Chrissy

Hi all, I just wanted to do a quick post, yesterday was "officially" my 2 year anniversary of transitioning. I arguably started before that, but August 10, 2015 is when I began "presenting full-time" as a woman, and I haven't looked back :-) It was shortly (like days) after that I started on HRT. It's also now been almost a year since my breast augmentation surgery. When I look back, especially in the approach to my GCS (in December last year) I remember thinking about whether or not I would regret it. I really didn't believe I would, I think it was just that even the remotest possibility of that could have been devastating (since GCS is, for all practical purposes, irreversible). I haven't spend even a short moment of regret, so that fear didn't come to pass. The only moment that was even like it (but wasn't regret) was after 2 days of bed rest after surgery when I first had to stand up - it was such a weird, disorienting, uncomfortable feeling that I remembered wondering why I would have done this to myself - but that was just a response to how I felt at the moment, it wasn't a regret about what the surgery was for. I think the key for me to not being in a position where I would regret anything was that I took my time. It may not seem like it, given how much happened in just 2 years (and I recognize that objectively that is a pretty quick transition time), but when you're actually living it day to day, it's a pretty long time. But the process also mattered - at each point I took a small step, I figured out how I felt about it, and if it felt right, I took the next small step. I didn't try to immerse myself in living as a woman (not that that can't be the right approach for others, but this is what worked for me). The first few steps were in simpler acts of feminizing my look, until it drifted to a point where I had to go full on. Even then I was fortunate to have a friend who did a drag show and she let me guest perform, which gave me a "safe" place to present as a woman in front of a bunch of people. I did that quite a few times (she was really amazing, she pretty much let me guest perform whenever I wanted, I give her so much credit for helping me through the transition process). Each step not only felt right, but it felt like it wasn't enough, so moving on to the next step was easy, even necessary. I recall at an early early part of the process a good friend asked if I thought I would get "bottom surgery," and I said, totally sincerely, "probably not." I meant it completely at the time, but through the process that I went through I came to realize that it was something I wanted. One important thing that I've learned (or at least tried to learn) over time is to be aware of my privilege. I'm not Caitlyn Jenner, I'm not a rich white woman who could basically disappear and then re-emerge a few months later as a woman - I had to do it in real life, I had to transition while going to work, while riding the subway, while grocery shopping, etc. But still, I was fortunate to have insurance that covered most of the expenses (and the benefit of working in New York, where insurance companies are required to cover transition expenses). I also had a job that was not only ok with my transition, I think they really liked that I was doing it. And I was especially privileged in having close friends who were totally supportive and helped in so many ways as I worked through the process (especially my friend who was thrilled to have a new make-up shopping buddy and to share her knowledge of doing make-up). I'm also fortunate to have this website and the collective experience of everyone on it! There are so many people who don't have that kind of access and that kind of support - so I'm always looking for ways to help out (not financially unfortunately, being a full time college student doesn't leave me with much - any - discretionary spending money). Ways to be supportive individually, and ways to advocate more publicly for changes that will benefit transgender people with less resources (right now we have to fight Trump to just not lose ground - but there's always room for improvement). So that's all I have for this anniversary edition :-) xoxo Chrissy

Brew, I've experienced acid reflux, still do, it's not fun! The steps you're taking sound good! I also found that stopping eating earlier (several hours before bed) helps, and Prilosec (though that isn't a great long term solution). Over time I've also figured out, and try to avoid, foods that I know will trigger it (sadly that includes ice cream). Good luck with your efforts! Chrissy

Emma, That doesn't sound negative at all A recurring theme in the past school year was about the importance of self-care, and I think that's exactly what you're talking about. It's important for everyone (social work adds to it since you're daily working with others and their problems, but still, it's a universal need). And I think that's essentially what I've been trying for since classes ended, in this space in time before the fall semester ends. I just want to get a little better sense of what's holding me back and what I can do to resolve that (in addition to just taking it easy for a bit!) xoxo Chrissy

