Transsexuals Who Have Regretted Getting SRS Done . . .

[Missy~rmdlm]

Ms Bunten died at 49yo. I think she had some extenuating health circumstances that may have lead to regrets besides not keeping optimum employment. I do enjoy fussing with retro games and appreciate Ms Bunten's significant contribution to computer games.

[Agent_J]

I would like to see some kind of essay about those with regrets, telling why/how they made the decision for the operation, and what has caused them to have regrets...the operation itself, expectations of self, acceptance by self and/or others, maintenance issues, unsuccessful outcome, etc.

That would be of more use to us, I think.

While I agree about the value, there is a lot of pressure discouraging those of us who have regrets about SRS from speaking. I've been suspended from other trans supports sites just for having regret and faced efforts to make it that I made the choice to have SRS knowing that the only possible outcome would be this regret, refusing to acknowledge any improprieties by my providers (such as enforcing strict binary gender identifications and femme presentation - that being non-op was not acceptable and lead to issues with HRT access) and the circumstances that limited my options e.g. economic and employment ones during the recent recession impacted the amount of travel I could undertake to find other providers. I grant that I made choices, but to hear some characterize my choices you'd think I had said, "I know this is going to totally screw up my life and I'm going to do it for exactly that reason!" Instead, I attempted to figure out what was the least worst.

I had SRS on May 14, 2013, and deeply regret it. I did it due to pressures from my providers to include it in my transition and to have access to updated legal ID documents. I very much needed those things, but I equally needed my body to not be changed as it was by surgery. Additionally, before I even scheduled surgery I had shared with my providers, in response to their questions, my concerns about the potential to have numbness for many months, be anorgasmic, etc., and had them minimize those concerns in the strongest possible way; I was told that such things never happen with modern SRS techniques and that none of their patients in 15 years of treating trans women had ever had such. I realized too late they said such things to persuade me by way of allaying my fears, leading to me having very unrealistic expectations for my body post-SRS. Additionally, there were factors that simply weren't predictable or expected.

I did go into SRS with some doubts, but I had little time to figure them out. I only became aware of my doubts less than one month before my surgery date and I was unable to sort through them in time to feel I could rationally apply those feelings to the decision I had made 9.5 months earlier. It was only after I had cleared the last hurdle - that I was paid in full and there was nothing in the way - that I was able to stop fighting my gatekeepers and just be; to truly feel what I wanted and feel that transition was on my terms and not their's.

The effect of the treatment I'd had with therapists and endocrinologists (multiples of each professional) was that I intended to ask Dr. Brassard for the no-cavity option but was too afraid to actually do so. I felt certain that if I had I would be denied SRS because I had expressed an unusual desire for my own body. That's what I had endured for the nearly 19 previous years that I was in transition just to be allowed access to (begin and continue on) HRT.

[Lana P]

Agent_J Thankyou for coming forth and being so honest. Your a brave soul to do such things. And I'm sorry it did not work out. I have always been on the fence about srs and if its something I could do and I just can't do it.

[Jenna Stannis]

I realized too late they said such things to persuade me by way of allaying my fears, leading to me having very unrealistic expectations for my body post-SRS.

I wonder whether they actually believed the things that they were telling you? As I don't want to be banned (again), I won't say why I believe this might be the case.

I share Lana's sentiments regarding the sharing of your personal SRS story. While I absolutely think it's vital that people are offered positive support and reinforcement, this should not come at the expense of doubts being quashed. I can totally identify with you about feeling pressured to continue down what is often presented as an inescapable route to transition paradise.

[Agent_J]

I wonder whether they actually believed the things that they were telling you?

I can only speculate. Considering so much of what they asserted, though, I could go either way - either they didn't but were invested in the classic gatekeeper approach (and trying to keep it alive in the modern day - it does exist but is often dismissed because it had to adapt slightly) or they did because none of their clients ever dared tell them otherwise for exactly the same sort of fears that sent me to other ways of getting HRT, e.g. using my GP to refer me to an endo of whom my therapist disapproved because she had made it clear that she would only support my transition if I stayed with the one to whom she originally referred me.

