Quote from: lilacwoman on December 26, 2013, 12:23:33 PM
surgery was an absolute essential for me as women don't have penises and wanting to swim and play on women's teams would have been an embarrassment to me and them if I had a penis.
as for pain or operations - it all passes.
Why would TS want breasts but want to retain a penis?
In the US alone, half a million women with penises who are living as women would disagree.
Many women have penises. Many men don't. The world is not the same as when we older folks grew up. Even then, 90+ % of transsexuals never had bottom surgery, even though any thought that society gave us was driven by the (now discredited) medicos who insisted that surgery defined whether one was a man or a woman.
It is still a wonderful way to relieve dysphoria for some men and some women, but surgery does not make one a man or a woman, and it does not define what you can do in life and who you can do it with.
Most schools etc have gotten away from shared open showers and locker rooms especially on the women's side, so tucking is not a problem like it was. And for every person who would exclude you for having non-standard anatomy, there is another person who won't.
I can tell you, having non-standard anatomy for your gender does NOT preclude you from enjoying the activities of your life, though it sometimes requires educating your sisters or adjusting (literally) how you do things. People respond to confidence, ease in your own skin, and genuineness.
It doesn't help the original poster to answer that you don't see any reason besides money and medical reasons to not have the surgery. That may be why she was asking it, that she didn't know either. Its ok not to know.
The answer is really quite simple for voluntary non-ops. Like any other thing that you can do, but chose not to do, those who don't have a major operation that will change their body forever, even though they could, just know that at least for now and maybe for always, it is not for them, maybe because they don't need it to make them whole, maybe because there are different kinds of wholeness and they have already found the kind(s) of wholeness that their soul needs.
You won't see many voluntary non-ops talking about it because it is a magnet for abuse from old-school folks who believe that genitals make the woman or the man, and who therefore will find a way to deny your manhood or womanhood for not having a manhood or a womanhood (in the medieval use of the word). You also won't find many long term voluntary non-ops on this site because they have resolved all the issues in their lives through their own version of transition and affirmation and find the discussions here no longer relevant or interesting.
It does not in any way reduce the dysphoria, or medical need, of the woman who needs GCS that there are other women who do not need it, and the medical field recognizes this. Every person's situation and needs are different. Viva la difference! And listen to the heart- it knows.