​Thank you for this feedback :-) I have thought about the fact that my parents undoubtedly had their own issues, and I don't think there was anything intentional or willful about what they did (or didn't do). I'm pretty sure my mother suffered from depression for some period of her life, and given the time it wasn't addressed (it was during a period when you still didn't want to acknowledge that kind of thing). That's why a key moment for me was to put that behind and just focus on where I am now and what I can do about it :-)

Hi everyone, This started as a journal entry for myself, but I decided that it would be better to put out in the “public” instead. My summer classes ended on July 11, and the fall semester doesn’t start until the end of August – leaving a “void” of about a month and a half (I had hoped to find work to fill in that time, but that didn’t happen). Before it started I had been at times excited about the “void,” and at times terrified – and for the same reason. I knew that this would be a good time to do some personal reflection. The past year has been pretty big, as I’ve talked about in other posts – leaving my job, going back to school, and having breast augmentation surgery and GCS. The GCS was probably the biggest, but with being in school and dealing with recovery, there wasn’t much time to reflect. Anyway – in an earlier post I mentioned that I considered GCS to be effectively the end of my transition (it isn’t really, but going forward there aren’t a lot of active decisions to make) and the beginning of my “evolution” (as I called it). This turned out to be more meaningful, and far more difficult than I thought at the time. I think the way I described it was that I had transitioned to become a woman (physically) now it was time to see what I wanted to do with my life as a woman. There is so much tied up in this that it’s hard to know where to start – obviously the big “mistake” in my life was that I was identified and lived as the wrong gender for my entire life until I was about 48 years old. That fact alone makes it hard to just pick up and live. But in that are also the many, many decisions I made over time that were directly or indirectly linked to my gender dysphoria. There are far too many of those decisions to try to sort through, and I doubt it would be worthwhile if I could. One part of me wonders what my life would be like if I had realized much earlier that I was a woman and been allowed to live that way – but the more reasonable part of me realizes that doesn’t really matter, I can’t achieve that now, I can move back to some point in the past and do it over again. A big problem now is the feeling that I can’t, or rather won’t, move forward. It seems strange considering how much I’ve accomplished over the past couple of years, but I don’t believe in my own ability to move forward from here. I’m able to almost dismiss the past couple of years as having simply erased a deficit rather than actually advancing in life. And it’s not that I don’t think I have the ability to do the things that I want to do, it’s that I don’t believe I have the will to do it, which I think comes down to lack of self-care, lack of self-love. Which brings me to the main point of this post, “Childhood Emotional Neglect.” In concept I’ve been aware of this for some time, I just recently came across that specific name for it. It’s basically the idea that your parents didn’t give you enough emotional attention as a child and so you don’t develop proper emotional health for yourself. I realize this sounds like – and truly is – another “blame the parents” approach. I truly have moved past that point, with help from my former therapist. In one session I talked about how I thought my parents had failed, vs my sister who felt like they did the best they could. My therapist responded with “they might have done the best they could, but you needed more.” Which was a very helpful way of reconciling the past and bringing up to today – they probably did fail me, that isn’t going to change, so I have to fix it now. I’ll stop my rambling now J That’s the point I’m at right now, and I hope to use the rest of my time until school starts to process some more of this. While writing a paper last semester I was doing a review of an article about working with transgender clients which pointed out that “completing” physical transitioning is not the end of the process, which I was very happy to see addressed, it truly isn’t the end, it’s yet another beginning, and often (always?) a pretty scary one. xoxo Chrissy

I never thought I'd say this, but congrats on getting slimed

Charlotte, That's so nice about the riders, it must have felt nice ☺ Sorry about the other incidents, it's horrible but it is a reality for trans people. I wish I had something more inspiring to fall back on but I can say that in my experience the positives about living an authentic life far outweigh the bad. Stay strong! Xoxo Chrissy