[Jenna Stannis]

I can only speculate. Considering so much of what they asserted, though, I could go either way - either they didn't but were invested in the classic gatekeeper approach (and trying to keep it alive in the modern day - it does exist but is often dismissed because it had to adapt slightly) or they did because none of their clients ever dared tell them otherwise for exactly the same sort of fears that sent me to other ways of getting HRT, e.g. using my GP to refer me to an endo of whom my therapist disapproved because she had made it clear that she would only support my transition if I stayed with the one to whom she originally referred me.

I think there's some truth in what you say.

[Jamie D]

Agent_J's experiences are an important contribution to the site.  We have a few detransitioned (or "retransitioned") members here.

In my opinion, no one should be coerced into medical procedures they do not want.  SRS is a huge step and one must be thoroughly prepared.

Agent_J, my hope for you is that you can reconcile your gender identity to the body you have now.  Regrets are something, I hope, will fade in time for you.

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

It's important to seriously think about things especially leading up to what can describe as  'life changing surgery'...However when it comes to regrets, nobody will know until the deed is done (you and your penis part ways)...Until then no amount of discussion about the "unknown" is going to make it known...Unless that is, one consults a fortune teller's crystal ball (well if one believes in that sort of thing)...

Metta Zenda

[Agent_J]

While that is true, pressure from providers who take a binary approach - that one must either transition with SRS (often referred to as "fully" by these providers in my experience) or not transition at all does not help. For me, it lead to me locking the doubts I felt deep within my psyche because they were an obstacle to any transition progress, such as access to HRT in the first place.

I will admit that there was a point when I realized I had doubts, and it was before I had SRS, however, it was extremely late and I didn't have enough time to fully explore the feelings. The event that unlocked the mental cell in which those feelings had been incarcerated came when Suzanne at Dr. Brassard's office confirmed that I was paid in full. At that moment there was no longer anything that could present an outside/third-party obstacle to my access to surgery and, for the first time, I had the freedom to engage my doubts. That point came about one month before my scheduled date, though, which is little time, particularly with a busy period at work, all that goes into preparations for surgery, and that canceling at that point would mean losing over $10,000 (the deadline to cancel and not lose that much was five weeks earlier.)

A lot happened to me over the years that lead to me locking away those feelings. At one point I had a therapist attempt to have me committed for being trans (she declared that it made me a danger to myself and/or others.) Later, my access to HRT (both to start it and to continue to receive it) depended on having no doubts and the 30 minutes of questions about my feelings of transition by my endocrinologists at the appointments every 1-4 months showed me that I had to be extremely careful to not give even the slightest hint of doubts on pain of HRT being immediately denied.

[Roxanne]

I regret it too. And I've been crushed in the process. I'm in a depressive bout and trying to feel better. What the f, things can't really get any worse I started transition over a decade ago in 2002, had FFS (and was living full time) in July 2005 and had SRS in December of 2006.

I have no issues with passing or any major social problems. I also have no desire whatsoever to detransition, I was never a man socially nor did I want to be one. I transitioned at 22, but that was after high school and college amounting to showing up to class with absolutely no social interaction whatsoever. I was playing video games online where everyone assumed I was female (or I told them as such). That was the extent of my social interaction.

For the longest time I moped and despaired and cried and cried and cried after my surgery. It's so bizarre... my wife (who is also trans) says I am a very special snowflake when it comes to gender variant people because I want a penis. I never felt right after SRS and that was 7 years ago. I finally sought out having a phalloplasty, but that too crushed me because surgeons either refused to speak to me or said they wouldn't perform surgery on me or wouldn't perform surgery on me unless I transitioned back to male.

I finally got a surgeon to agree to perform surgery on me, and I had surgery last May. Dr. Miro specifically. That was quite an experience because while Miro and the younger doctors on his team treated it like nothing, there was certainly some awkwardness around some of the older docs and staff (most of the nurses were cool though as well). Well, that was all well and good as I would finally be fixed up - but no, things had to go awry, despite being young and healthy, the surgery failed because I got DVT in the grafted vein. Two emergency repairs to save the phallus were attempted but it didn't work out. Supposedly there is about a 1-4% risk that any "free flap" surgery will fail. FML.

