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Monday morning, first thing, I had an appointment with a GP. Not my GP but one at my practice. She was lovely. She was also not 100% surprised when I told her I was trans and that I wanted her to refer me to a GIC. She said that I was the third person in the past couple of months who had approached her about the same thing. There's more of us around, these days, it seems... Personally, I think it's just people like me, getting braver or at least less scared to poke their head above the parapet. The doc then went on to suggest that "Gender Services" in my area (those were her words, not mine) are really poor (I knew that already, of course, having done some research) and that it would take a while to get an appointment with gender identity specialists, but, in the meantime she would do two things. Firstly, she would get me an appointment with a psychologist, asap. I kind of expected that, although I'm not too thrilled about the thought of analysing my life with a stranger, only to have to do it all again when I do get to sit in front of a gender specialist. Secondly, the doc said she would call a meeting with all the other docs in the practice and work on a strategy for trans people who approach them in future, because she knows these docs are not being as useful as they should be right now. She wants to get all the GPs together to agree to a unified approach and get them all up to speed on what's available, what they should be doing, providing, etc. Which can't be a bad thing. So, although I'm still no better off, the fact that I turned up on Monday and she knew she couldn't help immediately means she has been spurred on to do something about it. Hopefully that will happen. I'm gonna make another appointment to see her in a couple of weeks. Monday night, I attended my first FtM group meeting at the local LGBT centre. There were around eighteen of us, and when the guy who was running it asked, "Who's new tonight?" around half of us stuck our hands up. So I didn't feel out of place on that front. I did feel out of place on the age front - they were all so much younger than me. But I was pretty pleased about that, in a funny way. Because, when I thought about it, that meant they had most of their lives ahead of them to live in the way they were supposed to live - as men. Me? I've lived over half my life already. Faking it as a woman. It was a really good evening. Everyone was so nice and friendly. I'm going to make it a regular thing. They also have social evenings where significant others can join. My husband's looking forward to that. Work was crazily busy this week. Again. For two solid weeks, I've hardly had time to breathe. I've been falling asleep in front of the TV at night. But I feel more relaxed, even with the pressure of the workload. I'm sleeping better than I have in ages. The "coming out" call at work (the one I did last week) was recorded at the time, and this week the LGBT network sent out the replay details to everyone, so I've had a few more emails, messages and phone calls about it. All very positive and encouraging, which was nice. They're going to run a follow up call in early December and they've invited external speakers from Stonewall and GIRES as well as other helpful bodies who can provide advice. I've been invited to take part again; they want to run a Q&A session. Goodness only knows what kind of questions I'll be asked. Hopefully only polite ones. Since I started to come out more and more, I've had a couple of awkward questions. Well, frankly, rude questions. One person asked me how I have sex. I told them it was none of their business. Another asked me how big my d**k is. For a moment, I was tempted to ask, "Which one?" Just to confuse them. In the end, I settled for, "It'll never be as big as yours, because you're just one huge d**k, aren't you?" I know, I know. I need to get myself in check. I'm sure I'll be asked worse things than that before all this is over.

Since I am leaving for a week long trip in Seattle I wanted my hair to look great so I went to the hair salon to have a professional conditioning done and bangs trimmed. They wash my hair, put the conditioner in then under a dryer. When I get out from the dryer one of the regular stylist comes over and says "I didn't see you come in or see your name in the computer, how are you?" We chatted for a bit then we get talking about sex and trade a few stories having great jiggling going on. This leads into her asking me, is sex better as a man or a female? I said the male side is pretty much the majority of pleasure is when climaxing while as a female my entire body is involved and last longer but not very much sensation inside as most is from my clit but this may change as my surgeon indicated it may take up to a year to have sensation inside. Then we get into a conversation about how she feels about men in general and we go down that path with me providing perspective from living on both sides of the fence. One of the other stylist heard me at one point talking about my new Miata and one thing lead to another and I took the one (whom I mentioned above) out for a spin in my car. As she was getting out of the car she said she always enjoys talking with me which made me feel good. So now I need to do some packing even though I don't leave for my trip until early Sunday morning I am the type to be ready well in advance.

Interesting in that there are people who will ask questions like, how big is it and how do you have sex. For me, I have only discussed these things with very close friends and have not had anyone ask me these question who are simply co-workers. If they do ask I would change the topic and if that did not work would simply say it's none of your business.

Which gender asked you the rude questions? hmmm, reading your reply I suspect male homo - ignoramus. Similar to Karen I've never been asked such personal questions........... were the questions from a co-worker or public no-body? No you don't have to get yourself in check, stand up for yourself, I think I'd probably have said something far worse........ Glad the rest of it seems to be on-track, but I do know what you mean about psychologists, and psychiatrists are worse believe me......... but if you are referred to ChX GIc they are overall a pretty friendly lot. please keep us posted. Cheers, Eve

This has to be the most important, exciting and scary time of my life, not really scary, at least not so much anymore. And this has been a whirlwind of work, emotion, physicality, oh and money. About the only people I see are doctors, but every time I see one I am a little closer to being the girl I have wanted to be for 67 years. I was born into a world that didn't even acknowledge 'sex' and my family certainly did believe that if you didn't talk about it it didn't exist. So all the signs of my gender issues were ignored, or ridiculed. My mother had to know, I was always into her clothes. I know I felt the shame that was put on me for not being the way a male should be. I had never seen any else like me, and the whole idea of Transgender was only known to a few. I seriously did not meet another trans person until just a month or so ago, I had no idea that I was not a complete freak of nature and all alone! God has the world changed! I have been bursting with thoughts and emotions that I really need to share, I hope this might help with that. Even if I am only writing to myself, it will help. Not many people ever saw the real thru my younger years, although there have have always been those who did see right into me and knew. I don't think I went out in public as a woman before I was 19. Then the first big influence on my life appeared, LSD! I had been really shy, introverted, insecure, ashamed, just totally enclosed, in my cocoon! When I 'turned on tuned in and dropped obeing bornut' I become proud of my 'two spirits' and gained confidence and opened up and presented the girl in me to the world. I mostly fought with that world, combating ignorance and peoples natural fear of the unknown. I didn't live in any of the few places were the LGBTQ community was being born, I was out in the suburbs of LA, The only T-girl on the streets! I was wild, and was told I was scary quite a bit, I was mad at world and it showed. I did feel that I was more than everybody else, I felt things that men don't know, and of course I learned everything it took to be 'a man'. Men don't understand, but some do. I was very grateful for the men that passed thru my life. I spent 30 years being 'that guy who dresses and acts like a girl' in a world that hadn't heard the phrase Gender Identity Disorder. I had heard only of 1 person, Christine Jorgensen, who had this 'sex change operation', The idea was amazing to me, but there was no way I ever saw that I could get on that road. So for 30 years I found comfort and courage in drugs and my clothes, and my dreams . . .