#uk transition

[dryococelas01]

To transition in dark souls 2 you must fight 2 massive ogres after using a kinda rare item to unpetrify an enemy blocking your way

This is still somehow easier than the UK gender transition pathway

[trans-guy-positive-blog]

I started testosterone today!

I'm so happy and excited to say that I'm no longer pre - t!

It's been a long journey for me to get here, and so I want to thank my fellow mods and all of you guys for being supportive members of the community for me since August of 2017 when I joined the blog.

I wanna use my experiences with my transition to help you guys better if I can, so if there's any questions that you have, I'll do my best to answer them! For context I've chosen to go private for hormones whilst on the list for an NHS clinic in the UK.

(a very excited) -Alex

[gnot-that-gender]

8th Dec 2019

Good day to all.

This blog had been quiet for a long time as there was very little to say about my transition. Socially, I've been "out" since 2017 and living as male. I was referred to the NHS Exeter clinic (The Laurels) in May 2016 after coming out to friends. Eventually I gave up waiting as I desperately needed to get things going and decided to go private with Dr Lenihan of Gender Care.

The next day I recieved a letter inviting me to an appointment at The Laurels. I attended this appointment in August 2019 to hear that I was now on the internal waiting list and it would be another 2 years before they could offer any help. As such I retained my appointment with Dr Lenihan for the following month (Sept 2019), who assessed what I needed from transition and checked over my general mental wellbeing, and was referred to the London Transgender Clinic.

I had bloods taken at my local NHS GP surgery and the results sent to LTC. It didn't cost me anything.

I had my appointment (on the 6th December) with the fantastic gender specialist there called Mary who gave me an examination, checked over my bloods and gave me the go ahead for T. I left with a prescription and collected my first month's dose of Testigel.

Going forward, the LTC and my GP will work together on a shared care agreement that means Mary at LTC will monitor me and request that my local GP fulfill my need for prescriptions of testosterone.

So, that was just a short summary of what I've been through. But I will be writing up more specific stories at some point so that those reading get a good picture.

In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer! Or let me know which parts of my story thus far you would like to hear about.

Thanks for reading!

[theorhain]

I am early into my transition and don't whether I should chose private healthcare or go the longer NHS route?!¡¿

Well I’m sure there are many other people that could probably offer better advice but I’ll give it my best shot. Your decision is dependant on a lot of things, such as whether you’re financially able to afford private treatment or whether you think you would be able to handle the incredibly long NHS waiting lists. I’ll give you a little background of my experience with GenderCare and Charing Cross (I have not been seen or assessed by any clinics thus far).I was referred to Charing Cross by my GP last year in March/April and I have my first appointment on the 11th of July this year but I believe waiting times are longer now. In March this year I got fed up with waiting times, the fact I hadn’t heard much from Charing Cross at that point and also found out there is probably a year wait between first and second appointments, so I did a bit of research and decided to contact gendercare as I am financially able to do so. I emailed Dr Penny Lenihan (who is with gendercare) and was offered an appointment on the 9th of July. (I didn’t know I would be having my Charing Cross appointment 2 days later at this point).I have decided to pursue hormones privately and get top surgery with the NHS as I know I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for surgery as I believe it costs around £6000 and more but don’t quote me on that.Also it depends on how old you are because you have to be 18 to be seen by both clinics, I’m sorry if you’re younger as the information I’m offering you is probably useless. Also you would need to factor in which clinics are closest to you as waiting times vary between different GICs. I speak a little about this on the YouTube channel I recently set up https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjbiqRxUMI I wish you the best for your transition and I hope this helped you out a little bit mate.