A Transition Journal

If you are considering transition or even if you  think you never will, I cannot over-state the importance of keeping a transition journal.  I began mine in 1989 with my first day of hormone therapy and have been keeping it ever since.

Memory is a fickle mistress.  It is startling how much one's recollections differ from one's own account of the events as they actually happened.  Though it may seem like a lot of unnecessary work now, years down the line you'll find your recorded thoughts and feelings indispensable in your quest to truly understand yourself in both nature and temperament.

The following is the opening "Prelude" to my own transition journal:

The pages beneath, chronicle my journey from a life as an apparently normal husband and father to that of an apparently normal woman. In the hope of capturing the immediacy of this emotional trip into the unknown, I shunned the retrospective approach, opting instead for a daily Diary.

Each entry was made on the day the events actually happened, expect as noted. And each is filled with the raw and unpolished thoughts and feelings that held me at that moment. Of course, this leads to a somewhat meandering story, as well as contradictions in my point-of-view and personal emotional outbursts that I'm sure will make me squirm once this is published. But anything less would be less than truthful. And if this document is to serve any purpose as either a tool for tolerance and understanding or as an inspiration to those contemplating any major life-change, then it must be completely honest.

Read my entire 1200 page transition diary