Settling into 'full-time' living, I stepped away from the places where I'd explored my gender, spending time with old friends as we intuitively worked out if my transition would affect our relationships. No longer feeling that I could only be myself in 'safe' spaces, I stopped going to 'T-friendly' mainstream gay clubs (where I was often the only T, sitting in the corner grinding my teeth as yet another musical abomination piped up), deciding that the best way to normalise my gender was to maintain as much continuity as possible with my pre-transition social life.

For the most part, this was fine. Fortunately, I lost very few friends and, being discerning about where I socialised, I encountered little friction away from the streets. Having discussed my transition so much on coming out, the resumption of long-standing arguments with old friends felt strangely cathartic. But I missed Brighton's queer scene: I no longer needed it in the same way, but I still liked the atmosphere at its events, as well as the tunes (sometimes they let me choose them, the fools) – and I'd made some good friends there.

As well as strengthening my few existing ties, I wanted to make new friends who understood the specific challenges of transsexual life. 'Tranny' nights, which felt more suited to those who would not transition (especially transvestites) didn't appeal, even before I came to define as transsexual, and I started to look beyond clubs (which often, on some level, cater for people of shared sexuality rather than gender identity) for community support.

Through the volunteer-led Clare Project drop-in sessions, I met people who were considering gender reassignment, or who'd finished it, or were partway through the pathway. I was invited to attend meetings with Spectrum, the local LGBT community forum, and Brighton and Hove's Primary Care Trust, to discuss our dominant concerns: the quality of healthcare services (transsexual-specific services, as well as how other services treated us), and our social security in a place which, while regarded as one of Britain's most tolerant cities, is still not free from violence against transsexual people.

So I joined discussions towards a citywide strategy that would involve the local council and police as well as Spectrum and the PCT. We explored medical issues, asking how the attitudes of different GPs could affect our entry into the pathway; which services offered at 'Charing Cross' could be provided locally; and whether or not sufficient physical or psychological aftercare was provided for post-operative transsexual people. At other forums, we shared experiences on the police's handling of transphobic hate crime, and how we might improve institutional understanding of the problems we face maintaining employment and, sometimes, secure housing. How much of this work will be picked up in the new system that follows the abolition of PCTs remains to be seen.

Outside of these settings, I still wondered how much of a transsexual community existed in Brighton and Hove, what form it took, and how much I'd like to be involved. My gay and lesbian friends said that there would always be local spaces for them to meet like-minded people, and were (in some cases) thoroughly bored or repulsed by them, but trans-specific social spaces were not so obvious (most likely, I thought, because of the smaller numbers of transsexual people and, often, their complicated relationship with the idea of being recognised as such, but that's another argument).

I discovered that there were dedicated meeting spaces for transsexual people. These were in pubs or cafes rather than clubs – places where we could discuss common concerns. I half-expected a Trans Women's Institute, before finding that there were as many, if not more, female-to-male (FtM) than male-to-female (MtF) people there.

Making friends, we decided not to focus on our differences, which can easily divide FtMs and MtFs ("How can you want facial hair? Ugh!"), discussing instead our attempts to understand our transsexual impulse and comparing our consequent experiences. We talked about how central we wanted our transitional past or present to be to our identities, how this is affected by the fact that – for a time at least – we have no option but to be visibly transgendered, and how this changes as we move along and then beyond the pathway.

They joked about the possibility (if not dangers) of becoming 'a professional trans person' (they'd heard I was writing a column). This mirrored the advice that sympathetic cisgender friends had given me, suggesting that once I'd finished the process, I might not want to focus so much on my gender, and shouldn't do so now to the exclusion of my other interests. My transsexual friends, though, offered amusing takes on the stereotypical idea that we only ever talk about our transition – usually along the lines of, "That's all anyone asks me about!"

The best advice I ever got from a transsexual person was, "Don't get too hung up on making friends with transsexual people – just make friends." There's no reason why two transsexual women should get on if that's all they have in common, any more than any other two women. That said, shared experience provides another layer to my relationships with transsexual people who share my political opinions or cultural tastes, for example – in short, the same things that would make me friends with anyone else.