Faye
you really need to bite the bullet and transition immediately as living as male but claiming to be TS is confusing everyone and depressing you.
Go to a soliciutor tomorrow and spend £5 - the legal limit - on making a statutory declaration that from that moment on you will be Faye Mack. Then copy the sd and send one to your local tax, NHS, GP, driving licence, works personnel, bank, Pensions company, etc etc.. so that the NHS and GIC can see you are serious.
If you really do feel you are TS and not just a CD/TV and want to go through srs then you have to make the effort or else waste your life in the closet.
Just go to work tomorrow dressed nicely as Faye and let everyone see you are serious and you'll find most folk will be fine.
same goes for parents.
As for the delays you could remind the local NHS that the ECHR and HRA says you do not have to prove your TSism to anyone once you are openly living and working as a woman called Faye.
Start your new life tomorrow.

Change is hard for anyone, but changing your sex is probably one of the most significant changes anyone can go through. In any change, there is the frustration of letting go of old and familiar things, people, places, and things, without knowing what will replace them.

 

There is a point I call "The Tunnel" - that point where you feel like you have given up everything you can give up, you've lost everything you can lose, and you can't really be sure of what is next.  For some, the changes are even more dramatic.  In my case, when I first came out, my wife decided to leave me, my job started harassing me into submitting my resignation, many of my friends didn't want to talk to me.  My sister was OK with it, and my Mother wasn't really all that surprised, but my brother and father didn't want to know and didn't want it "Rubbed in their faces" - thinking that this was a "hobby".  I had to move, first from Colorado Springs to Denver, and eventually to the NYC area.  When I first moved to Denver, I was living in one of those "No Tell Motels" off the interstate, paying rent by the week, trying to ignore what my neighbors were doing as much as possible, cooking in a wok.

 

But once I had finally let go, things changed radically.  I got a job with an insurance company dominated by women executives, they considered my being transgendered to be an asset.  I met a woman who wanted to ENCOURAGE me to dress as much as possible, and really loved Debbie.  I loved her son as much as I loved my own.  Furthermore, since she was Bisexual, she loved to invite her girlfriends over for a bit of fun, and eventually we had 3 women and 2 men living in the house, each contributing in their own ways.

 

I was living as Debbie 120 hours a week, only dressing in male mode for work, even though they were ready to accept my transition if and when I was ready to do so.  I was even about ready to start hormones.  For the first time in my life I was truly happy, happier than I had ever been in my life.  I was healthier than I had ever been, losing over 100 lbs from the time I first came out, to the point where I was ready to start the hormones.

 

It was only when my ex-wife told me that she had met some contacts through her husband's church who could arrange to have a judge order court supervised visitation - and she showed me the letter from the social worker, that I finally had to halt my transition plans.  I stopped the hormones, and decided to just dress.  It was almost like dying.  Eventually, my ex-wife told me  that my visitation was disrupting the family life and causing too much pain for the kids.  I could see it myself.

 

At that point, I moved to the NYC area, and began working on a project to make what is now the Internet available to the general public, to make it an attractive medium for news publishers, and a place to do commerce, similar to mail-order.  Today, we know it as the World Wide Web.  I did work with Dow Jones, McGraw-Hill, and 8,000 other publishers, then brokerages, and then insurance companies, and finally, through IBM I worked with soveral corporate clients to build large business to business networks.

 

Unfortunately, the higher profile came with the price of having to stop dressing in public for several years.  I tried to protect my anonymity, but was told I should take some leadership training.  Problem was that the Leadership training program insisted that I "Burn the Dresses" if I wanted to go further.  I did agree to stop making public appearances, and I did have a lady friend who loved Debbie and didn't need to go out, even though we only saw each other one week-end a month during the summer, and 2 week-ends a month from October to mid-december and then from Mid-January to Mid-April.

 

Without Debbie as motivation, I gained weight, eventually going from 150 lbs to 325 lbs, more than doubling my weight.  By 9/11 2001, I was having trouble getting my seat belt fastened.  Even suffered a heart attack, and a stroke.  I continued to struggle, until I finally started being Debbie again.  When I started dressing regularly, after work and on week-ends, I lost 85 lbs in less than 9 months.  Fortunately, when I was single again, I put pictures of Debbie on my Match.com profile, and met a woman who really liked Debbie, and is glad to have her be part of my life and part of her life.  She thinks I dress to "Slutty", which is true, but when I take her fashion advice, I have absolutely no trouble passing, though it does take some of the fun out of it.

 

If you're transsexual, you know that the thought of spending the next 20-30, or even 40-50 years as a man, is probably more terrifying than being shot in the head, especially if you believe that you might reincarnate into a girl's body, and have memory of how much you wanted to be a girl.

 

If you straddle the fence too long, you will fall forword or backward, and any spikes in the fence will make you very uncomfortable.when you do.

 

If you are just a cross-dresser, and you have no real desire to transition, then enjoy your nights out, or even whole week-ends, and have a good time with that, and feel free to socialize with those who enjoy that.  If you are a transsexual, you've probably wanted to be a girl more than anything else in the world, and have wanted it for a very long time.  If you won the lotto, the first thing you would do is start your sex change.  You'd certainly start the laser, electrolysis, and hormones immediatly.

 

You're lucky.  You have a health car eprogram that pays some of your transition expenses.  Here in the USA, insurance companies still don't cover most of the transition costs, so nearly everything is "out of pocket" and in some states, there is no legal protection aginst being fired, and if you are physically attacked or abused, the perpetrators are likely to be offered a plea bargain for probation and/or "house arrest".

