Been seriously thinking about it ... Advice?

[Macey]

Serious thoughts about transition have been crossing my mind. So much so that I've been reading and gathering links for places that do electrolysis, hrt, and gender therapy.

Very unsure about this. At any rate, it would be a long term plan (at least hrt), but the desire has been growing. Any advice?

[AllieSF]

Get as much info as possible and if you are in that "What to do next" phase, please seek some qualified help. There you can talk your way through how you feel, your doubts, concerns, which can be very serious, and then hopefully be better able to make decisions about what is that next step. Regarding facial hair removal, if your insurance does not cover it (normally need to be diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria to get it) and you can afford it, start yesterday. Check with a laser tech first to see if you have the right amount of dark hairs and a light enough skin to do laser first. Then start on the electrolysis. It takes a long time and is expensive at $50-65 per hour. Do not hesitate to ask for a big discount if you are going to get real serious about it. I got a decent discount by asking. Even if you never go on hormones, clearing your facial hair will always be your secrete. No one will really ever know you do not need to shave, unless you spend a lot of time camping or hunting with someone where shaving does not normally ever happen. Good luck and please keep us informed.

[Lana Mae]

Macey, I say go with the therapy for now! Find out where you are at before moving forward with the other two! Give it about two months and then decide again where you are! They say electrolysis hurts less if done before H(R)T! (I have a hurting time a head of me!LOL) All my advice for now! Keep us advised of your progress! Best wishes on your journey! Hugs Lana Mae

[Macey]

Thank you ladies. I figure therapy FIRST. Maybe not NOW, but real soon. I'd need electrolysis for my face and chest rather than laser, I'm afraid. Not many dark hairs there. HT would be down the line a bit if I even make that decision.

[grace7777]

If you are considering transitioning, then therapy is a must. Also, hair removal is something you can start now, if you can afford it. I would concentrate on getting rid of facial hair first, with emphasis on eliminating any shadow you may have. I would wait on the chest, since that tends to be covered up, and the face you cannot really cover. In my situation, HRT ended up pretty well eliminating the hair on my chest, and I use to have a lot of it. For the chest, arms and legs you can use an eppilator, which can be pretty painful, but also can save money.

I wish you the best in whatever path you take.

Grace

[Aprilrain]

For the chest, arms and legs you can use an eppilator, which can be pretty painful, but also can save money.

Epilators simply rip the hair out of the follicle, each time this happens your body has to "repair a tiny wound" which encourages blood flow and nutrients to the very hair producing cells you want to get rid of making them grow back STRONGER and quite often malformed and coming out at weird angles more likely to cause ingrown hairs later.
This not only makes your electrologists and or laser techs job harder and take longer but also causes your wallet to become anorexic!

[Jeri Ann]

Macey,

With all due respect, you joined the forum just over six months ago when you were "new to crossdressing" and now you are having "serious thoughts about transitioning?"

[Kaitlyn Michele]

It is the hardest thing I ever did. Everybody in the world was "against" me.

The older you are , the harder it usually is.

That being said it was a life saver. I think if you are serious its the correct plan to start taking the small steps as soon as possible...

Do an hour of electrolysis , and imagine 300 more after that!! or that they do that on your genital area

Its important to as quick as you can see if you can judge for yourself the seriousness. if you are new to crossdressing then you have to think about why that is and whether this is a more more more type of process in your mind or is this a realization that has been coming on for many years... if you are ts, its very very likely that this has been on your mind in some way since you were little (altho its possible you were holding that down)... finally it really can be a life saver and I would never discourage you from trying to save your life... but its important to understand that its so hard (again, especially if you are older) that you will really need to follow through (as oppressed to want to follow through)..

[kimdl93]

Macey, I'd certainly endorse therapy as a first step. You can't know where this may lead....how far this journey may go nor how long. But I think that the fact that you're already emerging within your own family suggests that further emergence is likely. You have a safe base in the acceptance of your wife and son.

[Macey]

Macey,

With all due respect, you joined the forum just over six months ago when you were "new to crossdressing" and now you are having "serious thoughts about transitioning?"

Jeri, all respect taken! Yes. Serious thoughts, but I'm bringing it up NOW as they cross my mind and not hiding my thoughts for years over it. I will NOT be rushing at this I assure you and if hrt is in my future, it would be a few years from now before I begin. I contemplate these sorts of things long and hard before acting.