I can supposedly get surgery again THIS May instead for a second attempt / second graft. I tried to ask Miro about some prep stuff and he told me to speak to two of the other docs. One hasn't returned my emails in the past so I'm hardly bothering with her at the moment. The other didn't respond to my email either, though he did before my first surgery. So there's that, I don't know for sure when/if my surgery will be, and well, most of all I'm scared to death of another flap failure. And I'm also scared that even if they could try a third time (and I'm not even sure they can) I couldn't psychologically take another year long wait of "what if". And two failures would really make me think I'm doomed to infinite failures. Miro told me months after my surgery in New York that the DVT could have lead to a pulmonary embolism and killed me. That... does not scare me in the slightest, what scares me is being doomed to have the wrong body. In fact, I wish for it to happen if my surgery fails again.

[bunnymom]

My heart aches for those of you who feel that SRS has failed you. I agree that there's too much emphasis on what is between your legs in today's modern American society.  Why the hell can't we be who we are without so many others being concerned how we "do it"?
I understand that how we are seen and social interaction has a lot to do with how we look or present. Many of us use our physical presentation to cue others how we wish to interact. Perhaps that is what gender means. The social cues we use to interact and what kinds of responses we wish to get from others.
This is where I am in examining what gender means to me. It is especially amplified now that my child is exploring her place in the world.  Gender is one of the most overt ways of expressing how we wish to interact. It is the shortcut we use. I doubt it will ever go away. It is an important part of individual identity.
Physical body parts should not be... until we wish to be physically intimate.  Then that is a private choice.

[Agent_J]

Hi, RoxanneN. I believe we have corresponded before.

For me, I don't wish to attempt phallo because I don't believe it will help. What I psychologically need is my body as it was before, which no surgery can restore.

I think tbunny has it very well. Unfortunately, I live in a state and had to deal with providers who severely conflated to the two, or, even, viewed SRS as the definition of transition and that the rest was mere window-dressing.

I was, by all accounts, quite well adjusted, to the point that my providers remarked (albeit with what appeared in hindsight to be some disdain) that my social transition/RLE had gone exceedingly well. I did things that were beyond what their other patients had done, such as be recruited by and land a position with one of the top employers for my field.

However, even they kept finding ways to make issue of the fact that my legal ID still claimed male, as I reside in a state that requires proof of SRS to update that document. There were also pressures like constant changes, both up and down (yoyoing, if you will) of my HRT, all extremely repetitive, which was having profoundly negative effects on me and pushed me into depression and to the brink of suicide even while they saw my transition as being "too easy." I was dealing with providers who claimed to not be gatekeepers and to have over a decade of experience supervising transitions, but who persistently misgendered me, etc. The experience is verifiable, so it can't be unintentional lack of knowledge. Instead, I'm left with the fact that therapists and doctors in my area believe that compelling an individual who feels at peace with their genitals as they already are into surgery to alter them, even at the risk of inducing dysphoria over that, is somehow a legitimate medical/mental health concern.

[Zumbagirl]

Hi, RoxanneN. I believe we have corresponded before.

For me, I don't wish to attempt phallo because I don't believe it will help. What I psychologically need is my body as it was before, which no surgery can restore.

I think tbunny has it very well. Unfortunately, I live in a state and had to deal with providers who severely conflated to the two, or, even, viewed SRS as the definition of transition and that the rest was mere window-dressing.

If this is what doctors and shrinks are thinking how can trans people be out there blasting Katie Couric a new one because she wanted to ask about genitals? This is the world we live, where everyone is worried about what is everyone else's pants. I don't see that changing any time soon, if ever.

You know when I was in Montreal in 2003 I had a chance to talk to Doctors Brassard and Menard who was there at the time about regrets. He told me a few tales of people who literally jumped off the gurney on the way to the operating room and left never to be seen again. This operation is not for everyone. The ones who do want it (like myself) are a minority in a minority.

Thanks for sharing your story. In my transitioning process I had the chance to meet one person who de-transitioned in person and it was great to understand where the issues and pitfalls are/were. I was able to balance out my own goals my meeting and talking to successful people and those who the process did not benefit from. It was how I was able to figure out my own spot in the world a little better.

I tell people not rush this surgery, take their time. I had 2 years to think about it over and over. In the end I knew it was still the right thing to do.

