Because this situation has just come up for me...

[snakey]

What's the most useful advice you can think of to give someone who knows they want to transition, but is terrified?

What do you wish someone had said to you?

Comments

[ceri]

Since it came up...

I feel a lot of nervousness about that. I mean, I'm an early-middled aged, way overweight person who looks like another guy who missed the turn-off for Microsoft. :) I feel, well, somewhere on the spectrum from "silly" to "pathetic" speaking of myself out loud as a woman. It works with people I deal with online, several of whom say they find it a good match for how I've always come across in text. But in person?

Part of it is that I have the long-time disabled person's resentment of the basically healthy people who traipse into a support group feeling that whatever basically trivial complaint they have is just as serious as full-blown fibromyalgia, or rapidly degenerating multiple sclerosis, or whatever. I don't want to be one of Those People.

Should I pull this out into a separate post?

[auntysarah]

I feel a lot of nervousness about that. I mean, I'm an early-middled aged, way overweight person who looks like another guy who missed the turn-off for Microsoft. :) I feel, well, somewhere on the spectrum from "silly" to "pathetic" speaking of myself out loud as a woman. It works with people I deal with online, several of whom say they find it a good match for how I've always come across in text. But in person?

I sympathise. Some support groups are toxic, for sure, but the one I mostly have experience with, TransLondon, has a number of members who probably fit into a similar category. A lot of trans women have been there, and while it can feel like it at times, you are not alone.

[ceri]

Oh, I didn't think I was alone in it by any means. I'll ask local contacts. I don't know anyone trans living in Seattle, but know trans people who know others here.

[ftmichael]

See http://t-vox.org/ for groups, Trans-friendly therapists, etc. in your area. I hear Seattle has a good, and reasonably big, Trans community.

[ceri]

Ah! Thank you!