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I don't know all the answers to this but as you haven't had any replies so far I'll answer what I can.Suffering from depression in the past won't stop you adopting. Plenty of people have been there, done that and come through and gone on to adopt. What you will need to show is that you have dealt with the issues that caused you to become depressed and self harm. Many adopted children have issues like this and your being able to empathise with them can be a positive - and you will need to present it in this light to the social worker who assesses you. You will have to have a medical as part of the assessment process and it would be a good idea to discuss your past history with the Dr so that he/she can reassure social workers that your past history is unlikely to impact on your ability to parent now. One thing you should be aware of is that if you adopt a child with issues similar to the ones that caused you problems it may re trigger the depression in you. You will need to have worked through YOUR issues and bear in mind that they might resurface and have a plan of action for how you will tackle things if they do.Being single certainly won't stop you adopting as long as you have a good support network. There are lots of single adopters. For some children it is the preferred option. You will need to be able to reassure social workers that you will put your child/children first if you do form a relationship in the future. The assessment is very intrusive and you will be asked why you want to stay single and how you will handle things if you meet a potential partner. They will be looking for stability for a child.A rented house is no problem but sharing IS likely to cause difficulties. It depends on what you mean by sharing. If you have a self contained flat/part of house and someone lives in the other part that is fine but communal areas (kitchen/bathroom etc) will cause child protection problems and, I could be wrong here, but I believe that you need to have your own self contained premises in order to have a child placed. It won't stop you being assessed though as long as you intend to move into your own place before a child is placed with you. I don't know whether being trans will be a problem. In theory it shouldn't but in practice social workers (who, in general, are very conventional) might not want to place children with you. You need to talk to an adoption agency about this (either your LA or a VA). Many social workers want to place children with a male/female married couple and other types of people/families: single, male/male female/female (whether in a civil partnership or not), male/female unmarried couples all tend to wait longer for children to be placed.With regards to your parenting experience you will need to demonstrate as much as possible. Babysitting probably won't be enough unless the children have been awake most of the time and you have done a substantial amount of it. There are ways to get the experience - volunteering at children's groups for example. Your assessing social worker should have some suggestions to help you with ideas on how to get the experience necessary.You imply that your family doesn't know about your transition yet (forgive me if I've misread this) a social worker will want to interview family members (or have a very good reason given why they shouldn't be interviewed) so you will need them to know your situation and for them to be supportive of you before you get too far along in the assessment process.One thing you need to bear in mind is that, because of the mind set of the average social worker, you are highly unlikely to be able to adopt a healthy baby with no difficulties. Realistically you would be looking at a sibling group, a baby with difficulties of some kind or an older child. Parenting an adopted child is far harder than parenting a birth child - even in the unlikely event that a baby was placed with you. You have a lot of things to consider and it's good that you are thinking ahead. It might be an idea to contact either your LA or a VA and ask to have a discussion with someone responsible for assessing potential adoptive parents. It's a huge decision you have to make so you need to get as much information as you can to help you.I wish you well.

Hi ChrisI know there are some (coupled) transmen who post on new family social, so clearly being trans won't necessarily rule you out - though I assume you will get a real grilling about that, as we all do about being 'not normal' I'm sure they would be able to give you a lot more information about how SW deal with trans adopters.And while I can't speak to your issues directly, I had a difficult childhood (poverty, neglect, abusive, substance misusing mum, ran away and was homeless for a year as a teen, took a lot of drugs, sold em to get by etc). I was very open in our assessment, and the fact that I had a hard time and came through it strong, happy and comfortable with myself has only been seen as positive in the assessment process. Both our assessing SW and the panel basically said 'you know what it is like for these children and thats a good thing'. Worth saying we were assessed by our LA, not by a volutary agency (who are typically thought of as more sensitive and supportive etc)We are due at matching panel next week!!Good luck.