 

Consider this.  Would you rather have what you really want, and have people love you and want you for who you really are, or do you want to wait until you 70 years old, wishing you had done these things, but now you can't afford to try, risk losing the few friends you do have, who know you only as the person you pretend to be, and knowing that your low blood pressure and good health could mean that you could live to 90 or longer.

 

Faye
I fell your pain anguish and frustration.I fought a mental battle with my feelings of gender disorder from early childhood up until March 2011 when i finally confronted my gender issues and came out to my wife and family.The previous 18 months had been a mental living hell both for myself and my wife who was undeservingly on the receiving end of much of my mood swings.One of the reasons for the mood swings was the fact that having finally decided that i could no longer live in gender denial i thought that at age 59 i had left it to late to fully transision.i thought i would be to old to undergo gr surgery which without that i would have felt totally fulfilled or female.Having resolved that issue through reading forums like this and media programmes i knew i had to transision and made the decision to begin the process.I am fortunate in that my wife has stayed with me and supported me and i enjoy rthe support of my family.It has been a difficult time for my wife discovering after 33yrs of marriage that her husband is not the person she thought he was when we married.She has been going through a grieving process and is just emerging from the anger stage but we are working things out so far.Transision is a slow and sometimes frustrating process but if you have an end goal to focus on then it eases the frustration some what.I would endorse the advice of Rose that if you are sure in your own mind that you need to transision then you need to begin to live full time as Faye and change all your documents to your new identity.I am also being treated at charringcross gi clinic, and btw i waited 7mths for my first appointment and 6 months for my 2nd appointment.At the 2nd appointment they will expect to see evidence of you living as Faye before they will offer hormonre treatment.Its been a further 8weeks from my 2nd appointment to me receiving my letter confirming my hormone treatment.I share your frustration in being referred to as him or your birth name.This has happened to me twice in recent weeks once by a surgeon who was preforming a minor op and announced to a nurse that he had signed his consent form and once by an assistant in a well know high street stationary store referring to me as he.That was rather more embarrasing as there was a queue of people at the time.These thing will happen and you just have to deal with it move on and dwell on all the positive experiences you will have.Whatever you do i wish you well and i hope you find true happiness.
Emmak

Charing Cross sounds like it hasn't heard of hte EU Human Rights attitude to transsexuals which is that once we decide to trabsition we don't need anyone else's opinion sor permission.
If CX does this then they are effectively saying you aren't fit to control your own body.
But now you#vegot progress just keep pushing them for faster service.

Hiya Faye.

Firstly, you do not have to pay £5 for a statutory decleration to change your name. See the law forum, documents, and Lucy
Diamonds excellent post about deed polls.

You have to do what makes you comfortable at a speed you can cope with, every persons situation is different.

The NHS has a policy, as do other members of the EU, all approved under the EHRC, for example some countries within the EU will not allow a person to officially change their gender status unless they go all the way and have SRS.

Unfortunately when it comes to priorities and funding the NHS system can be slow. It is illegal to delay or refuse funding accross the board, the UK Gender Recognition Act was forced through, as a result of several cases taken to the European court of Human rights.

Its not ideal, we know, but we must remember there is only so much money to go around, clinicians and service providers must ensure that each person is evaluated for treatment and they must ensure through councelling and evaluation that people are genuine and in need.
Therefore there are guidlines laid down to make sure they get it right. There have been several members here, who did get it wrong and now regret having surgery and find themselves in limbo, seeking legal aid to get compensation.

This fallacy that people have the right to walk in to a GI clinic and demand fast track attention does nobody any favours.

We have chatted and I am quite sure your genuine. Because of my own condition I could have had surgery at 18, but was judged mentally unstable too imature to cope with such a drastic change. Would I have regretted it afterwards if I had of gone ahead at that age who knows.

To keep banging on about the EU rights Act, is wrong, the NHS guidelines have been accepted by Strasbourg, All the cases put before the Strasbourg courts have an adendum to the judgements, (dependant on funds beeing available) The judgements were because people were excluded from any treatment.

Layla is a great example, she went through similar frustrations and anxt over the delays, she is on course and doing great.

Loadsa love Cristine

"I can't change my name while i live here. i cant apply for new documents and licences..."
Yes you can. If you feel you are not moving forward then this is why. You need to sit down and have a talk with your dad and tell him that this is what you need to do; you have waited too long already.
As you've been referred to CX you need to start living full-time now - change your name by deed poll (free), and send off copies to everyone who has your old name on file. Your 2 year real life experience will start from the day you change your name, or can otherwise prove you were living full-time.
You will never move forward until you have taken this step, some would say it's a leap of faith, but if you know in your heart that it's what you must do then you must not delay any longer.
If there's any doubt in your mind that you want to spend the rest of your life living as a female then wait until you get to CX and ask about therapy sessions (I was only offered group sessions when I first went, I declined, didn't need it).
But if you're not sure about it all, I don't think you'd be writing posts like this.
The time is now. If your family already know about you it won't destroy them, it is just the next, essential step.
Don't waste your life finding reasons not to move forward; it is all in your hands, no-one else's.
xx

. To keep banging on about the EU rights Act, is wrong, the NHS guidelines have been accepted by Strasbourg, All the cases put before the Strasbourg courts have an adendum to the judgements, (dependant on funds beeing available) The judgements were because people were excluded from any treatment.

 

Schlumpf v Switzerland was about being forced to wait, the others were about being refused the right to determine their own treatmnet.