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Hi, and I hope that you're all well. My wife and myself are off to Holland next weekend, we're taking our caravan behind our trusty Land-Rover, with our bicycles mounted inbetween. This will be the first time that I get to use my new passport, and be my new self 100% of our holiday. I'm not anxious about it at all, well apart from cycling with a wig on ! I'm really looking forward to it, we had a BBQ last night, our friends of whom I have told of before (he ? she? was also Trans, unknowingly to each other! before we "came out"), I wore an old wig and one of my last few remaining male tee shirts because I was the cook. I stunk of smoke afterwards, and had to sower and change mid evening, and the thought struck me, I'm going to have to do similar whilst away in Holland (we most always BBQ when caravanning). Admittedly, this is an inconvenience, but a minor one really, however I'm not sure about taking a male tee shirt with me though............. Whilst we are there we will meet up with a friend of my wifes (also my friend now) who has stopped with us before, and has seen me as Eve, I think that we are all looking forward to being together again. I'll let you know how I got on when I return, we're stocking the caravan up after it's winter storage today, so I'm getting really busy now, so I won't be posting very much until early May. Life as Eve is sooo much better than Steve............... Cheers & Hugs, Eve

I am fairly early on in the process, but it takes some people a long time to process things, or they just don't know what to say! We can can be intimidating!! Lol! That being said, sounds like an awesome conversation.

Congrats with your new passport! When I got my new ID documents I had a mini celebration. Love Charl -o0o-

I'm so glad for you Karen, I still have some former colleagues who haven't spoken to me since I changed my identity in December, however there have been others whom I didn't really get along with formerly who have been great with me since.....................people, they're all different!Cheers, Eve

Lisa, You really need to take your time introducing your wife to your being Trans, as the saying goes softly softly catchee monkey.......... None the less, I wish you good luck, and can tell you that you're in for an amazing journey........ Hugs, Eve

Don't get me started! It happens all the time >:|

I would like her to see me too. Part of it is we are so busy and we rarely get more than a couple of mins together alone because of the kids.

Small set-back, none of the clothes I ordered were the correct size I suspected that might be an issue when ordering on-line, when it was an area of clothing I have purchased before. I'm planning to return these at the store and then shop while I'm there

Create your own blog at TGGuide.com. It's FREE and you can start right now. Some people blog as a sort of journal to share our thoughts, feelings, experiences and insights. Others blog to express opinions on social and political issues. Others blog to share their knowledge and experience with others. Go ahead. Express yourself! Others may be grappling with issues you blog about and your words could provide useful insight or answers. Here are some blog topic ideas to get your creative juices flowing; A daily journal about your life and experiences A journal documenting when you go full time A journal to document your gender reassignment surgery Dating experiences and tips Crossdressing tips Experience with makeup Passing in public Your experiences when you go out in public Restroom experiences Transitioning at work Dealing with counselors or medical personnel Introspection about your particular gender identity Dealing with or overcoming self-limiting beliefs Dealing with addictions Dealing with self-destructive behaviors Interactions with police or government workers Changing your drivers license, birth certificate, etc. Applying for jobs Your big day, when you go full time Hormonal development (please don't discuss dosages or make medical type recommendations) Experiences with electrolysis How other members of your new gender react to you, and your experiences Your recommendations to others about to follow your path Your thoughts about whether surgery is necessary to be your desired gender Differences in how you feel dressed or not dressed What your life would be like if you still repressed your inner identity Poetry or prose These are a few ideas to get you started. Feel free to leave comments to suggest your own ideas, or just start a blog and share with everyone. Just log into your control panel to start your own blog. This could be interesting!

