So I’m going to be seeing the city’s gender therapist in October, though I’ve already been referred to an endocrinologist for November. So starting testosterone will be a little while, but not that long!
My social transition is pretty much entirely figured out and I’m starting high school with my middle name changed in the entire system as well as my gender; I’m going to be stealth for at least the first few months if all goes well.
I’m actually just really excited and pleased with everything. I finally found a binder that works perfectly for me (the Underworks tri-top) and it’s great. My parents are still on board and are very supportive and I’m regularly attending a trans youth group which has been a lot of help, I think. One thing I’m glad about is that all of this hasn’t brought around a lot of change in my life in terms of my interactions with people, my school/home life, etc., but I do feel more confident and I feel like I’m finally able to be who I really am and not hide behind a mask anymore. I can’t begin to describe just how liberating the whole experience is.
That’s about it. I’m actually pretty excited about everything.
I have an appointment in August to figure out some stuff with transitioning and hopefully I can get started on T in about a month. It just depends on how things are going, though. Sounds like I’ll be starting pretty soon though, which is great. I’m actually less freaked out about getting a needle than I was because I’ve been reading so much about how great testosterone sounds and I’m just so excited to start.
As far as non-medical transitioning is going, I’ve gotten another binder that I really like. I like Underworks a lot. I also got an STP device; I don’t really care about packing, to be honest, and going in a stall isn’t really a big deal for me, but it’s going to be weird at high school if I do and I’d probably just feel more comfortable with it anyway.
I went to a group for transguys a while back too and it was really nice to be able to talk to some other people and share some experiences, so I’ll probably do that again.
My mom just came up to me out of the blue today and told me that if I wanted to start packing that it was A-okay with her and that she’d buy me whatever I needed. She didn’t make a big deal out of it or anything. Not sure if that’s something I’d like to start just yet, but still awesome.
I feel bad for anyone who doesn’t live in Edmonton. The only two gender specialists who are able to start people on T or do anything else related to physical transitioning reside here, so people who live in other parts of Alberta literally have to drive down for their appointments with these people, and one of them only works one day a week.
So the better of the two gender specialists, of course, has an 8 month minimum waiting list. My therapist said “I’ll see what I can do” and I have an appointment with this guy in 3 weeks because of my way too excellent therapist. Basically, the waiting list applies mostly to adults, however it’s still pretty long; thankfully my therapist is very well-known in the medical community and yeah. I’m really stoked to get to go see this guy because we can figure out everything related to transitioning.
Where I live you can start on T at a very young age and you can get top surgery as early as sixteen. Because bottom surgery’s so experimental and has such a high complication rate, I don’t really want to get it anyway; most of my body dysphoria stems from my chest. I might be able to be completely happy with my body in a matter of a few years. I hope to be starting on T pretty soon, though it kind of sucks that you have to receive it via injection since I have a pretty serious needle phobia. My mom can inject it though, she’s completely capable of that, so that might help a little bit. I don’t really want to go to the doctors or do self injections.
So I completely lucked out in the transitioning department. At the very least I’ll be on estrogen blockers very soon, but I’ll probably start my legitimate transition soon enough as well. I’ll also blog about my social transition here in high school (I’m identifying as male right off the bat, I took summer school gym so there’s no change room dilemmas either) which I’m really excited about.
So fucking stoked.
