Skip to main content

31 May 24 - preparing to apply to a private gender clinic

The private gender clinic has said on its website that it reopens in June for bookings in September.  Well tomorrow is June. Although I expect that the first of June might not be what they mean, it might be first Monday, or any day. Might be the 30th. 

In readiness, I have looked up what is the first step. This is to email a) preferred name and pronouns, b) brief summary of your gender concerns, c) any steps you may have already taken towards social, legal or medical transition and d) what you would like to get out of contact with the service.

Name is easy, I’m Nicola. 

I think of myself as female so my pronouns are she / her I suppose but I have never heard myself referred to by female pronouns so I don’t particularly feel attached to them. I do know that male pronouns feel wrong and I find it really grating to hear myself referred to as he, him or described as a man. 

Brief summary of my gender concerns? Hmm, brief?

I have wished that I was a girl since I was about eleven and the age of puberty. I wished I had female puberty and developed a female body not a male one. 

I don’t relate to men at all and nor do I want to. I do relate to women and all my closest friends have been women. I think women sense that I am one of them inside. 

I’m now approaching fifty and feel like I have missed out on life as a woman and my time to experience being a girl will soon run out.  

I’ve not been able to live as a woman but I have always dressed female for myself, mostly in secret but in recent years I have become comfortable with going out in public presenting as a woman, albeit in places where I am unlikely to meet anyone that knows me.  Seeing myself as a woman, especially in outfits that I feel girly in, brings me real joy.  

My wife is aware of my gender feelings but not entirely comfortable with this. I am “out” to a couple of close friends also, who have been very supportive. 

Ultimately, I wish to live my life as Nicola and be seen as a woman. For me, this means physical transition, both medical and surgical so that I have a female body (to the fullest extent possible).

Steps to date: I have been practising with real life experience by going out in public presenting as a woman to prove to myself that I can handle being visible as a trans woman.  I approached my GP in February 2023 for advice and support and they refused to help. Coming out to my wife was the biggest step. 

I would like a diagnosis to give me the comfort that what I feel is real (or possibly that it is not). I believe I am a woman but I still feel a need for a properly qualified opinion to confirm this. Assuming that is the case, I would like to begin transitioning with hormones, voice training, full social transition and then gender confirming surgery after the necessary time living as a woman.  


So that’s my first draft. It’s actually easy to write this stuff as it’s just talking about how I feel. 

I wonder when in June they actually open.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

27 May 26 - does my brain actually have a “girl mode”?

As I keep reflecting on my night out as Nicola last week there are a lot of questions and ideas that are swirling around in my head.  One is, whether my brain has a “girl mode”, because I felt so different and behaved in ways that were unfamiliar to me.  The really distinct difference in how I felt this time was that I didn’t feel like I was a man in a dress at all, I just felt like me. I remember thinking that this is what it is like to be “inhabiting womanhood”. Evidently I have ridiculously pretentious notions after a few drinks, but it was what I was feeling. This is what it is like to actually be a woman. Less pretentious.  An odd thing, but one which does make me wonder if my brain has some kind of “switch”, is that I looked at women differently. I am exclusively attracted to women and I am attracted to boobs and bums as much as the next man (cringe at associating with being a man). I know it is impolite to stare at a woman’s chest, and I make a conscious effort no...
Post a Comment
Read more

21 May 2026 - a night out

Having a night on my own in London, I wanted to go out presenting female and get some more “real life experience”.  I had drinks and dinner with some colleagues early evening and to be honest had already had too much wine before I went out later by myself. This probably helped my confidence, although not my coordination with nail polish and mascara, which were a bit slapdash to say the least.  I remember last year getting in a lift in the hotel in a dress ready to go out, and being self conscious of people staring at me. This time, didn’t give it a thought. Likewise going into the underground and being on the train with other people. I didn’t notice if anyone looked at me and nor did I care. I was just me being me and wearing a skirt didn’t feel like a Thing, I wasn’t conscious of my clothes at all.  Similarly walking through a busy Soho to the bar, I just felt like I normally do walking around town.  Got to She Soho. Amazingly the bouncer asked me for ID. I’m 51...
Post a Comment
Read more

31 Dec 25 - reflecting on the past year

I could see 2025 as a failure.  After all, I started the year with the intention to begin my transition. I still haven’t started.  I made initial contact with the endocrinologist clinic about feminising hormone therapy, but then didn’t progress that at all as soon as I encountered the blood test hurdle.  Here at the beginning of 2026, I am no closer to living as a woman than I was at the beginning of 2025. I have not come out to anyone, I don’t have a hormone prescription, my body is still male, my presentation is still full time male, everyone still knows me only as my male name.  Has the longing to be a woman gone away because I haven’t done anything about it? No. Obviously.  Although I have not begun transitioning, I have achieved a couple of things this year.  One is that I survived my wife catching me out and finding a pair of knickers that I had forgotten to hide. It was awful, and she was terribly upset, but I got through it and that is somethi...
Post a Comment
Read more