Hi all, My birthday is technically still 2 days away, but since I have access to a computer right now I thought I'd do this now. It seems like a good moment to just reflect on the past few years. First a quick timeline! March 2015 - this isn't really the beginning of the story, but this is when I actually recognized that I am transgender, and then shared that with my therapist. There was about a year or two of cross-dressing and exploring that lead to this point. One vital take-away is that from this moment on a lifetime of depression went away. I'm not saying I haven't been depressed about things since then, but the underlying, existential depression I experienced until then was gone - I stopped asking myself "Why can't I just be right?" August 2015 - I began "presenting full-time" as a woman, both at work and everywhere else. Working at a school helped this as the school was pretty empty during the summer, so I had time to acclimate without a bunch of faculty and students around. Also during this month I started taking hormones. July 2016 - I left my job to go back to school. I had been planning to go to school anyway, but part-time. My employer needed to reduce staffing, so they offered a buy-out which made my school decision easier ("easier"). It was still a tough choice to make - I had been there 10 years, it was secure, I had no idea what would happen if I left. I eventually spoke with my best friend on the phone about it (he had moved out to LA recently) and he asked "in 5 years what do you want to be looking back at?" - my decision was made. August 2016 - I had my breast augmentation surgery. September 2016 - I started school, pursuing a Masters in Social Work at NYU. For so long I had been trying to figure out what I really wanted to do in life, this choice seemed so obvious after I made it, but I know I couldn't have made this choice before coming out and transitioning. December 2016 - I had my GCS - YAY!!! May 2017 - finished first year of school - YAY!!! And that brings us to today. A lot has happened, and I'm thrilled with it, but I know that more still has to happen. For one thing I don't think I've quite fully internalized my own sense of being a woman, at times I still feel like an imposter. I suppose after living for 48 years identifying as a man it's bound to take some time. My recent decision to stop wearing wigs helped - I had put too much of my gender identity into them. I still very much fear being alone forever. I often find myself thinking that no man will ever accept me as a woman and be in a relationship. There is something to it, there are definitely men who would run away from the idea of dating a transgender person, but I also know that some of that thinking is part of what I said just before about not fully accepting myself as a woman. There's work to be done. I wonder if my sister will ever come around. I'd prefer to think that I'm fine just leaving her behind, but I know I'm not. We never had a very, very close relationship, but we generally had a good relationship and I miss that. I also know that I made the choice, I told her I didn't want to hear from her until and unless she was ready to accept me as a woman, and I can't back away from that. I'm often unwilling to accept some things that are simply true and can't be changed - they all focus around the fact that I was not born a cisgender female, and I will never have been. As a result I will physically never be a cisgender female, I will never have the experiences that a girl has growing up, etc. It's silly to reject those facts, but I still try sometimes. So that's more or less where I am right now - see what happens in the next year :-) xoxoxo Chrissy

Wow, I didn't realize the number was that high. I haven't given them up entirely, I just need to know that I'm wearing them as a choice, not because I feel less like a woman without. I know that's not objectively true - I'm every bit as much a woman with or without a wig - but it's a self-perception I need to work through.

