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What if I just do it?

Suppose I choose a day, could be any day, and decide that is the day I do something about starting my transition and/or come out to my wife. 

I am pretty certain that I am trans and that I really truly want to actually become a girl and that means transitioning. 

I have felt this was since I was eleven although I couldn’t frame it as transness back then, I have dressed in female clothing in secret my whole adult life. It may only be in the last few years that I have discovered enough to be sure of who I am and what is possible but this is not a midlife crisis...or if it is, it’s been going on for thirty five years and started really early! 

I know that I want to transition to female and that has been my wish ever since I saw a documentary about gender reassignment in the eighties when I was in my teens and saw for the first time what was possible. But I didn’t have the courage to do anything other than dream. I feared rejection and losing everything. 

Now, that’s not so different. I have a wife and child and fear rejection by and losing them, and maybe my career too. If anything the stakes are higher. 

So even though I know what I wish I could do and who I dream of being, I don’t do it. I can’t  risk losing everything. 

But here’s the problem. After more than three decades of wishing I were a girl, buying a secret female wardrobe and dressing as Nicola when I am alone in private, I can probably safely conclude that these feelings are real and are not going to go away.  So what I feel now, I am going to feel next year, and in five years and most likely forever. Therefore I either repress my feelings for the rest of my life, which I probably can manage, or at some point I act on them. 

Now, if I act on them then the things I fear are going to come to pass. Or maybe I will be pleasantly surprised, but let’s assume the worst. If I come rushing out of my closet tomorrow the bad things might occur. If I leave it a year and come out then, the same bad things will still be there. It isn’t as though anything or anyone in my life will have become super pro-trans in twelve months time and be delighted that I am going to be the tran they always wanted. And the same will be true in five years or ten or twenty. The point is, there will never be a right time. There won’t be a situation when I have nothing to fear. It doesn’t make any difference when I start, the fears and the consequences won’t change. All that will have changed is that I will have missed out on being me for the duration. 

So if it doesn’t make any difference when I do the drastically scary thing, what if I just do it now? 

The gender services in the UK have a ludicrous waiting list but there are a couple of private gender clinics that operate on an informed consent basis. All I need to do is fill out the form, pay the fee and start the process. There is nothing stopping me from doing that. No barriers. Not real barriers. Just my own fears. I could literally go online and start my transition journey at any time I chose. 

So back to my opening question, suppose I just choose a day and start. Could be any day, the impact won’t be any less if it is sooner or later. So why not sooner?

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