It should be understood first that the primary transition is one of sex, and the secondary transition is a shorter one of pseudo male to female. The second really depends on the person, as soon as one recognizes and acknowledges that one’s “true” gender is female, I would claim a mental transition starts. At least that was my experience.
The way I view it is that I lived with a “male” veneer that somewhat obscured my female gender in order to give me a viable existence. When that stopped being viable and I acknowledged her (now me) I started to lose that veneer. But the “true self” as many express it was always there.
What isn’t always there, and therefore does fall in the category of requiring a transition is actually living as a female. One may believe oneself female, but lacking that experience of daily life living in society as female it is a hollow assertion. That mental transition takes the longest in my opinion.
What it’s like? You need to relearn many socialization rules because you interact with men and women on a different basis, you use different language and the implications of actions, including your safety are different. As my rabbi put it the world of men and women may inhabit the same physical world but are divided by a thin piece of saran wrap.
As far as things like HRT and GRS, it’s what you can imagine. Changing the body alleviates the dysphoria of the mind/body disconnect and nothing more. There is still work to be done healing the other wounds.
My Gifted Life 