Silly it seems. Especially since visiting this site and reading everyone's wonderful stories, that I would ever feel lonely or alone. I have such a huge support network around me of friends, girlfriends, family and co-workers and yet lately I have begun to feel that isolation again. It's pretty easy to stave off these days. Between lunches and shopping and coffee with girlfriends or dancing whenever I get the chance or just being randomly oggled or hit on in the streets - gender dysphoria no longer has its claws in me. Still, 23 months in and I didn't have another transgender person to call a friend outside the world wide web. I was starting to beat myself up pretty bad about that. I had heard mixed things about support groups and I was even beginning to think that, if I had made it this far without one support groups were probably not for me. But I was wrong, so very, very wrong x) My psychologist recently started doing her own support groups with her own clients. I told her I would attend the first meeting and then... well... at the last moment I got socially anxious and I... didn't. But when the chance rolled around again this time (the first Sunday of every month) I was determined to go. Like jumping into the deep end I just held my breath from my fears and I did it. I went. Oh my God. I'm not alone. Not only did everyone share similar stories of their journeys but for the first time I felt like my input was valuable! I had no problem speaking up and adding my two cents. Something that usually doesn't happen unless I have incredibly deep knowledge in a subject (like at work). Although, I guess - this being my life - I do have a pretty deep knowledge with it. I was still terrified at first, something I tried over the course of the few hours to overcome, and I think I did so successfully. By the end of the session I had been invited for drinks and had been chatted up by many of the others. But something was different throughout the experience... unlike any other social interaction I usually have in groups or with new people this never once felt threatening. Even getting over my fears felt worthwhile instead of potentially dangerous. That is a feeling that I want to carry on with me from now on The most incredible part of the whole experience was probably the thing that I feared the most actually coming true. I was always afraid that I would run into someone from my past who knew me before... and I did. Yet, it was nothing as I had expected. At 23 months of HRT I was the most "experienced" (using that loosely) of the folk there. Most everyone else was just starting hormones or were just starting to experience changes. I was the only one (so far!) to be fully out and living life this way without compromise. I can't wait to watch all of them change :3 With the person that I ran into... she was just starting... and going through what I remember to be the hardest phases of coming to grips with the whole experience. As she went to leave I had to pause a good conversation I was having with one of the women to go and say hello, thinking maybe she hadn't recognized me. She simply grabbed me in one of the most loving hugs I have had in my life and told me, "oh my God... This all makes so much sense, I had no idea...". We held in that embrace for what felt like forever and it felt so, so right. We went out for dinner following the meeting (I later brought her to my dance class. I'm so proud of her!) and she gave me her whole story. I felt so strongly connected to her that at points I cried during her story. Somehow... I think I always knew that we were connected on a deep level... even before either of us could have ever seen this day coming. That was last weekend. Since then I have had a few of the folks over to my place to play games and watch movies and today I met up with another wonderful person to take a spontaneous dance class in a discipline that neither of us had even heard of before x) Tomorrow we are going for a run around the seawall (although... I'll have my roller blades on) and then later I will meet up with my old friend to go and have a new experience yet again. It's been like a whirlwind, and all because I finally conquered my fear of others like me. I'm sure this won't be the end of all my troubles but right at this second I feel like I am floating in the clouds. I have never felt so accepted, conversation has never come so easy and no challenge seems to big. I am sure that my cisgender girlfriends accept me just as much (in fact, I know they do) but y'know... they've had a different experience out of life and this is just a whole new kind of friendship. Now is just the trouble to make sure I don't throw my whole life away in exchange for these new experiences xD Focus Mikah. Priorities! Balance! I feel so blessed to be living here in Vancouver where this is... well, a lot easier than it could be in a lot of places. I also feel incredibly strong for making it this far on my own and so relieved that now I don't have to carry the weight on my own. Finally! I'll conclude with just a picture of me after getting made over by some of my wonderful cisgender girlfriends while shooting a promo video for them. A snapshot - me at 23 months :)

Hi Eve, Sounds delightful to caravan in Holland, cook outside, and just take life a little slower. We love to "go camping" also, but we typically bring a tent, and especially like camping in and around Mendocino, California, with a view of the ocean. Have a blast and I look forward to hearing about your trip when you return. Hugs, Emma

Thought I show how involved I am with computer programming at Microsoft. I go by kevininstructor because my Microsoft handler said changing to say kareninstructor would throw people off. I did include my Facebook link though as it is no a upfront giveaway. https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Profile/kevininstructor

There is a person in my company who always talked to me prior to GRS then stopped afterwards. Finally she stopped me outside and said I have a question, "where do you get those cure outfits" So after replying we had a long discussion about my surgery and she said "you are very courageous" in how you came back to work and that you seem like you had always been female which I simply smiled. Having success with most co-workers did kind of bother me that she had not talked to me but now we are. So that leave just one co-worker who has not spoken to me since surgery.

Things that come to mind (and there are surely more) when announcing oneself to others is. Stereotypes learned from television, simply the fear of the unknown, they don't watch television and make something up in their own mind, religion, if God made you a male you have no right to change this. Religion played into my transition on at least three people in my case but all three came around in the end. They had the decency to meet with me and ask questions. The woman I wrote about never did but now she is a chatterbox in recent days.