A "pixie cut" seems to be a good option for those things ☺

Hi everyone, I took a somewhat unexpected next step on Friday - and it came with a pretty big bit of self-realization. Since I started wearing a wig regularly (going on 2 years now) I've been rather relaxed about haircuts. The last couple of haircuts were self-inflicted - I mean "self-done" - and so my natural hair has, I'm sure, not looked so great. But it didn't matter, nobody was seeing it - even if I just went downstairs for laundry, etc., I'd at least wear a baseball cap. It occurred to me that if I actually met someone and started dating, they would eventually need to see it. So I've known for a little while that I at least needed to get a real haircut and not keep doing it myself. At a practical level I wasn't sure how that would work - would I go someplace without a wig on to get it done? Unlikely. Would I wear it and take it off when I got there? That seemed likely, but possibly awkward. I had lunch with a friend on Friday (Bastille Day!!!) and mentioned all of this, and showed her a picture I had found on-line of a hair style that I thought might work for me (BTW, my hair is quite thin, and there is some male-pattern baldness, that's what's made going natural so difficult for me). She agreed with the style, and with my "plan" to go to Supercuts after our lunch. To help me along she insisted that I send her a selfie when I was done :-) I like that kind of thing, being "backed into a corner" helps overcome any last-minute jitters. So I went to Supercuts. There was one guy and two women doing hair - I was hoping not to get the guy - I didn't. I explained to the person who did my hair that the last cuts had been my own before I took the wig off, and I showed her the picture I found. I knew she couldn't do exactly what was in the picture, I don't have enough hair :-( But she got the idea, she knew what I was going for, and she did a great job!!! I had fully anticipated that I would put the wig back on when we were done, but then I didn't, I went home "natural" (and mind you this was in the city, so "going home" involved a 10 minute walk in Manhattan to the PATH train, a 20 minute train ride, then a 10 minute walk home). It's not my "fantasy" hair style, but I'm not likely to ever have that (see above re "not enough hair", plus I don't think the Farrah hairstyle is so popular these days). Below is a picture I took after I got home (so my hair was dry). A "pixie cut" as I came to learn is what it's called :-) Pardon the exposed bra strap and lack of any make-up! The self-realization happened because as I was walking home I felt a sense of liberation from not wearing a wig. I realized that I had let my wig(s) represent my gender - subconsciously I only felt like a woman with a wig on. Not that I won't ever wear them again, but I need to work through this (especially now that I'm on summer break, so I have some freedom to ease in). Friday night I had to make a trip to Rite Aid, so I decided to do it without a wig. Then yesterday when I went to play tennis I didn't wear it, and again today I went to the gym and the supermarket without it. It really does feel good, it feels like another step towards authenticity :-) ***Please know that I'm not criticizing wearing wigs!!! I know a lot of trans people do, and obviously I was for 2 years and probably will continue to do so. I just personally need to know that I'm fully me with or without it*** Here's a pic - And unrelated to this post - here is a picture of Cinammon. I got her a few days before my GRS (at Duane Reade when I was getting my surgery-related prescriptions), she went with me to Philadelphia for the surgery, was with me through the entire recovery and ever since :-) Particularly in the few weeks right after surgery, when I couldn't really write in a journal, I often talked with her about things that I was feeling...she's a great listener, she doesn't judge, she just smiles :-) xoxo Chrissy

There's definitely no such thing as too late . We always have the rest of our lives. I def find it easier to live healthier being out and transitioned - nothing like living authentically to get you to care more about your health!

So sorry you had to experience that. I'm sure most of us live with the realization/fear of being rejected for our identity, and the actual experience of it, but to have it put to you so directly must be difficult. The closest I've come to this is with my sister - no letter, but a couple of phone calls and a text established that she didn't accept my gender identity, we don't speak anymore. I guess I would just try to remember that even though the person who sent you the letter referred to "others" being upset or offended, they were really only speaking for themselves. Xoxo Chrissy

I wish I was close enough to take your class :-)

Charlotte, Good luck with your efforts! Very worthwhile. Is it a 2 year wait for anything specific, or is that for any medical transitioning? That is a long wait - on the other hand, it seems like it's probably more available than it is in the US to many. I'm not trying to one-up you, just to say that it seems neither country is quite getting it right yet. Chrissy

Hi all, It took me a little to figure out how to get my pics on here (apparently I can't do it on my phone, it has to be on a computer so that I can resize the pics). Below are three pics - two of them show the top that I wore for Pride - they gave us the t-shirts for marching with NYU, I modified mine, cuz ya know, boobs. It worked out nicely since the "Y" in "NYU" is centered so that I could cut the V into the top of it. One of these also shows the Trans pride flag that I had for the march :-) The march itself was fun, except for the beginning. We met at our staging area at 3:30 p.m. and didn't step off until 5:30 - it gets really hard standing around one area for 2 hours! But it was a lot of fun marching with NYU (this is the only year that I could do it as a current student, I didn't want to miss that). We had a couple of hundred people show up for our contingent (apparently about 1000 signed up, not all showed up of course). I broke off at around 7:00 (we were a little more than 1/2 way done with the march). Pattaya (my friend who does drag, who used to let me guest perform at her shows all the time) was doing a show at Le Singe Vert that ended at 8, so I didn't want to miss it. The last picture is of the two of us :-) So overall a good experience - I probably won't march again though, I'll just watch, it's more fun :-) But this was the first Pride that I could do as physically a complete woman, so marching seemed right :-) It also helped me overcome some of the ambivalence I have over identifying as transgender. When it came down to it, I marched carrying a trans pride flag, so clearly I'm ok identifying as such. xoxo Chrissy

