**So i’m in a bit of a weird position in my life right now. I’ve known i’m trans for the past 3ish years and recently started college. Most of the people around me seem to be pretty supportive and my parents are also supportive. I already have everyone calling me by my choice name but other then that I havent done anything I really want to actually start to transition so I can stop being depressed and there are some moments where like i really want to buy fem clothes but i go on amazon and its just too big of a mental hurdle to do anything related to transitioning has anyone else experianced something like this where they were in a place where they could transition and nothing was preventing them but they were just too scared to if so how did you deal with it?
Edit: Thanks so much for the advice everyone I think going on hrt is too scary for me but I’ll order some fem clothes tomorrow. I really appreciate the advice and kind words <3
This is a good point, I fully socially transitioned 3 months before I medically transitioned, and it did not help me at all pretty much compared to the impact of estrogen. tbh I wish I had started estrogen immediately by any means necessary, and then approached social transition more carefully or at a later date - living as a visibly trans person is stressful, but you can take estrogen without social transition and get a lot of the benefits without all the risks, and then transition once you are basically already passing.
(In my case, I forced myself to socially transition in every sphere of my life because otherwise I was worried I would be in the closet the rest of my life and never medically transition or prioritize my needs, and I would go back to being the miserable suicidal person I had become, so I still stand by that choice - but it was rough, I won’t lie.)
I mostly waited until HRT to transition socially. I was presenting fem privately at home for quite some time before HRT. I took an approach of go fem with plausible deniability until the point I felt ready to start pursuing HRT. When I needed new clothes I would buy woman’s versions of the clothes I already wore. Nice button down shirt, but this has the buttons backwards. Not a detail anyone notices, but felt better.
The first time I went out wearing a dress was after about a month on HRT. Wasn’t really out, wanted to see if anyone would figure it out. It was very strange, I got so many compliments on my outfit, but not on the dress itself, just the other parts of the outfit. It was confusing.
I compared the text message conversations with my wife from the second month of HRT to the year before, and the difference was night and day. The first coworkers I came out to were those who noticed the change in mood and asked follow up questions.