Hi Emma, So sorry that you've been bullied by this person, it happens over here too, some of the full-time and fully transgendered, were quite "stand offish" with me when I made my first faltering steps as Trans, perhaps they needed to do this, to help convince themselves of their own "status" of being superior to me at that time. I remember thinking that it seemed to be hierarchical, something that I had not long left behind as a SCUBA Diver. Bluntly, it's distasteful, destructive, and saps what small amount of self confidence that someone starting out on their journey might possess........... Hugs, Eve

So, I had a follow-up appointment this week at Whitman-Walker. My blood tests came back normal, they received my recommendation letter from my therapist. I was prescribed T-blockers will get blood work again in three weeks and then if all goes well, start Estrogen two weeks after that (May 13th). So I have my script and I will pick it up tomorrow. I can't wait to get moving on this! All of the dark hairs did fall out two weeks after the laser. In the meantime, I don't need to wear so much makeup, which is awesome and makes me feel so much better. I had my therapy appointment. A lot of things happened this month that we covered. I am also going to start carrying recommendation and safety letters with me. Recommendation letters are for medical appointments, as needed. The safety letter if I get into a jam, particularly with law enforcement, for some other authority, should I need it (like getting pulled over). We also talked about coming out to my children, my pastor. After two years, my wife still hasn't seen me dressed. That is something I need to work on to set up a time with her to see me. I may just need to surprise her, but that is a last resort. I would rather not do that. I hope that everyone has had a good week. I love all of you! Lisa :)

Dear Lisa, I can't imagine your wife not seeing you dressed after two years, and having started transition no less. I agree that surprising her would likely backfire. I just hope you two can talk about it and set up a place and time for her to get to know the new you. I think that is a higher priority to discuss with your therapist than coming out to your children and pastor, but that's only my opinion and obviously don't walk in your shoes. Emma

Below is an email I sent to my therapist this morning in preparation for our couples meeting with my wife tomorrow evening. Names have been redacted or changed to protect the innocent. I imagine and hope we will have a great meeting tomorrow. Our therapist is remarkable how he helps us learn how to communicate better and, together, my wife and I are working through the scary assumptions and worries about what it means for me to realize I am transgender. As of this post it's been about seven months since coming out to my wife. It's been tough sledding especially early on but maybe we've progressed to a point where both of us will get our needs met and we'll remain happily together. I sure hope so. Hi Andrew, I have gender dysphoria. It's been hard for me to admit and accept but really, there's no denying it. There is no “cure,” no “fix.” Last night I read the WPATH Standards of Care (SoC). Didn't really learn much except that it's good to see, in one place, a comprehensive and professional look at what it is and recommendations on treatments for both MtF and FtM people. The dysphoria may be mitigated via a range of treatments/strategies such as: • Therapy • Occasional dressing, either in public or private • Living part- or full-time as the other gender • “Transition” o Hormones o Surgery Let’s start from the transition end of the spectrum. In my heart I know I wish I had been born and raised female. And maybe if I was in my teens or twenties now I would avail myself of the increased public acceptance of transgender people, perhaps living more openly and even considering transition. But at this stage of my life it doesn’t feel right – if it ever would have. Now, even with full hormones, surgeries (there would be several, for sure), and complete “passing” as a woman, I would still at heart be me. I can imagine myself on this treadmill of trying to achieve one more step toward being female but never achieving the unknowable, while also likely losing the one person who is most important to me in my life, Marie. Marie and I have been very close these last few days. Although we haven’t broached the “transgender subjects” at all my sense is that we’re coming to some level of acceptance. A couple of days ago she suggested that perhaps this Sunday I could return to living/sleeping in the master bedroom with her. I imagine that will be a topic for our couples meeting with you tomorrow evening. She and I have also talked about what we might do as early as a year from now, when the lease on her shop expires. Perhaps then we will pack up our house, rent it out, and move to Europe for a year or more. This has been a dream of ours for years. Thus, my returning to the master bedroom is a microcosm for our working out how we will live together as we move forward, traveling or even just at home when both of us are together all the time under the same roof. As I said at the start of this I do have gender concerns and I need to deal with them on some level (which is sill being determined). I think we need to bring this out in the open with Marie. I think a place to begin is with the term “crossdressing.” On previous occasions she has expressed her dismay and disapproval. And there’s no doubt in my mind that I would appear pretty odd to her when dressed in anything feminine. But given my gender dysphoria, why is it appropriate to label my dressing, either in bed, under my clothing, or even at some level of completeness (e.g., a dress with stockings, shoes, etc.), “crossdressing” at all? Am I not being (more) true to myself and that that is valid in its own right? For example, these days I am always wearing a nightgown and panties to sleep in. It feels good, right, comfortable. It eases my dysphoria, makes me feel better. It’s not erotic at all. I imagine all this will take some getting used to for both of us. But I think it’s an important bridge to cross for both Marie and me. But it's definitely a scary one. Hard for me to put myself out there in this way. I'm afraid of vulnerability, of being re-shunned, of Marie's being hurt, of being presented with still more unanswerable questions. Emma Photo: We were on a boat in South Africa, on a river in a place called Viljoensdrift. Just a pastoral setting, having a glass of local wine, watching the river bank drift by. Heavenly.

