Hmm, I didn't know how much the hormones might cost, but I have read (a few years back) that the only hospital in Australia that performs sex changes (somewhere in Victoria, which is next door to my state, though still about 6 hours drive away) - they charge $50,000 for the actual operation.
You don't have to have SRS in your home country. In fact, you don't have to have it at all. Many trans women never get the surgery and are still fully transitioned. Transitioning has less to do with your genitalia than it does your emotional state and your living full time as a woman. Having a vagina does nothing to help your passability (except to sexual partners), and it doesn't define you as a woman.
You can get SRS for less than half that price in Canada, parts of the US, and Thailand. Most of the people I know who've had it went to Canada, and they're very pleased. I have a friend who got it for around $12 000 there.
As far as labels go, if you were born genetically male and identify as a woman, you're a trans woman, which is a wonderfully special kind of woman to be.
There's no need to specify pre- or post-op because as I said before, focusing on the genitalia reduces us to what is inside our panties.
That's really what's making me think about the money situation. I'm sure I could afford the rest of all this if I tried hard enough (and stopped drinking so many expensive lattes...
) - not sure if I can claim it on insurance because it's technically an elective treatment... - but $50k which doesn't include shaving the Adam's apple or augmenting the breasts... yeah, I SO can't afford that.
I would suggest not getting breast augmentation until you've been on hormones for a few years. It takes a little while to grow them, but almost everyone I know has developed a B-cup within a year. Implants usually look and feel fake (some can look good, but it is really hard to get a size proportional enough to not look fake), require replacement down the line, and can cause problems as your breasts continue to develop.
As far as the tracheal shave goes, I've seen quotes for that in the US for as little as $5 000. Also, remember that there are ways to either hide your Adam's apple or make it look smaller. Depending on how prominent it is, you may not need to do anything. Lots of cis girls have slightly more prominent Adam's apples, so if you draw the focus to other things, it may not be an issue. I have a pretty substantial one, and I used to wear a pretty uncomfortable choker to hide it. I didn't wear it one day because it was giving me a rash, and no one noticed--in fact, I look better without it.
I'd also like to be self-sufficient (ie. my own house and a job or perhaps a regular writing income...) before I out myself to my family, as I don't know how they'd react, and I might be thrown out of mum's house if I didn't already have a place to stay...
I'd also prefer not to do anything about this whole mess until after my grandparents are dead. I know it sounds morbid, but I KNOW they wouldn't understand, and I actually like them, so I don't want to throw this spanner in the works. They're both over 80, and nobody in my family has ever lived much past 90... and by the time they're 90, hopefully I'll have the money to start this process... but yeah, if they're still alive, I'm staying in the trans-closet.
Sounds good, but you don't have to go full time immediately. You can start by just dressing when you go out or on the weekends or at times when your parents aren't around. When I first came out to friends, it was because I couldn't stand living that lie all the time anymore. So it was a relief to be able to be myself even two days a week. I got outed and had to leave, but it was my own fault (I was having stuff sent to the house without any instruction to not label it when I should have had it sent to a friend's house). It definitely helps to be self sufficient.
As far as voice therapy goes, being a singer is a huge advantage. Being able to control your pitch and resonance is what it's all about. I'm a singer too, and that's how I got my new voice. I got pegged on the phone for the first time on Friday, but I was sick and sounded terrible, and I passed with the next person I talked to, not five minutes later.
Essentially, I just went into a high falsetto and brought the pitch down to something close to my normal voice, but slightly higher (somewhere around an A or a Bb). Then, I just spoke that way incessantly for about a week, and it just became my voice. I have to force myself to speak the way I used to, and I can't quite do it. It actually strains my throat.
Keep singing, because it will take you a while to adapt to singing with your new voice. You'll get there, but it takes a little time.