Kaitlyn, your comments are the deepest on my mind. How long have I felt this way, and how repressed has it been? I don't yet have those answers. MORE important, I think, is sorting out the 'need' vs. 'want' issue, and that's what I'll likely be contemplating the most. If I do 'dip my toe' in the waters of electrolysis, it would be neck first … something I'd like cleared male or female.

There is a deeper spiritual journey in this for me, and I've been organizing my thoughts on it, but I thought that I should like NOT to post about it until October at the earliest … a full turn of the year. I certainly won't be taking any steps toward transition before then anyway (apart from therapy, perhaps).

I can't thank you all enough for the comments so far … there's a lot to consider, most of what everyone is saying is exactly what's on my mind. No rush here, just voicing this now so that I can here perspectives now.

[Nadine Spirit]

Hmmm..... first thing - get a therapist experienced working with people with gender variance. Not just any therapist, one who specializes in gender variance. There is a difference and yes it matters.

Second thing - facial electrolysis. Seriously, start now, even if you are not sure. Someone else here took my advice and started getting electro, though they must have mis-read something I wrote because they have begun on their chest. Most of my chest hair has left me now that I have been on HT for about 2 years. Facial hair? HT does nothing for that. I seriously wish I had listened to this one piece of advise from others.

Other than that - my transition was not this huge devastating event that many describe. I was not near suicide. But it is something I should have done long, long, long ago! It has made everything in my life better. My relationship with my wife is better and she once said she'd leave if I transitioned. My relationship with my sister, the only other family I have, is better. My position as a middle school math teacher is better. My standing in the community, highly conservative, is far better. Yeah, pretty much everything is better. Oh except for my bank account. I have no insurance coverage for anything other than HT. But the expense has been well worth it!

[KellyJameson]

If you do not pass will you be comfortable being stared at, pointed at, laughed at, ect.. ?

If you pass and someone finds out and thinks you deceived them and becomes abusive and or violent are you prepared to deal with this ?

If you are of the age where you want children are you OK with adoption if you want your own family or will you save your sperm and than transition and try to explain to your child ?

If you voice is deep you will likely never have a passable voice. Is this OK ?

Are you OK with the health risks that taking synthetic hormones for the rest of your life pose ?

Are you prepared to have your career negatively impacted regardless of how many laws are in place to supposedly protect you?

Are you prepared to be socially isolated by those who do not except trans people ?

If you attend church, does the church accept trans people or are you prepared to find one that does ?

Will your family continue to associate with you?

Are you prepared to lose a significant amount of physical strength no matter how much time you spend working out?

You will experience very little breast growth in proportion to your size so to appear proportional you will likely need breast implants to balance your frame/shoulders against your breast size unless you can accept what otherwise is referred to as man boobs

If you do not get SRS but do have breast implants will you experience dissonance seeing yourself with breasts and a penis?

Do you have 100K available to transition?

Can you handle social rejection at any and all levels?

Are you prepared to have your dignity and privacy stripped away through the many medical procedures along with the "Mind Probe" of therapy?

Here is some good news if you do end up getting SRS . Now they do not require electrolysis on your scrotum to perform SRS. Is life not getting wonderful for transsexuals?

If you are over weight or smoke or have any health issues such as diabetes/high blood pressure this increases the possibility of complications related to taking hormones/blockers. Are you willing to risk death to transition ?

My advice is always the same. Do not transition unless your life depends on it. Unless it is a life or death decision. Because it is.

[Eemz]

Thanks for sharing Macey. You sound a bit like me - I don't rush into things but I like to know all the options well in advance so that I can give them due consideration. Doing the research in itself doesn't constitute a commitment, but once I make an actual decision to do something (or not) then that's it, I'm in (or out) 100%.

I have made a few decisions for myself that may help... they seemed like concrete actions that would help me without burning any bridges.

First, therapy for sure. There's no rush with anything else.

Second, I am that "other woman" that Nadine talked about her story that she was still having to shave even after transition and living 100% got me thinking "omg that would suck so much", so I took her advice and started electrolysis. I can't imagine any possible future where I would utter the phrase "omg my life is ruined because i can't grow a beard any more" so there's no downside (other than sunk cost) even if I did wake up one day and decide this trans stuff was all a mistake. Electro hurts and it takes years, but I don't care because it makes me feel good that I'm doing *something* positive for myself.

> If I do 'dip my toe' ... it would be neck first … something I'd like cleared male or female.