Hi Lisa, Thanks very much for your thoughts and advice. I am not contemplating transition at least right now. Trust me, I've really tried to figure out who and where I am. For like fifty years. I finally realized that I needed some space, time, and patience to explore. I can't do it all in my head. Please understand too, that it's a two way street. I have my issues, she has hers. I need to give her patience and understanding too. In the end, I hope, we will meet in the middle somewhere, with a stronger bond than ever before. Thanks again, Lisa, for your thoughtful comments. I hope all is going well with you. Emma

Wow. Quite a long post and comments. Wonderful! The core issue is acceptance and understanding. No logical argument can be applied to this. A person just needs to accept a person who is transgender and then seek understanding. That is where things become difficult. If you don't know who you are or where you are going and leave things open ended, a spouse will feel off-balance such that they do not know what to expect or know who you are as person. They will build walls because of lack of emotional trust. What has helped me, is that I always try to determine something concrete, what I know about myself that I can clearly communicate. And for all of the stuff that I don't know, that we will figure it out together. One thing that I have been very clear about these last six months is the following: either I need to figure out ways to cope or I will have to transition. Now, I consider myself, generally a very self-aware person. What I did not realize, but do now is that the anxiety which envelopes you when you can no longer cope is overwhelming. I just went through 3 weeks of hell. It is like getting thrown into the fire. I always thought that my decision to transition would come after careful evaluation and contemplation. It can happen that way, but ultimately the alternative happened in my case. At that point, you just give in. You have no choice. For many of us here who are contemplating transition, just be aware that this can happen. And let your spouses or SO's know that as well. So, that they can face this with you, with their eyes wide open knowing the worst possible outcome. They need to know how serious this really is! I've been through the ringer my entire life, but I had no idea that I would essentially have high anxiety and high blood pressure for 3 weeks. It could have killed me. I almost blacked out driving my car, etc. Bad stuff. Anyways, Emma be brave. I didn't mean to scare you and I hope I helped. It scared me, so I feel scared for everyone else.

Christie, I am so proud of you! You are doing great!

That's so nice! It really does just take some people time, but I guess the silver lining in that is that you get additional moments like this.

Best wishes, Karen, and good luck with the new language! :)

Karen, We understand and look forward to your return! Monica

Karen, Upgrades. You have my condolences! Best of luck! We'll leave a light on for ya ! Veronica.

Monica, I agree with you. She's an older woman (about 70, I think) and I guess she was caught flat-footed. Before we went to dinner (while the meeting was adjourning) I noticed that her lips were kind of trembling. At the time I assumed it was kind of an older-woman's twitch if you know what I mean, but when we were at dinner she asked me how I was doing. I told her that I was fine (and the transwoman in question was sitting next to me and I didn't want to get into another confrontation anyway). In hindsight I could have asked Judy (the therapist) how she was doing since evidently she was also affected by the whole thing. Anyway, she promised to follow up and I'm hopeful it will all blow over. The other two transwomen in last night's meeting are delightful and I enjoy their company a lot. Emma

Emma, in a group therapy situation it is the THERAPIST'S JOB to maintain an EMOTIONALLY SAFE atmosphere! Monica

So I have a message to you all, believe in yourself, be who you really are. I need to remember this. It's what I'm trying to do, learn who I am and be okay with being myself. I'm making progress but last night at the TG Support Group a transitioned transwoman in her 70s got all confrontational with me, accusing me of not being women enough, feminine-enough, trans-enough, committed enough to being transgender. It hurt me deeply. I countered her politely enough (which was hard) and this morning wrote an email to the therapist who leads the meeting. Here's a short excerpt: I suppose she has her own issues and maybe that's one reason she attends the group. On the way to our cars A___ kindly patted me on the back for standing up to J___, saying she needs to be taken down a peg or two from time to time. Fine, but that's no excuse for J___'s being a bully. We all have our conceptions of what it means to be feminine based on inner feelings, observations, and perhaps some wishful thinking. To me, part of being feminine means it's okay to be lighthearted and sweet, vulnerable and feeling, sensitive and caring. The therapist wrote back saying she was also deeply disturbed by the confrontation. (I wonder why she didn't say anything last night but I imagine she was flabbergasted.) Anyway I'm sorry if I'm stealing from your parade. Like everyone here I share in their congratulations and support of your progress. Emma

Great ideas for blogging Lori, I'll give 'em a shot! Thanx!

Dear Ms. emttracy you are a very rich woman! Know why to have had a friend like Tracy in your life.I 'm deeply sorry for your loss. I apologize for not seeing this post quicker, and responding. Hope I don't bring up a sad moument. maybe you have room in your heart for a new special friend??? Best wishes