New to the community, but lurking for ever and stuck inside my egg for the past decade. I finally hit the wall where I was either going to come out or break down. So far, I’m super lucky to have a fantastic and understanding spouse who has my back, but that’s literally the extent of my support network. I’ve always been pretty shy and impersonal, so I have a very tiny friend group. That said, I’m over 40 and can’t wait to transition any longer. I just can’t seem to find any physicians in my area that I don’t think will either deny me care or treat me like I’m a liar. I’m fine with going straight to an endochrinoligist and signing an informed consent, but I really think I should see a therapist or counselor about some things I’ve been struggling with. I’m just having a difficult time of knowing who I can and can’t trust, and I don’t really have anyone around to ask. The only out transfem I know is a professional acquaintance and I’m way too scared to out myself to her yet. I’ve gone through most of the publicly available lists and tools for finding practitioners but they either don’t take my insurance or don’t cover my area. Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this? I want to get started so badly because I feel like I already missed out on so much of life as my true self, but the roadblock now seems to be that I can’t even trust my family physician to know who I really am.
Yeah, I personally went the DIY route. I started my transition in August of last year, and started HRT January of this year. I had predicted things were going to get bad pretty fast, so I have avoided being ‘official’ for the time being until I can figure out what to do. I, personally, would like procedures in the future, and the unfortunate reality of that is the fact that my insurance requires a letter from someone actively prescribing and monitoring the progress of HRT for 12 or more months consecutively to cover any of those services, so if I’m gonna have to make a choice in the future of if I’m going to set myself back for years to avoid the potential consequences of being ‘official’, or go to a provider for a prescription so that I can get the necessary letters. Right now, I’m just biding my time while I see how things go (though that won’t stop me from activism).
That’s precisely why I wanted to find a doctor do to this with. I’ve already missed too much with the wrong outside.