When i came out last year i expected life to move on at a good pace. I saw the doctors, got referred to the GI clinic at Charing Cross, i, with great sorrow, split from my long term partner and moved back with my parents to save money for my new life. My expectations were high, i was, in the last month of the lease to my old flat, living part time. I came out to work and i was surprised at the level of support i received, which was very positive and filled my heart with joy and determination. I knew i had to start living full time and i was really focused but since that time (Dec 2011) until now, some six months later i have hit a brick wall. Work are still waiting for me to start and i have had a change in management which mean teling a new boss my situation, someone i hardly know or see.
The first month after was a dark period in my life as i struggled to get over the loss of my girlfriend, my soul mate who i miss more than i can ever truly express and i felt in a daze as i was left with the aftermath of my decision. Since that day until now i feel as though i haven't moved forward at all. i expected news from the NHS to take a few months and i was surprised and shocked to discover my doctors referral took five months to get to the Gender Identity clinic. Now, my expectations, after talking with some of the MTF members of this site, were put into perspective, it would be slow, very slow and no overnight miracle. I am a realist at heart and i realised i had to make the choice to live full time. no doctors could do that for me, in fact if i proved i had made the transition and adjusted well this would aid me a great deal but my own expectations proved to be too grand. I expected to be much farther along than i am now. I am like a dog chasing its own tail and it is making me dizzy and lose heart.
I am struggling to make the next step. saving is proving to be hard although not impossible but the situation i find myself in is causing untold stress. In truth, despite many wonderful friends here i feel terribly alone.
I have to move and be me but i can't all the time i have no documentation to show who i really am. my true identity seems confined to this site and my close friends. I still live with my parents and i am starting to feel resentment. not because of how they are treating me, in fact they have been nothing but kind but they are distant. My situation is never mentioned and i feel like i am a child again. i can't be myself or dress how i want. how can i do this? My father is my mothers carer and i feel like i would kill him if he had to see and live with me as Faye. the simple answer is to tell him how i feel, if i can start to transition here then thats a start at least. i know this but when you have such an emotional connection to someone its easier said than done. knowing is one thing. living with and accepting it is something else entirely. He has so much to contend with and although i have written him a letter i can't find the strength to give it to him. I know he doesnt want to lose his son. will i cause him and my mother damage?
I can't change my name while i live here. i cant apply for new documents and licences because of the stress this will give my father as he receives all the post (my mum is unable to see). i wanted to do this away from him. I feel alone and confused and suddenly coming out, which seemed so easy those months ag,o now seems to be in a terminal reverse or at least stuck in park. i wanted to move with my new ID and life but i'm trapped and applying for new rent leases is filling me with dread. i have no confidence and everything i want to achieve seems so far away. how do you move forward as a woman when everything says you are a male? Do i move as male me then do all my changes later? which is what i planned but now feels the hardest thing to do. once again having to change lease names, bills, etc to my new ID especially as i wanted to set up these accounts as me in the first place, not adjust them later. I had intended to move as Faye. to be a strong, independant woman. I felt bullet proof those months ago but now i feel unable to make any decisions. i am Faye in all but name and appearence. i feel my soul weaken when i am refered to as a male or called by my birthname. it sends me deeper into a darkness that i am finding hard to see any light. My own expectations too great and unrealistic.
any thoughts on this would be greatfully received. i know we all, in transgendered community, feel like this at some time and i know i am in no way the first or the last but right now, i simply feel unable to function properly. Forgetting any NHS help, i am talking about how do you go about moving forward when life seems so intent on holding you back? Or is this all in the mind?
Faye xxx
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.
. 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.