Yes, my insurance considers the university gender clinic to be out of network. This means there's an entirely separate, and higher by $1,000 under my plan, maximum annual out-of-pocket expense. It does mean that they should still pay 40% of therapy, treatments and surgery. This does not, of course, include electrolysis costs. Not to mention an entire new wardrobe!
All of this is still very new to me and I'm spending a lot of time reading up on it. Being in my 50s, I wonder if there is any point in totally transitioning. I think that will be what I would find ideal. There are certainly older individuals than me who have totally transitioned M2F. That does not necessarily mean that's the practical answer for me. An intermediate, eunuch-type solution with some feminization may be very fine. The more I read about all this the more complex the issues involved seem. The gender continuum really does exist and even many young people struggle with where they fit on it.
I read the stories of many younger people who have transitioned M2F in their late teens and 20's and I feel a little sad. I don't feel that way long. Afterall, I've been very fortunate in my life in many ways. Yet I still wonder where I'd be today if I'd grown up in a different time and place, and with a different family.
I want to say one thing about my childhood to be certain people understand this part. I've stated that I was an emotionally abandoned child, my parents being for all intents and purposes not present in any way that I needed them.
What's also involved is that I had no childhood at all. I was always the little adult, talking my mother out of committing suicide, for example. Raising my youngest brother. I spent gift money from my grandparents to buy things for my mother instead of for me. This really angered my grandmother and she was right on there. I never did any sexual exploration, never dated, not even learning how to masturbate until I was about 22. I never rebelled as I was the perfect child. That's who I felt I had to be to survive. There are many other examples of the 'not a child' deal but they'd just be variations on this same stuff.
I'm not saying this to get sympathy. Many years ago I forgave my parents, told them I loved them and essentially let go of the past.
This 'never a child' stuff, though, severely delayed my discovering who I really am (because I'd never developed the skills needed) and has continued to contribute to this delay in self-understanding up until now. A crucial role of childhood is self-exploration and discovery of where you fit in the scheme of things. With no childhood, all I felt was I didn't fit in at all. Then I became an adult and the accompanying responsibilities got in the way of that child ever developing.
So it's taken me decades to get to the spot where I'm truly happy with who I am becoming, whatever the final package looks like. I never imagined I could be this happy and totally comfortable with myself.
I've got to say, too, that while I am very happy it doesn't mean there are never doubts. Parts of this process are down right scary at times, although I generally don't let those feelings stop me for long. What ever transition I wind up doing, anywhere from some expression of female eunuch to M2F, there are major changes in my life coming.
-Danya
