Hellooo First post. I need to vent to the internet as I feel shockingly terrible.
So i saw my GP to discuss the next step towards transition. She pointed me to a nearby (as rural areas go) doctor who knows about gender affirming care which is very cool.
During that she asked, just out of curiousity, if i was going to “socially transition” before or after medically transitioning.
For me, Ive decided to do so afterwards. Its just mentally painful for me to call myself a women while I look like the bloater from state of decay 2. Thats a terrible and comical way to put it but its how i feel and thats the image conjured in my mind.
I think its essentially that changing pronouns does very little for me while I am still a man physically speaking. And most its maybe a nice bump in happy chemicals and then a quick realisation that indeed I am still a man so i just feel terrible again.
Anyway, hope you have a nice day/evening :)
Not sure where you live so can’t say for sure, but at least in the US the insurance companies generally require social transition prior to medical transition, though it varies on which parts of medical transition require what.
The WPATH guidelines are generally very conservative about making sure the patient is absolutely sure they want to medically transition, though they’re getting better over time. But many insurance requirements still use very old versions of the WPATH SOCs. Part of that can be your providers attesting that you’ve been living socially as that gender for some period of time. In order to get HRT paid for I had to have lived as that gender for at least 6 months and for bottom surgery I had to have been on HRT and loving as the gender for 12 continuous months and still currently as of the prior authorization and surgery. Also, I’m agender and they wouldn’t consider that as valid for the bottom surgery. I had to have lived as a woman. The WPATH guidelines have improved slightly in that HRT doesn’t require living as a particular gender for at least the last 2 revisions and the latest revision only recommends requiring HRT for 6 months for bottom surgery and also mentions exceptions for non-binary people who dont want HRT, but if you want your insurance/public health system to help cover some costs, you have to follow their requirements.
Not wanting to discourage at all, just saying to check with the requirements of your insurance or local public health system for details.