The A – Z Of What Are The Types Of Transition

Transition is a significant decision in every Trans person’s life. Transitioning is when a Trans person decides to finally represent the gender identity that they identify with. Transition is a life-affirming procedure for most Trans people and helps them escape their gender dysphoria.

Types of Transition

Most of us know of transition as just surgery. But there are three types of transition that need to be highlighted.

SOCIAL TRANSITION

Social Transition is when after coming to terms with your gender identity, you are finally ready to come out and affirm your gender socially and inform people around you about your preferred pronouns, name and gender identity. This is the first step in identifying more as yourself.

Social Transition can go as follows:

• Coming out to your friends and loved ones.
• Tell them about your preferred pronouns and name, so they can use them.
• Changing your gender expression to match what you identify as.

Even though social transition does not involve any monetary or permanent change, it is usually the hardest type of transition depending on the surroundings. This is also a fact that some people are easier to come out to so social transitioning might be done in parts. Sometimes it is almost impossible for a person to transition socially.  In these cases, what one requires is a safe space and supportive people around. A form of gatekeeping transition is when an individual expresses the desire too late to someone and they deny them because they think that they do not have enough evidence of them wanting to transition.

MEDICAL TRANSITION

Medical Transition is usually what we refer to when we talk of transition in general terms. On Transgender India, we have talked about the medical transition in detail both for FTM and MTF. It is important that you follow the necessary steps to transition.

• Get your Gender dysphoria letter in order from a psychiatrist.
• Going to an endocrinologist for your HRT.
• And finally, getting a surgery letter from a psychiatrist.

And of course, there are different types of surgeries different for MTF and FTM Trans people. You can find the articles linked here for MTF and here for FTM.

LEGAL TRANSITION

This type of transition is when you have transitioned into your gender identity or you have decided that you want to make your transition officially verifiable. You would need to get an ID card that would then certify that you are legally a Trans person and then finally, an ID card that talks of your preferred gender identity if you are interested in it. Legal Transitioning has been digitised now and can be done through https://transgender.dosje.gov.in/ For more information, you can refer to our article on Legal Transitioning and Transgender ID cards here.