About the Social Transition
Apologies for a month's silence
Before starting on this post, let me stat by apologizing for the quietness of last month. I promised to write a piece about social transition for the persons around you early this month, but I just couldn’t put myself to it – or anything else ‘productive’ for that matter.
The reason for the silence is a very bad period of gender dysphoria since the start of the year making me extremely emotionally and quite depressed. And while the dysphoria is still there I decided to “get over it” and write this anyway.
I will not write the piece about the social transition for those around you today but first a piece about social transition for transgender persons in general.
If the tone of this post is a bit different (read: negative) please forgive me before hand 💋
Social transition
As someone being interested in my blog you probably know what social transition means, but it you’re unfamiliar about transgenders and the transitioning process, I’ll give a ‘small’ explanation about social transition.
One of the early stages of the transition from your birth gender to the gender of your identity is the social transition. This is the process where you need to live conform your gender identity for at least a year before the actual treatment even starts. The only ‘treatment’ you get during this period is psychological ‘help’.
I have added quotes to ‘treatment’ and ‘help’Â on purpose. Here in The Netherlands this starting ‘treatment’ and ‘help’ are psychological evaluations if you actually have gender dysphoria and are fit to go through the transition process. This is pretty odd considering that when you finally see the psychologist you’re already 2 years struggling with the gender dysphoria and most likely have already been living conform your gender identity.
A New Wardrobe
One of the first thing a transgender person does is start buying new clothes to fit his or her gender identity. When the new wardrobe grows in size, the old wardrobe will be sized down bit by bit.
Most transgender persons will rid the whole old wardrobe except for a few pieces with a lot of emotional value – for me that’s my wedding suit.
'Coming Out'
What else to write about ‘coming out’ after the commotion around Nikkie de Jager? I think the most important people to ‘come out’ to are your loved ones (family and friends) as well as neighbors.
First Steps
‘First Steps’ and a lot of pun intended here 
I am quite literal on it though. A transgender person might start living his or her identity in private for a while, but one day (s)he will have to get out of the house. That first time in public might be both scary, exciting and liberating (for me it was mostly liberating).
Trans Woman of Trans Man?
For some it’s a bit confusing who is trans male and who is trans female. My mother for instance has asked me a couple of times which of the two I am. It is quite simple though…
A transgender person with a male gender identity is a trans man and thus identifying as female makes the transgender person a trans woman.
Trans Male
I’m no expert when it comes to trans men so everything I write here is from ‘hear say’ and the (ever so trustworthy) internet.
A trans man might have it relatively easy, or extremely hard depending on the breast size he has.
If gender dysphoria is determined during childhood, puberty inhibitors can be applied on an early age. This will cause little to no (female) breast growth allowing the trans male to easily start on his social transition.
When breast growth has already started or they have fully grown it might become harder to hide the breasts. If the breasts aren’t that big the trans male can ‘tape’ them in creating a pretty flat and male torso. But when the breasts are bigger (I think cup C and up) the taping might become more difficult – if not impossible – and wearing wide clothing might be one of the few options.
Once more I have this information from the internet so I have no clue how a trans male in transition with large tackles this problem.
‘Adding a penis’ during the social transition should be very easy to accomplish (I think). Put a sock in your pants to give the illusion of one – they say ‘macho studs’ do the same to show more ‘manhood’.
Trans Female
I am starting to become more and more experienced when it comes to trans women. I’m not saying I’m an expert (yet) but I am getting there 
Trans women can have it a lot easier than trans men, but that all depends on the amount of testosterone she has (luckily I don’t have a lot myself).
During childhood puberty inhibitors make it very easy for a trans woman. The estrogen will immediately kick in and feminize the body, but also keeps the voice pitch higher than that of a male around the same age.
For older trans women the social transition might get harder though. While you can easily buy fake breasts and tuck your penis, the male skeleton might already have grown, not allowing to get a feminine body. You should think about the rib cage, hands and feet. These are parts of the body which are almost impossible to alter by surgery (or corsetry for the rib cage).
Facial hair might be a problem. Daily shaving and for some perhaps more than once a day. Just imagine stub showing through your foundation!
Baldness and a withdrawn hairline is a very common problem. But you can get good and not overly expensive wigs to counter that problem.
I think this covers most of the general topics for social transition. I am sure that I’ve forgotten things so please feel free to ask and/or comment. As always I’m more than willing to answer!
Coming weekend I will most likely write a very special post. Depending on copyright concerns I might or might not include photos, for which I have already made an inquiry.
With love Alexa 
