What I wish I’d known before I had gender-affirming surgery

[stephaniec]

What I wish I'd known before I had gender-affirming surgery

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/7/11162180/gender-affirming-surgery-transition

VOX/by Lily Carollo on March 7, 2016

"I have nightmares about growing a beard and having a penis. They've occurred more and more frequently the further I've progressed into my transition from male to female.

Last July, New York magazine published a video explaining what nightmares are: our brains' way of taking whatever is bothering or frightening us in life and morphing it into tales that we can process as memories. Thanks to hormone therapy, laser treatments, and vaginoplasty surgery, I no longer grow facial hair or have a penis, but the thought of being a boy still terrifies me and always will. These nightmares are my brain's way of helping me distance myself from that fear."

[suzifrommd]

There's some good and bad here. Some of the issues she talks about are issues with transition and not surgery per se. But she rightly calls out the media for billing surgery as a final step in transition, rather than a physical change that some of us opt in favor of and others of us choose to skip.

[AnonyMs]

I think the article presented a bit of a narrow perspective and was not very representative.

The media may be simplistic, but I'm not sure I've really seen any good articles on it. Indeed many of us focus on surgery for a long time. I know I did.

For a long time I saw transition as having two parts, physical and social, but I think that for me at least there's a third mental part. I've noticed it particularly since I've been on HRT for so long and I'm still presenting male. I've picked up some female things from the HRT, but still feel very male. I've thought about it a lot and I'm pretty sure I could have SRS and still be in exactly the same situation.

That's not to say having SRS out of the traditional order is wrong, I am trans after all, but it would certainly highlight the phases of transitioning. Its a pity more people don't do it and talk about it.

There's a lot of knowledge here, and some good writers. A collaborative effort writing about transition could be really good. Unless its already on the site, and I missed it.