Okay, so... i want to be female. I'm confident in this fact more than i ever have been before. My issues though, are very many... and it keep bringing me down. The first of which being, i'm afraid to ask my mother to take me where i need to go... or to ask her/tell her i wanna start. Sbe isnt a bad mom and has been accepting to a degree, but she always f feels controlling of my life and i really dont know how to express to her how important this is and all. I may be 17 but i cant drive because my anxiety with other stupid drivers (people who drink and drive particularly) scare me alot and are pretty common where i live. (Mississippi) So driving myself isnt an optioj, and im not even old enougu for informed consent till im 18 anyways. I habe to wait till october which is not a huge issue with me. But what is is that im afraid i wont have inscurance for a wh8le because of some issues last year with it not being fully completed so i couodnt get it last year. Id be lucky to have inscurance by november im nfearssure what all it wouod even cover anyways, if i even need it for any of the steps of hrt. As for a second probpem, Im also kind of scared to start for various reasons. Certain changes that happen make me worry about how people around me will react or treat me. I wear breast forms publicly in school, everyone for the most part knows im trans in school at this point... but socially transistioning is hard as my school is filled primarily with hard christians, that seem to understand the christian faith less than i do (and im a christian turned atheist) to the point they treat 9thers like trash for not being "the same" (and i wish this was a joke, but it's really not.) Friends irl haven't been good about call8ng me by my name or using my pronouns... most of them just.make gender and lgbt related jokes and ive tood them to stop. Anyways... those are my two major fears about transistioning Also, as a side note... Should i go back on the first day of school and use my voice ive been training the past 4 months at home, instead of talking "normally" because i feel like i should. Just to prove a point that if anyone doesnt like it they cant stop me. And to show to my friends im being serious and they need to respect me...
Hey Rose! How out are you to your Mom? Does she understand that you're trans and what that actually means? If she's been accepting of everything so far, then it seems like you could tell her that you want to start hormones. As far as insurance, does your Mom have it? If so, you should be covered by hers until you're 26, as long as the Affordable Care Act doesn't get overturned. I get being scared to start. Even though it's something we want, it's such a big change...so of course it makes us nervous. I think, after a while, we just reach a point where we can't not transition, when the pain of staying the same outweighs the fear of actually doing it. You've already shown yourself to be an incredibly brave person for basically being out as trans in a conservative, christian high school. I went to a catholic high school, with only two girls out as gay, and they had it pretty rough from the faculty. As far as I could tell, most of the other students didn't seem to care much, but we weren't in the deep south, either. If you're currently wearing breast forms to school, and asking others to use your preferred pronouns, do you think you would need to tell others that you've started hormones? HRT works wonders, but you don't see results overnight. If you're already presenting as female at school without having started hormones, could you just continue to do the same thing were you to start hrt? Of course, you need to do what makes you the most comfortable, and you need to stay safe, but it seems like you've laid the groundwork and done the hard part by coming out. And you should absolutely use your new voice when you go back to school. I'm sure it sounds awesome!
