I think self-diagnosis is never a good idea. It can lead to all sorts of places where we don’t need to be. The human mind will try very hard to make things easy for us. Think of times when we have a difficult, life altering decision to make or having to deal with someone that we don’t like or that we find very difficult to interact with. We don’t always go into these situations straightforwardly. Sometimes we procrastinate by thinking of other, seemingly more important things to do that will keep us from addressing the real issue.
As always stated, the key is finding a therapist who has experience in gender issues. Not everyone does, so sometimes that can be a major hurdle. What a therapist does is not to tell you what to do. The job is to get you to realize things that we try to avoid thinking about as I mentioned above. The guidance comes in to help maintain focus on what needs to be considered and to prevent us from skipping important issues or misinterpreting them.
Therapists, in effect, are charged with “getting it right”. Part of the process is to understand ones personal commitment to the journey of coming to grips with your gender identity. To me, one should have a very good reason to not show up dressed as your target gender. Anything less should raise its own set of questions…
-44x44.jpeg){kind=small}
