Hey all, as I’ve been thinking about who I want to be and how I want to transition, I’ve gotten to wondering about people’s transition timelines in general. If it’s something you’re comfortable talking about, how long did it take you from realizing your trans to taking steps to transition? When did you start using different pronouns, when did you come out to people, how long did it take you to know you wanted HRT and then to start it?
I realized I wasn’t cis a few months ago, and have been growing my hair out and experimenting with clothing. I know I want to get permanent facial hair removal, and am interested in HRT but have reservations, and would value hearing others experiences about how long it took them to know what they wanted. I’m a very hesitant and self-doubtful person in general, and I guess just feel a bit lost in how to go about self discovery here.
Editing to say thank you very much all for sharing, seeing how different everyone’s experiences can be is honestly really comforting.
I realized I was a woman and wanted to transition at the very end of 2014. I took beginning steps January of 2015, telling my therapist and getting a referral to a psych. I saw him like 2 or 3 weeks later and he diagnosed me with gender identity disorder and I got a referral to an endo. I started experimenting with names and pronouns in January/February. I think I told my closest family, my grandparents, in March or April. I saw the endo in the middle of May and he gave me prescriptions of Estradiol and Spironolactone which I started taking that day.
This was during an interesting time when the process was pretty streamlined and gatekeeping was relaxed a lot. It was worse before and has become worse since then. So, from realization to taking my first dose was a period of ~5 1/2 months. I had just turned 18. But I had had dysphoria since I was a very young child. I’d already been to the therapist for years. There was a long history of me having gender problems. No one ever told me I could transition, though, and I didn’t know much if anything about trans people. I knew that trans women existed, but I did not know about or understand reassignment surgery or hormone replacement. When I discovered what HRT was I very badly wanted to be on it and did as much as I could to push for it.
I didn’t go full time and come out at work until I had been on E for a couple years. It’s normal to do it in stages. I even detransitioned briefly early on due to self-doubt. Stopped taking hormones and everything. It’s okay to not immediately be 100% sure.