This is such a great, concise way of summing up the experience of transitioning. I've said a number of times to friends that the past couple of years have been the most amazing, and the most terrifying years of my life - and neither term adequately expresses the actual feelings behind them. I hope that the "I'll be fine" part continues to outweigh the "but..." part! Xoxo Chrissy

Welcome to TGGuide! I look forward to hearing about your transition :-) Xoxo Chrissy

Hi all, Sunday is NY Pride, it will be my first as a physical woman!!! Last year I was presenting full-time, but no surgeries yet. The year before was more of a gender-bending year. I'll post pics - I'm marching with NYU, so I have the shirt they gave us - I altered it to make it a v-neck, I wanted cleavage 😛 Xoxo Chrissy

If it is a side effect that will go away hopefully it will taper over time so that you won't have to wait 2 weeks to see :-(

Accusing you of lying was very unprofessional. I'm sorry that you had to experience that. Unfortunately psychiatrists are more medically trained so sometimes they aren't as good at actual therapy. I agree with Emma about speaking with the psychiatrist privately but realize that your age and guardianship status might make that impossible. If it's not possible then I just encourage you to remember that you will reach a point when you can act by yourself for yourself! It might seem far off, but it will happen. In the meantime at least you have some outlet for personal expression at school and you have this community here 😀 Xoxo Chrissy

I know you said you can't afford to change, and I don't know all of what your therapy involves, but if there is any way to make a change I would do it. Not respecting your gender and name is simply unacceptable. What kind of professional background does she have? I can't speak to other professions, but if she is a social worker she's violating professional ethics.

Welcome to TGGuide! It sounds like you have some real challenges, I'm sure you'll find a lot of support here

Hi everyone, Since I took another step in socializing today, I thought I'd post something about that topic generally. Before coming out and transitioning, I had identified as a gay man. As such, my social life was largely built around the "gay community." I hadn't thought too much about that initially, since coming out and transitioning are pretty time-consuming for a while, and it was generally easier to do that while staying within a familiar social environment. But I knew it was going to have to change - although I admit to having some thoughts in the past about seeing it being Lesbian could work for me, I knew it wasn't right (I was leaning that way because (1) I have a little bi-sexual tendency, and (2) I thought it would be easier to meet a woman who would accept me as a woman in a romantic relationship than a straight man). Anyway - since I would like to date at some point, and even be in a relationship, I knew that I was going to have to break out of the LGBTQ "bubble" that I was in, and I have taken some steps. It helped that I did have a couple of straight female friends. And then of course I started school so I started meeting new people, many of them straight. Then, for after-school relaxation I started going to a little jazz bar in the Village. Today I took an even bigger step - at least in my head - I had joined a new tennis league (I had already belonged to an LGBT tennis group), and today I had my first match with someone from that group. I'm in a women's division, so initially that's who I'm going to meet, but that's a good starting place. It made me a little anxious since she had no way of knowing that I'm transgender going in, and not knowing how she might react. Well, she didn't. There was absolutely no awkwardness, it was great - and it was a really good tennis match (we had to play all 3 sets, and we were going point for point most of the way). There are still temptations to reach back and cling to the social world that I knew - but I have to give up some of that (not all of it, I'm not just ditching all of my friends!) xoxo Chrissy

When I did my legal name change last year I had a count of 50+ places that I had to make the update (then I stopped counting, it was too stressful), but you're right, it does keep coming up. I haven't even thought as much about who has records of my gender! (Aside from the obvious ones, drivers license, birth certificate, etc.). When I contacted North Carolina State Univ. (where I did my undergrad) to change my name they actually asked if I wanted to update my gender as well - it hadn't occurred to me that they would even have that, but it makes sense. I throw that story in partly to show that even in North Carolina not everyone is transphobic :-) (Of course my sister lives there now, and she is transphobic, oh well)