That's exactly what I did. You want rid of it one way or the other so there's no downside. My chest hair came right up my neck so I started there. Nadine is right that I got a bit fixated and stayed on the chest for too long, but oh well it's done now, and I'm onto the face now finally. Next session this Saturday

[Macey]

Kelly, your questions are harsh and negative. GOOD! Nothing better for a reality check. I've copied and pasted your list of questions to a word document, and dated my answers. How ever it shakes out, I'll want to look back.

Turns out, I'm good to go on more than half of them. The ones that need serious thinking is part of what I've been doing.

Eemz, thank you!

[Devi SM]

Macey,
I always say that in this website there is so much wisdom and I think everynohas said the right but I want to add my own penny.
I can understand that in a moment the light come to your life and want from night to morning go to all that you mention that for many has taken years.
I don't know which state you're but you need a year on therapy to go to HRT. That's my case, and after that (my health insurer pays for it) I need a year on HRT so they approve electrolysis, top and bottom surgeries, but need electrolysis at the bottom to do the surgery.
I didn't know all this time frame but now I can say I began my transition 13 years ago the very first time I wax my legs.
For teenagers and adult people, or old like me, hormones work with time, nothing's is from right to morning.
As an example, the first time I wax my legs, were so sensitive, I went to beach and the sand and sun made its job, don't tell you the results.
Now my skin is different and I learn to take care.
So joining all the rest go to therapy first and try he/she can be a gender therapist no just a family one.
Then go dress, go out, watch a movie, go to the market, go shopping etc. Face whatkelly said and others and leave the time do its job in your mind and the people around you.
My best wishes and open to answer questions you can have.
For me Jeri Ann has been someone to follow and it's important what she said too.

[Mirya]

Macey, as you've seen from the posts thus far, you're not going to find much in terms of affirmations and congratulations here. I like to think of this forum as a reality check: a no-hugboxing zone. Some people might find that to be insensitive and mean, then go around scolding everyone for being hurtful and leave, as someone did in this thread. But personally I believe it's kind of a necessity in a place such as this. This is crossdressers.com after all!! And for better or for worse it's actually quite common for crossdressers to get the 'pink fog' and think about transitioning. That could be a disastrous thing if they went ahead with it without considering all the consequences and more importantly understanding what their true gender identity is.

If you are looking for hugs and kisses, Reddit is the place for you. You will find no shortage of affirmations and hugs there. Accounts there are also super anonymous and most have been around for less than a year. Posts and accounts get deleted all the time. But if you're looking for a place where real people with years of experience are willing to share their collective wisdom, harsh as it may be, and aren't afraid to show their faces, then this is the place. I'm sorry to say I'm not one of them, but as you can see from this thread there are amazing women here who are.

[Macey]

Mirya, that is EXACTLY why I'm here. In the post you reference, I get the sense that person wanted support which I can understand, but also was troubled by a semantics debate which is a thing that troubles all web forums (sadly).

But I'm here for honesty. I'm getting it, and I think that's just great. Never the lese, I don't feel like anyone here is attacking me or delitimizing my questions, rather giving me the raw experiences. That's much better than some fantasy. Anyway, I am unmoved as yet. Neither for nor against. That's good, none of this would be something to rush into. Hopefully, if I do come to some sort of decision and decide to share it, the group will realize that it was done with great consideration and support my decision then.

[Aunt Kelly]

That's good. If you have doubts, start with counseling. A skilled caregiver won't give you answers, but they will help you find them for yourself. Honesty and commitment are in order. Deception or omission only muddy the waters, wasting time and money.

[Macey]

Kelly, it's first on my agenda

[Macey]

Stopped by a therapy place on the way home from work. They'll call me in a few days for an appointment. Wish me luck!

[Becoming Brianna]

Yay Macey! Best of luck! I hope you find the answers you seek! Don't be afraid to wander the path wherever it may lead just remember to always be honest and upfront with your therapist about what you're thinking and feeling... I'll be going soon myself (Eight more days until my work is done and I'm free to go). Is the person you're going to see a gender therapist?

[Lana Mae]

OK, wishing you luck with the therapist thing! I got very lucky in getting the one I now have! Hugs Lana Mae

[Macey]

Just a quick update/non-update. The therapy place has one or two gender therapists that they want me to start with, but no openings! They are expecting their schedules to open up later this month, though.

[Becoming Brianna]

Best of luck Macey! I'm calling my local therapist this week! With my parents blessing I believe! I'm so excited and also nervous!

[Aunt Kelly]

Within the month is soon enough, trust me. It seems like a long wait to get started, no matter the actual length of time, but once you're in the process, the wait will pale to insignificance.
Good luck to both Macey and Bri.