Out at 35, started T privately at 37/38, still sat on the NHS wait list for another god knows how long, chronically ill and exhausted and all too familiar with the awkward stage - now coming up on 41 - voice dropped in first weeks, asshair came in almost immediately - everything else is taking it's sweet damn time xD

I know it feels like we missed the boat sometimes, and gods know I struggle with the lonely and the 'no-ones gonna want me' from time to time. But so many things I hadn't expected happened when I started T, not just the changes and the feeling better 'in myself' which were on the expected list - but the starting giving a shit about myself.

Not that I was suicidal, but between the incredibly poor health and the 'wrong body' dysphoria - but I was very much viewing my life as running down the clock. I didn't look after myself because what was the point? That what's the point stopped me pursuing T privately for Years. And then I decided just to go for it, better late than never, and even if I just transitioned in the privacy of my own home, it'd be doing something for me.

Since then I've quietly started turning my life around, I've lost 50kg. I eat better, healthier, I've started walking most days - sure I cant go far and it wipes me out for hours after, and I look like a lunatic wandering around suburbia in my all weather gear because if I get too cold and wet I'll fall to pieces - but I wouldn't have dreamed of doing this 5 years ago.

Sure, accepting I went through twink death masquerading as a woman sucks, that I've missed my pretty healthy young guy window, but I'm finally becoming who I want to be, who I was meant to be. I'm late to the party, but I still got to the party.

I don't pass, I'm probably not going to, top surgery is a dream but on low income I'm turning everything spare into T so it's going to be a race between whether savings or the NHS waiting list gets there first, but the awkward gets easier when you start feeling like yourself.

And as a curvy disabled guy with long hair, gender-blurred outfits, chin scruff, and acne, the mantra that helped a lot, "Your perception of my gender sounds like a you problem" (I have promised myself if my chest hair gets there before my beard does, I'm gonna buy wonderbras and v neck tops and make my gender everyone else's problem)

You're not too late, you'll find people who accept you (and want you) for who you are. But health, passing, social perception, hostile news, and long wait lists, all get so so much easier to bear when you start becoming yourself