[Serious] Transgender redditors, what was the hardest part of transitioning genders? Do you have any regrets?

Actually accessing medical care. I did not have insurance when I realized I needed to transition, so I had to pay out of pocket for therapy to get the letter I needed to be able to go to an endocrinologist and get on testosterone. Then I had to pay for the endocrinologist and the bloodwork and the testosterone out of pocket.

However now that I do have insurance through Florida Blue, that remains something I struggle with. They have an exclusion that states that they do not cover transition related things in general, despite that being the only way to treat gender dysphoria as acknowledged by like literally all respectable medical organizations. So while thankfully my endocrinologist and the associated blood work is covered due to not being coded as explicitly for transitioning, there's no hope of being able to access further medical care that I desperately need. That being top surgery, to remove large-ass man boobs.

So instead of being able to access that, I have to use a binder which compresses the breast tissue - and fucks up my already shitty breathing, which was made even worse by me having used a slightly too tight binder when I was younger. And basically, unless I want to deal with a binder under a rash guard (which sucks as yeah, breathing while active is already an issue for me), not be able to swim, which is shitty as hell as someone who really enjoys that and is in Florida where it's swimming weather 10/12 months of the year basically. Ironically my insurance has cost itself more in medicine as it relates to treating the side effects of having to bind than it would have if it just paid for top surgery.

About the only regrets I have is yeah, just regret over being poor, living in Florida where such exclusions in insurance are legal, and living in the US on a whole instead of another country with national health insurance or similar that would actually cover transgender related things. Just pure salt over discriminatory insurance shit, tbh.

/r/AskReddit Thread