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13 January - am I doing the wrong thing?

I know that I shouldn’t just react to one small set back and give up, but the doctor refusing to help in any way has hit me hard and caused me to question everything. 

I’m sure it’s coincidence but seemingly all the social media posts I’ve seen from trans people today have been about lack of medical support, discrimination or laws being passed everywhere to make it even harder to exist. 

Everything I have seen or heard just seems to be telling me that I am doing the wrong thing. 

It is not as though I didn’t know transitioning would be really difficult but maybe I had sort of put that to the back of my mind in the “I’m sure that’ll be fine” box and not thought too much about it. Refusal of support from the doctor has reopened that box and brought all the difficulties into focus and they are scaring me. 

If I am going to have to endure years of struggle and pain to transition, which anyone transitioning does, then what is on the other side of that? Is it worth it? 

What am I even trying to get to? Why? 

I dream of a female body, but what for? Assuming I can stay married, my wife isn’t into that, and I am not into men at all, so I can go through everything to get a vagina and all, but I’m never likely to use it. Boobs would be nice though. But what would any of it be for? 

Being a woman makes more sense to me. I don’t fit the conventional model of “being a man” and so I don’t fit in with any group. Because I have little in common with “the guys” I can’t really be part of that sort of group and they all think I’m a bit weird. I feel far more comfortable if I can be one of the girls, and those are my people for sure. But I can’t be accepted into those groups either because they see me as a man and belonging in the other camp. 

If I could become a woman then I could fit into a social grouping for the first time in my life which would be amazing. I wouldn’t be a weird feminine man, I could be a normally feminine woman and that resolves the incongruity of my body and character. 

That is why transition feels like what I need. 

Except it isn’t going to work like that is it? 

That vision of the future relies not just on transitioning physically and socially but on being perceived as and accepted as a woman. No matter what I go through, the things that will actually make it work are beyond my control and the odds are against me. Everyone I know already knows me as male, so the best I can hope for is partially being accepted but still as a “used to be a man”.  I’m unlikely to achieve full passing, so people I don’t already know will see me as trans first, woman second. Not only that, society is getting less accepting rather than more open, so in many cases, prejudice will exclude me from all social groups anyway. 

I know I am taking a worst case view of everything because I’m in a negative mindset but at the moment all I can see is that I risk losing what I have, go through all the struggle and still don’t end up with anything. 

I’m not even questioning if I’m trans or trans enough, I know that I am, but even so, I just can’t see that the path I have been trying to start along is right for me. 

Which raises the question: if not this, then what?

Is there a way that I could live my life and be, in person a woman, without transitioning? 

Would such a path be possible and if it were, would it be better for me than either pretending to be a man or trying to transition?

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