[Agent_J]

Not that Zumbagirl said this, but something she did say touched on an accusation often made of me by other trans people - that I rushed through transition.

My transition, from my first therapy session in which I said, "I'm trans, need to transition, and want to start HRT," was a little more than a months less than a full 18 years (I began at the start of Summer in 1994 - the first shrink tried to have me committed as a danger to myself and/or others for being trans.) From starting with the therapist who would actually refer me for HRT to starting RLE was 2.5 years (I was yet to get effective HRT - that was a while longer.) RLE to SRS was 25 months and 5 days.

The problem very much was the process - to get through it I had to bury my doubts so completely that I wasn't even cognizant that I had them. The first point that I felt them was 4 weeks before SRS, and by then I was awash in a ton of emotions. Two thoughts kept me going to it: "is this just pre-surgery jitters?" and "if I cancel, what is Plan B?" I truly believe that had I decided to cancel, and ignoring the loss of a large sum of money for doing so at that point, my situation with the gatekeepers would have gotten much worse. They had a problem with me being a lesbian who was not generally femme (they dismissed the times dressed in a femme manner as "inauthentic" - all about them much?) and who rides motorcycles, how much worse would it have become if I made it so clear that I wouldn't have a surgery they considered a mandatory part of transition?

Incidentally, I had attempted to relocate, but there were two problems. First, my wife, who has generally been very supportive of my transition, opposed relocating because she believed it would irreparably harm her career. Second, it was during the recent recession and I work in IT; there simply weren't many opportunities. I did get interviews but the competition was stiff and I had made a strategic error early in my career of going into academic IT (I had a heavily outdated skillset, which I'm currently working to rectify.) I also did attempt to locate providers in other areas, including using contacts in places like Atlanta. I was never able to get names from those people until after I had SRS for reasons I don't understand. I can only speculate that they felt it was my own unreasonable expectations or mistakes that caused the treatment before SRS but afterwards felt it was an authentic problem.

[Roxanne]

Hi, RoxanneN. I believe we have corresponded before.

For me, I don't wish to attempt phallo because I don't believe it will help. What I psychologically need is my body as it was before, which no surgery can restore.

Yes we have. For me, phallo probably is not perfect, but it looked pretty good for stage 1 and I could even painfully feel it in the hospital bed. It will not be the same as before, but if Miro can repeat the results from before (and the surgery actually WORKS / the flap survives) I think I will be ok.

That's for me though. What you must do is your path, this is my path though.

I think tbunny has it very well. Unfortunately, I live in a state and had to deal with providers who severely conflated to the two, or, even, viewed SRS as the definition of transition and that the rest was mere window-dressing.

I was, by all accounts, quite well adjusted, to the point that my providers remarked (albeit with what appeared in hindsight to be some disdain) that my social transition/RLE had gone exceedingly well. I did things that were beyond what their other patients had done, such as be recruited by and land a position with one of the top employers for my field.

However, even they kept finding ways to make issue of the fact that my legal ID still claimed male, as I reside in a state that requires proof of SRS to update that document. There were also pressures like constant changes, both up and down (yoyoing, if you will) of my HRT, all extremely repetitive, which was having profoundly negative effects on me and pushed me into depression and to the brink of suicide even while they saw my transition as being "too easy." I was dealing with providers who claimed to not be gatekeepers and to have over a decade of experience supervising transitions, but who persistently misgendered me, etc. The experience is verifiable, so it can't be unintentional lack of knowledge. Instead, I'm left with the fact that therapists and doctors in my area believe that compelling an individual who feels at peace with their genitals as they already are into surgery to alter them, even at the risk of inducing dysphoria over that, is somehow a legitimate medical/mental health concern.

Yes it's disturbing that they view SRS as a requirement and that they did that to you. As for your social/RLE transition, I've been fortunate as well. I sometimes wonder if that's why my providers viewed SRS as a "no brainer" for the young transitioner who passes 100% of the time and is while not a model - she is pretty.

You know when I was in Montreal in 2003 I had a chance to talk to Doctors Brassard and Menard who was there at the time about regrets. He told me a few tales of people who literally jumped off the gurney on the way to the operating room and left never to be seen again. This operation is not for everyone. The ones who do want it (like myself) are a minority in a minority.

If only