading and humiliating as it can possibly be. The medical community, by and large, doesn't want to deal with us, and some are quite prejudiced against us. (The worst prejudice I've encountered, by far, has been from medical professionals.)
3. Prepare to be the lowest of the low in society. There is much prejudice against us, and few will understand what you go through. Even the people who are sympathetic - and there are more than you might expect - won't really get it. Some places pass laws that attempt to segregate us - things that are unthinkable now for people of different racial or ethnic or religious groups here in the US.
4. You have to be prepared to lose everything and everyone in your life. That may not happen - I've been lucky. But I've still lost a lot. And I know people who've literally lost it all - friends, family, career, home, everything but their lives. It's cruel that it's like this - but that doesn't change the reality of it.
5. People will stare at you - unless you pass rather perfectly, and this is unlikely at first. (A lot depends on your genetics. Some are luckier than others. Some will never totally pass even with extensive plastic surgery.) This doesn't bother me - but I have skills. It bothers the hell out of most of us.
6. The medical risks of transition are not negligible. Although most of us do fine, this stuff is serious, and for some, even HRT can be dangerous. (Although the trans men have it far worse - T is really hard on your system.)
7. Being a woman means getting the short end of every short stick there is. Ask many of the GG's here. They'll tell you - from lower pay, to impossible to achieve expectations (you can have it all! Family! Kids! Career! Power! Money! Bullshit!!!!). Women have it tough. They face physical danger on a daily basis that men never even think about. But you will. (I know several girls who've been raped - only if they rape you, you are lucky if they don't kill you.)
So why would anyone transition exactly? Well, for one thing, the only thing worse than being a woman is, it turns out, being a woman trapped in a man's body.
I will also tell you that despite all the negative sounding things I posted above, if you asked me "would you start transition again?" I'd tell you "yes." And everyone I know who's far into transition, when asked "would you do it again", says "yes." Because if you need it - it is literally the only thing medical science has that can help you.
Please also note that I'm not trying to discourage you. There are a lot of paths through and into transition. You may really need to do this - I can't answer that, and neither can anyone else on a forum, but if you are serious, call a therapist, and find a support group for trans people, and attend it a few times.
