What kind of questions should I expect from the pros, I wanna know cuz in kinda nervous and what's the average wait to start estrogen. When I finally realize I was truly female I had nice emotions but now I can't wait. I need all the advice I can get of what to expect.
I'm in the same boat you are, wouldn't mind having an idea about what they might ask. I find that I need to think about some of those questions beforehand to have a reasonable answer. The average wait to start HRT I'm guessing depends a lot on where you live, the therapist you're seeing etc... not sure though.
I feel that it depends on who the pro is and how honest they are. I've seen trans* people suffer through years of hoop jumping for awful therapists before they would be given hormones. I shopped around and found a great therapist that let me start hormones after just 3 months. Most of the pros tend to use the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. It has been considered fairly outdated in many areas; such as the "real life experience" part which was oft abused by money hungry therapists who have no intention on helping us transition. Luckily it has been revised to make it not so impossible for us to achieve their criteria. The latest revisions to this archaic document are here. That link should tell you the basics of what you should be asked. What you need to look for in a pro is someone who specializes in gender therapy. If a pro lists transgender among 30 other skills then chances are you're going to be wasting a ton of money and time. I had to go through 8 therapists before I finally found one that didn't suck; out of those 8 I had 2 "pros" who did not even understand trans* basics like gender dysphoria. The thing to really watch out for is how your therapist talks to you. A good therapist will tell you that they are there to help you transition. They will also understand that sexual preference, gender identity, and gender expression are all different things and are not interconnected. If the therapist uses phrases like "allowing you" or claim you have "prove" to them that you're trans* by living up to some gender stereotype then you need to drop them like a hot potato.
My experiences are with a therapist who is really good and accepting. In the first session she asked the questions below but there were also a lot of other questions that were just meant to let her get to know me better and get us feeling comfortable with each other. When I first started having difficulty with gender in my life. What things make me feel like a woman specifically, if any specific things. She asked about if I wore female clothes often or if I had done that in the past. Who I had told about myself. I know for me I had a lot of other stuff going on so we had other things besides gender identity to focus on and it didn't come up a ton after that.
