Transition process so far

 So this is actually more of an information post to catch people up or inform on the medical process up to this point. I know I had to do a little more research than I wanted to since transitioning is still kind of political and thus finding accurate information in harder then expected.

1) I knew I should transition to female because my entire life I related to female rather than male. It is actually some of my earliest memories of feeing I'd be happier as a girl. Many times I've found myself compressing how I normally would act just because it violated social norms. I did experient with dressing from early on and did so off an on for the first half of my life. I didn't transition earlier because I felt logically it would make more sense to give trying the way I was born a real chance before actually fixing it. Though I don't regret that decision, I do wish I started earlier. Almost every day of my life I considered something about transitioning to female. Since starting estrogen I haven't had those 2nd thoughts once.

Sexually wise I've never been interested in gay/lesbian porn but more straight orientated porn. Anything sexual, I imagined myself in the female role. I never looked at porn or anything sexual in my entire life relating to the male. I did try to confuse earlier thoughts of being attracted to women as proof that things were right, but that attraction was more admiring/comparing then actual sexual attraction. I know this because I never had any physical impulses to act on that admiring aspect. Keep in mind what I said there, porn wise only into straight porn where I related to the female and never had any physical impulses to act on an "attraction" to women. When it comes to masterbation, it would always end up being to the female role. This part I feel is a good test if someone is figuring out there gendering or sexuality. After the orgasm aspect I would feel guilty about it, but it went away really fast, like within 30 minutes. That guilt dissapeared completely once I started estrogen. 

2) I made an appointment to see a doctor on this. I actually got a good reccomendation of a local doctor on this from Fetlife. But from what I can see the early parts a good google search will you in the door. Int he state I was, I just had to do informed consent which means I read all the risks and accepted them. For maximum options it was suggested to do a sperm bank (cost of around 150 a year) before startin anti-testorone. I started Anti-testorone whichi s called Spino something for about two weeks at 100mg a day. After two weeks, I started Estrogen at 2mg a day for 1 month. Then went up to 4mg a day for 2 months. Then doubled that for 3 months. At each of those times, did full blood tests to make sure everything was working already. After 6 months, easy check up to just see if everything going well. The medicine after discounting (not using insurane as that was more expesnive) is about $20 a month.

I didn't actually start seeing anything till I was on the full dosage. I hear this is different for most people. For me I noticed my legs feminized first. Around the same time my breast started to hurt when I ran and had to start doing hte sports bra thing. I think the breast starting growing slowly after that point. Then my forarms a little bit and then face. I'm naturally more broad shouldered, but I'm told that is making differences as well. Keep in mind that I held myself to a strict diet and exercise regime and with that I was able to get mostly passable within about 10 months of starting. 

This may be psychologial but there is an observation on speed. I'm pretty sure the feminization physically started speeding up as I lived more and more female for greater portions of the day. I also noticed that the more into my current relationship I got, the faster my transioning seemed to become. Becuase of this, I do think the mind's perspective of your body image plays a role.

3) Speaking of which. About 10 months into hormones and started hitting a dual identity issue that drastically increased my stress. I was continueing my job at the time male (people knew I was transitioning though) while living outside of work female. Keep in mind that I"m incredibly mentally stable. What doing the two lives did though was hurt my self image drastically. When I went to female mode, I would feel very ugly and not passable (eventhough I mostly was). When in male mode I felt like a lie and not passable male as well. Wasn't sure how to act. Changing behavior patturns constantly did not help my mental health. For this reason, anyone who undergoes this I highly suggest planning on living full time female around 6 months after starting. If it hit me this hard, most people would probably have the depressing risk.

4) On passability, I cannot overstate the importance of make up, fashion and hair towards this. I noticed huge increasses in my femininity/passability if I dressed clearly female compared to more unisex. Same is true when I sstarted styling my hair and then with make up. 

Voice is also very imporant and something that shoudl probably be practiced on daily. A strategy that has wworked for me is finding female artists you like and singing along a few songs a day. Also got Sing and See (music software) to practice talking at the correct pitch. Used a program call Pract in order to analyize my F1 and F2 frequencies as well. Expect to get good at pitch, moving voice around in throat, mouth and movement of tongue. I always had kind of a more unisex voice and I have to work on it and  I do lose progress if I don't practice often enough.

5) I'm currently preparing for the surgeries stage. My goal for this year is to do Butt, Breast, a little face (probably nose) and SRS (about 20 months after starting hormones). I know I need to get confirmation of stability from a therapist for the SRS, but still approaching that right now. Where I'm at right now I can say that working on my Butt will help passability more than breast. I also plan on starting Corset training soon. As for right now I'm scheduled to consult with 2 doctors on butt or breast surgery this month. Will probably try for a 3rd. Both consultations are $100 for the appointment and I estmiate the surgery to be around $10,000 at the moment for either of those.

6) As of right now when it comes to upkeep on a daily basis. I try to average over one hour exercise a day. I try to practice voice for at least 20 minutes a day. I'm big on keeping a low calorie and semi healthy diet. Taking 4mg of estrogen and 100 mg of anti-testorone twice a day. I wear make up everyday and at least every few days try to perfect something else. For example working on eye liner. After the first week or so of practicing make up it starts becoming obvious where the bigger impact things will come from. Make up tutorials work well on this and I have that somethings I thought I was messing up but in realitiy got too poor of quality products.

7) I touched on this briefly before, but the social aspect is imporant for the mental sanity. I'm an introvert and very mentally sound. I dont' have many friends and outside of work, dont' ever feel a need to socialize with people. But there were manyt imes I did feel the urrge to talk about what I'm going through. It never stopped me when I didn't, but I can see how this would be a must for most in my position. I also found that I made much bigger deal on revealing my feminization goals to people then they really are. This was the case with friends/family/everyday people. I made them huge when seems most largely didn't care. That said I did make it clear every time that I wouldn't push my decisions on them, if they wanted to sever ties (this included work and family) I wouldn't hate on it. If they didn't say something first, I would assume they dont' want to hear about my transitioning. Strangers seemed to not care at all even when I wasn't passable, but I also minded my own business more. 

Well this was much more dry then normal, and more of a process entry that anything else. Trust me when I say there are many things I plan to write about both on mny feminization progress, along with my thoughts on gender dynamics and more.