Well, it took many, many months of waiting but I finally got to go to the VUMC in Amsterdam today for my intake meeting thing. I think I applied in like, July 2008 for this.

See, over here in the Netherlands they are very strict when it comes to diagnosis and treatment of people who have gender dysphoria. Rightfully so of course, there are many people who claim or think they have gender dysphoria but it’s not uncommon that those feelings are misplaced or stemming from other issues. They may even just be a homosexual whose only way of dealing with it is portraying themselves as feminine (I’m attracted to men, so I must be a girl, right?). Of course I’m generalizing it a bit there, but that’s basically what they try to evaluate after your intake: How likely is the chance you do in fact have gender dysphoria?

Right now the waiting list has become so long they did early preliminary intakes. So essentially the waiting list still isn’t over. They did this to predetermine who should be on the waiting list at all; eliminating the odd cases I mentioned above. In effect shortening the waiting list for everyone else waiting for the diagnostic phase. This process will happen next month when the VUMC ‘gender team’ has their meeting and starts deciding who stays and who doesn’t.

After that I will still have to wait another 3 to 6 months before I can even start the diagnostic phase, which in itself will take a minimum of 6 months. So the earliest I can start my hormone treatment will be about a year from now. So that’s kind of a bummer but at least progress is being made. Besides, I have no doubts about me going successfully going through the diagnostic phase and such. All I got to do is wait and it will happen, I believe truly in this fact.

So today was an important day, that I was extremely nervous about, but it all went down without a hitch and I could further reaffirm that I really don’t have anything to worry about. I just need to be patient is all.

tl;dr version: Intake done, more months of waiting to be done, I will succeed.