Being trans, especially early transition, is incredibly isolating indeed.

Often times, the boundaries we learn how to set have our old friends and families no longer wanting to be part of our lives, and accepting that is tough. Transition often means advocating for ourselves in ways that our loved ones don't understand. It can seem like we're pushing people away, but the truth is that those are usually people we felt lonely in the presence of because they aren't people we can be real with.

Finding a community that loves you for who you are, who appreciate how your mind operates, and accept you unconditionally is one of the most important ways of remedying some of that sense of loneliness.

Support groups can connect us to like-minded people, but support groups are often online, which only places a bandaid on isolation-induced loneliness. Finding our people, our community, takes a lot of work, and transitioning itself is exhausting and often leaves us wary of making new connections.

Coming out as trans is inherently traumatizing and it takes dealing with your trauma so that you might form healthy new connections with people who are also working on themselves and honor our boundaries.

It's so important to make connections and form a support network that will show up if you stop answering the phone.

I see you and I just wanted to say that what you're feeling is real. Forming a chosen family is as inherent to transitioning as anything else we do to seek internal/external congruence. All of this is about forming real connections as our true selves with other people who are seeking the same.