How Long Have You Known That Sex Reassignment 'Surgery' Was Possible ?

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

No doubt a similar thread has been done before (again possibly by yours truly)...

Well for me, it was in 1972 when I read a story in the Sydney Morning Herald (The Sunday addition)...The story was about "The 'He-Shes' of Singapore " (one has to remember back then terms such as he-she was quite common)...The article mentioned that some had saved enough money to have 'sex-change' surgery performed...

So how about you...when did you first discover such a thing was 'physically' possible ?


Metta Zenda

[katiej]

I can remember in high school (early 90's) hearing about "sex changes" and it was usually used as a way to insult another guy.  Although secretly I wished I could have one.

It wasn't until the early 2000's that I discovered the Andrea James and Lynn Conway websites and really learned more about it.  Although transition just didn't seem possible for me at the time.

[MadeleineG]

At around age 6(?), I asked my mother if boys could ever become girls, and she described the procedure to me in explicit detail. 

[Anatta]

At around age 6(?), I asked my mother if boys could ever become girls, and she described the procedure to me in explicit detail. 

Kia Ora Gwynne,

Blimey 

Metta Zenda

[MadeleineG]

Kia Ora Gwynne,

Blimey 

Metta Zenda

She also told me that neovaginas are incapable of sexual feeling, transsexuals live wretched and oppressed lives of despair, and that most transsexuals are rejected by their families.

Small wonder I didn't share why I asked. 

[katiej]

She also told me that neovaginas are incapable of sexual feeling, transsexuals live wretched and oppressed lives of despair, and that most transsexuals are rejected by their families.

Small wonder I didn't share why I asked. 

She said that to a 6 year old?  Gosh!  I can't imagine saying anything of the kind to my 6 year old.

[MadeleineG]

She said that to a 6 year old?  Gosh!  I can't imagine saying anything of the kind to my 6 year old.

My mother is a strange cat that way.

I don't believe in censorship, but there is such a thing as too much information.

[JessieBirdie]

At around age 6(?), I asked my mother if boys could ever become girls, and she described the procedure to me in explicit detail. 

0.0

That's quite direct...dayum.

For me, I learned it "twice" so to speak.

First out of a textbook when I was in Middle School where there was a little blurb somewhere about Christine Jorgenson.  As I never heard about anyone else doing that before (and I was a naive little kid), I assumed that no one else has ever gone through with that.

The second time, I was in late 11th grade and caught a glimpse of a mention of sex reassignment surgery somewhere online, I went into a research spree and discovered my emotions weren't crazy and there were others like me out there and there was indeed something I could do about my feelings.

[LordKAT]

About 8 years ago.

[Joan]

The first time I heard about it was in a local Sunday newspaper somewhere around 1980.

According to the probably fictional report, some guy had dreamed of being a woman, had the 'sex change op', then had another one back to being male after being raped (every woman's nightmare). It didn't fill in many blanks in this seriously dubious change of bizarre decisions.

I remember it quite vividly, down to the pictures used of him before her after and him post post op. I also remember reading furtively so no one knew I was interested in it.

I was about 10. My reaction was 'oh so it's possible then' and I did my best not to want it too much.

Of course there wasn't really any way to research it then so I didn't know in detail how it was done until about 6 years ago

[Ms Grace]

I can't say I remember the first time I became aware of the existence of surgery - but I do remember the first time it really sunk in. I was 18, in a first year psych lecture at uni - the lecturer was speaking about the ratio of trans women to trans men (although this was 1984, so they definitely weren't using those terminologies). She was a feminist and was saying that it seemed odd that there were "so many more trans women than trans men, given that a trans woman is effectively transitioning from a privileged gender to one that is generally worse off financially and socially, repressed and treated like a second class citizen". She then went on to surmise that "the number of women choosing to transition to be men was less because it was easier to make a hole from a pole than the other way around". Yes, she actually said those exact words - much to the amusement of the lecture hall. Not very sensitive I know, but those words burned into my brain - I still remember that moment with incredible clarity (even to the point of knowing where I was sitting and in which lecture theatre). So if I wasn't aware of the surgical possibility before I sure was from that point onwards.

[Adam (birkin)]

Well, I always assumed a surgeon could cut off my breasts and surgically create a penis. But I thought it was like...underground or something lol. And I felt like I'd just end up looking like a girl with short hair and a dick because I didn't know about T.

