Stuck in female role

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Beneficii said that she cultivated indifference because of her frustration with being unable to pay for and arrange surgery.

I would hesitate to equate surgery to "becoming a woman" or "more permanently becoming a woman" in any event, because surgery doesn't really mark that point. I've a friend who transitioned to male, had surgery, and then retransitioned back to female after determining that this was a mistake for her. I wouldn't characterize her surgery as "permanently becoming a man" because she quite clearly didn't make a permanent transition. I'd say that the "permanent" qualifier isn't even needed, or the designation "woman-identified" for a transgender woman. If she's a woman, she's a woman, that's all that's really needed. This is partly because I thought "woman-identified" was more an identification with women as a class, a concept in feminism that is supposed to reflect solidarity and common goals, not so much as an individual identification as a woman.

I also think that three posters now have questioned whether beneficii really wants to transition, and I think this is a common instinct for some to question transgender people on whether they really want to do this thing, whether they've really thought it through sufficiently. I personally am just going to take beneficii at her word, because I'm not beneficii and I don't have sufficient experience to dissect someone's reasons for taking steps to transition. I doubt there's anything I could say here that could possibly be something that beneficii hasn't already thought about herself, possibly at length.

Anyway, I agree with you. It's pretty obnoxious that a workplace would dictate what kind of underwear one wears. I personally find bras uncomfortable to wear for more than a few hours at a time (I wear bras to therapy, which is ~3 hours including transportation, and by the time I get home I want to shred the thing).

I think it might be important to remember that being female is not really about the superficial things... the hair, the clothes, the make-up. Plenty of people who were born female, identify as female, and are seen as female, still don't like being forced into the female stereotype. And practically no real-life women actually fulfill that stereotype a hundred percent anyway.

Because you're autistic, you don't automatically soak up stereotypes, and even while understanding that you are female, you may still not identify with those ideas about what a female is supposed to be--and you shouldn't have to force yourself into them. YOU know what kind of person you are, and that is probably more important than any other factor. Gender identity in AS is often not particularly socially-oriented.

I'm a cis female and so I'm okay with being thought of as female, but I don't fit the female stereotype. I don't wear make-up. I like math. Snakes and spiders are interesting, not gross or scary. I wear a buzz cut. So my relationship with my gender is mostly that I wish people didn't expect me to be one way or the other, and I wish people didn't think of gender as some kind of huge defining characteristic about me. My gender is about as important to me as my hair color and psychologically, I'm practically androgynous. But I'm as valid a female as a super-feminine type who loves ribbons and fluff and sappy romance movies.

People, including trans people, shouldn't have to squeeze themselves into little boxes labeled with their gender. Okay, yeah, you might have to follow the dress code, but beyond that, you gotta be the kind of girl you want to be, not the kind of girl people say you should be.

Good luck with the executive dysfunction bit, though. I know how that goes. I cut my hair very short just so I don't have to deal with it; I wear no make-up, and the same types of clothes every day. I do some very "non-girly" things because otherwise things take too much time. But it's not an absolute that if you're autistic you have to give up on stuff that takes a long time just because it's not strictly necessary for survival. Get creative and find yourself some shortcuts that work for you, try to simplify the tasks and shorten the time a bit so that you get a nice professional look without having to fiddle around with clothes and hair and things for ages in the morning.

By the way--have you tried a simple cotton sports bra? I find them very comfortable, and if your shirt has a collar, the straps won't show.

Aren't they supposed to check your mental health to ensure you are genuinely transsexual rather than just confused or going through a phase before they start you on the path to transition? Because you don't at all sound like you're "there" in that decision.