feeling hopeless for transitioning male to female

[Ashley4]

Hi ya'll, I've been questioning my gender for years now and have recently come out to my mum and my therapist as a trans female and am happier now than I have been for many years, but the problem is that my therapist and I have been looking into hormone replacement therapy, and the good news is, she found somewhere that has phycologists that specialise in gender stuff, which is good... the bad news is that it's in Sydney, and I'm poor and in regional Australia, add to that, that I have been feeling like an imposter to the trans community recently, like I don't belong because of several reasons, and that I'll never look like a 'real' woman, any help/tips to get over these feelings, etc would be really appreciated thanx

[MaxineC]

Hi Ashley, great news on your coming out and happiness. It's such a breakthrough isn't it, after questioning yourself for years when things finally click into place and make sense.

It's sad that you're still feeling like you don't belong, though. I think what you're going through is not uncommon. Coming out is such a big experience that sometimes I think we can mistake it for the end of the journey when it's really just the beginning of finding out who you are and what that means.

I'd like to hear some more about why you feel you don't belong. It sounds like you're not happy with the way you look. This might sound like an obvious question, but bear with me on it and see where we go... what does a "real" woman look like? Why do you feel like an imposter?

[Ashley4]

Hi MaxineC, thanks for replying, I guess what I mean by 'real' woman is that I'm fairly masculine and have been complimented on such features before (wide shoulders, facial hair, etc), and I feel like despite any amount of medication, or even surgery will never make me look less masculine, and in regards to feeling like an imposter, that's primarily because I'm not sure I want to get a lot of the surgeries that other trans people do, and I feel like I'm just 'invading' the trans community because other trans people are just 'more trans' than I am.

Thanks again for replying MaxineC and sorry if this didn't make much sense, i'm not much good at explaining things.

[MaxineC]

Hi Ashley, thanks for replying back. Don't worry, you made total sense. The thing about being trans that is really confronting for a lot of non-trans (cis) people is that it totally blows away the idea that there are only two boxes: male and female, with really strict ideas of what it means to be each.

I find it makes much more sense to think of gender as a spectrum, with some of more at the 'female' end and some of us more at the 'male' end. Even then that's not totally right, because some of us can have traits (either physical or personality) that combine both extremes.

The main thing is being the person you want to be and being comfortable with who you see in the mirror, and not trying to conform to what you think other people want. That's the really hard part. I have known a lot of cis women who have masculine features and were/are often teased about it. Same with cis men who look feminine. Sometimes we just need to work with what we have.

Please don't feel you're invading a community, either - not all trans people want to have surgery, so you are definitely not alone there. No-one says you have to. 🙂

[Ashley4]

Thanks, Maxine, that really did help, i'll try and remember this next time these feelings get really heavy 🙂