I kinda learned about the existence of T in 2007. I saw references to it and a few guys starting their transitions online. But I really had no idea what T was capable of, and I felt that since I looked so feminine, T wouldn't work for me. But as time went on I got more curious, researched more, and in the process learned about the actual surgeries available.

[Jenny07]

I have known ever since I was 4 when I saw a TV documentary, still clearly remember it all these years later.
Back then my mum explained it all to me and how much happier would I have been IF I didn't loose her.

[YBtheOutlaw]

in 2011 a friend of mine showed me a passage in a book she was reading, which was about a transwoman who had the surgery in a sort of underworld way. didn't sound very hygienic. but i didn't know it was possible the other way round too, since i was assuming that pole-hole concept. i never heard of top surgery until i joined susan's, but i had heard of breast reduction surgeries and was planning to have one someday in future. i knew nothing about hrt either until i googled 'gender variations' (i was in the course of discovering my gender. before that i hadnt heard of transsexuals) and i read the wikipedia article on transsexuals just out of curiosity and bingo! i found what i was and that i can actually transition into the gender i anticipated! btw in the old days i wasn't very keen on surgeries cos i believed had the right parts below my skin and that they'd grow in due time, sort of like getting your permanent teeth. i also thought i had plenty of T and no E, i didn't really know their functions then.

[big kim]

Twice,the first time was on 1st April 1971  so of course I didn't believe it when I read it in a seedy British newspaper.A few years before my cousin was taken in by a report in the same paper about the failure of the spaghetti trees so it had to be a joke.The next time was in the summer of 1973 when I watched an old Pathe news film of a car race where Roberta Cowell was racing.When it mentioned she was formerly Robert Cowell a Spitfire pilot I knew it was possible and there were others like me.I had something to look forward to at last.

[suzifrommd]

I learned about Christine Jorgenson when I was 12. At that point I was still totally cisgendered. I hadn't even had my first thought about wanting to be a woman.

When I started wishing I had a female body, the thought crossed my mind, but I didn't want SRS (or "sex change" as it was called back then). I assumed it left the woman devoid of feeling, just like Gwynne was told. I also imagined I'd have to "convince" someone I was a transsexual, since, in my mind, I clearly wasn't one, since I didn't feel like a "woman trapped in a man's body", or indeed like a woman at all.

I also assumed it was the sort of thing that happened to one in a billion, since I had only heard of Rene Richards and Christine Jorgenson at that point. I had no idea it was 1:500 or so.

It was only a few years ago that I saw a video of a surgery being performed and I learned that they took a portion of the corpus cavernosa and formed a clitoris out of it that I started thinking it was something I might want.

[JoanneB]

I was just an early teen in the very early 1970's when I saw the Christine Jorgenson Story, a movie, on TV in glorious Black & White hiding out in my basement radio shack. After the movie was a public service announcement info-mercial which I guess was made by the Eric Erikson foundation. The next day a letter was in the mail for the literature. The pamphlet whose title I believe was "My Son is my Daughter" nailed my life long feelings exactly. Far different then what I saw in the CD type mags and papers around at that era

[lilacwoman]

I was in such deep denial that it must have been almost 2000 before I finally found any written info in a libarary book - all of half a page!
I must have blanked off when the UK telly or press reported on the various sex changers who were outed by the mainly lesbian transphobes during the 60s 70's etc so I was quite surprised to finally get online in about 2001 and find a good deal of info.

[Carrie Liz]

I really can't remember. It's likely that I saw a news story on it when I was a kid, because I watched both Dateline and PBS documentaries a lot when I was a kid, and I seem to recall that by the time I was a teenager and actually started experiencing gender dysphoria, I kind of did know what a transsexual was already. I don't know. If not then, though, then I knew about it for sure by the time I was 14 or 15, in full-blown dysphoric mode, and did a lot of internet searches about stories where guys were turned into girls. I definitely stumbled onto information about SRS then, because I was definitely writing stories about it, and wishing that I could have it done, by the time I was in 10th grade.

[Nicolette]

I always knew I wanted to be a girl from the point I discovered I was being treated differently to them. I was always wishing to magically change. Then when I was 12 years old, I discovered a medical book in my mum's library that described the surgeries, with a photo of April Ashley. It was a little over ten more years before I decided to enact on transition.