This is risking me saying too much! I don't mind talking about it. I don't feel very...usual. I remember first wanting to swap my boy body for a girl body when I was about 9. But transgender wasn't anything I knew back then. And apart from a number of distressing incidents I generally didn't suffer from dysphoria. Looking back now, I missed so so many things. One consistent theme my whole life was just not wanting those male bits. I'm actually pretty lucky really thinking back to what could have happened. But anyway... in the end I finally ended up having to go into hospital for intravenous antibiotics...I'd broken up with my partner of over 11 years just 4 months earlier and so.. this was an episode of self harm. That's what led up to the orchiectomy. Counselling and a psy review later and a wonderfully supportive GP, I had the orchiectomy in July. Something I never ever ever regret. Something I'd wanted my whole life. And the period between the hospital and the op... felt so peaceful.

The HRT...I can't explain it. It was a light bulb moment. I just knew that everything was so so right. There were no immediate physical effects. But mentally... gosh yes. I just felt like I was complete for once, like I never had been before, and I hadn't even realised how incomplete I'd been until then. Sorry. Once I start talking...I just ramble on