Hellooo First post. I need to vent to the internet as I feel shockingly terrible.
So i saw my GP to discuss the next step towards transition. She pointed me to a nearby (as rural areas go) doctor who knows about gender affirming care which is very cool.
During that she asked, just out of curiousity, if i was going to “socially transition” before or after medically transitioning.
For me, Ive decided to do so afterwards. Its just mentally painful for me to call myself a women while I look like the bloater from state of decay 2. Thats a terrible and comical way to put it but its how i feel and thats the image conjured in my mind.
I think its essentially that changing pronouns does very little for me while I am still a man physically speaking. And most its maybe a nice bump in happy chemicals and then a quick realisation that indeed I am still a man so i just feel terrible again.
Anyway, hope you have a nice day/evening :)
I transitioned socially after starting HRT. Perfectly fine way to go about it.
I gradually changed how I presented myself publicly over around the first 9 months of HRT. I gradually changed my public facing wardrobe from full masc, to plausible deniability, to full fem. Started wearing bras at 4 months. Stared voice training, and began using the new voice in public around 1-2 months. I was out to some people, those who were close friends, and those few who asked. At 9 months my employer published the new annual personnel roster, so I used that as the moment to change my name and pronouns for everyone.
I love the comment about being a bloater. I said very similar things about myself. Worrying self-deprecation was a pre-transition coping mechanism. I liked making that kind of joke, they are funny! But HRT put a stop to it. Insulting myself as a joke no longer lands, because I don’t believe it anymore. Estrogen did that. Negative self-talk is more of a symptom than a cause in my experience.
I transitioned in my 30s. I think there probably is an age component to it. I suffered two full decades of accumulated testosterone damage, and I’m at a stage of life where I’m supposed to have figured myself out. Transitioning socially in advance of HRT felt like a non-option. I imagine if I knew transition was an option in my teenage years, I probably wound have done it social first.
Do what feels right. A gradual social transition after hormones is a fine way of doing things.
The paths we take can be so different. I came out when I was almost 31 and socially transitioned completely in the following 2 months and then started HRT 4 months after that. I just couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it, haha. It also was very apparent that something changed when I went from full beard to clean shaven after having a full beard for like 10 years.