Personal genital attitude and profressional recommendations

[SusanKG]

I know, with a mirror!  I'm curious, for those of us that have either gone through the therapy/medical gauntlet or are in the middle of that process:
A. How do you feel about your genitals?
B. Were you or are you open and complete in discussing those feelings with any therapy and medical professionals.
C. Depending on which position you hold, how has that position been interpreted by the "professionals", and how has the professional treatment affected your outlook toward continued transition? In other words, has a "they have to come off NOW! attitude by you, or a "they just happen to be there" attitude affected the final (or continuing forward) outcome? Do the professionals view either deep hatred or ambivalence toward your wrong gender equipment as a clue for forward or not judgement and recommendation?

SusanKG

[Northern Jane]

it is going back a LONG time but by about age 3 the hate was on! I wouldn't even let my mother bath me without covering them up. By age 13 I was trying to figure out how to get rid of them (without bleeding to death) - they were actually on the chopping block a few times, cleaver in hand (literally!)   By my early 20's the doctors knew I wasn't going to live long without surgery. Fortunately things were put right by age 24 and life was grand and everything has been fine ever since. The new arrangement is just RIGHT!

[SusanKG]

Oops! I made a poll and forgot to take it. And I see a failure of all polls (I can't blame my own after all), incomplete possibilities. I choose the middle ground, 3. But that splits a difference: I hate the testicles and bag - ugly, bulky, uncomfortable, useless. I wish they were gone mucho pronto. The penis, it's just there. It serves a daily (but not irreplacable) purpose -  urination, and provides an occassional sexual purpose - pleasure center, sort of a very prominent clitoris. I guess it's paying it's keep. Temporarily, I hope.

SusanKG

[Janet_Girl]

I totally hate the dangley thing.  The twins are gone, which helps.  But I still want the Holy Grail, SRS.  When it happens, if it happens, I will be totally whole for once in my life.

Being unemployed and my credit shot, it will be a miracle for me to go under the knife.  But I still pray every night.

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My therapist and I discussed at length how important SRS was to me.  It lead to my last suicide attempt.  It also is what is now causing most of my depression.  Thus he has no qualms about recommending me for any surgery.  Case in point, My Orchidectomy.  I asked for a letter and I had it in hand within the week.

The same would be when I ask for a letter for SRS.

***************************************************************



Hugs and Love
Janet

[Kaori]

A. How do you feel about your genitals?

I very strongly dislike them.  I want an Orchi ASAP, which would have been done already were it not for my meddling general psychologist.  The "oversized" clitoris?  It's still malformed, but it allows me to urinate and experience pleasure that I otherwise could not, until corrected aesthetically by surgery.  On the basis of pleasure alone I 'can' get by with what I have to work with but that requires mental gymnastics and I'm so very tired of it. Aesthetically, I'd rather have none at all.

B. Were you or are you open and complete in discussing those feelings with any therapy and medical professionals.

Yes, but it seems they are more uncomfortable speaking about about my genitals than I am.

C. Depending on which position you hold, how has that position been interpreted by the "professionals", and how has the professional treatment affected your outlook toward continued transition? In other words, has a "they have to come off NOW! attitude by you, or a "they just happen to be there" attitude affected the final (or continuing forward) outcome? Do the professionals view either deep hatred or ambivalence toward your wrong gender equipment as a clue for forward or not judgement and recommendation?

It is definitely between 'deep hatred' and ambivalence.  I don't NEED them gone immediately. But how long am I willing to let professionals procrastinate for me?
I'll be persuing my interests and questions with a new therapist.  They can either confirm my interests and desires or GTFO.

[Alyssa M.]

I can't really answer the poll question as posed.

For question A:
I hate my genitals and wish they were gone. Now. Unequivocally. But it's not the most pressing concern in my life. I don't let it be in part because the money doesn't let it be pressing -- the serenity to accept the things that you can't change and all that. It doesn't control my life. Having the bits I have is better than being dead. But part of the reason it's better is that I know at some far-off time in the future, I can change that. But all of the options in the poll apply, often simultaneously.

For question B and C:
I decided to go to therapy primarily because I needed therapy. I don't think there's any point in going to therapy if you are going to lie; at least, you won't get any theraputic benefit. My therapist is down with that, and it hasn't caused any problems. SRS is far off, so I can't say how my honesty might affect that, but I really doubt it will be anything but positive, based on my relationship with her. She tends to trust me to make reasonable decisions, and to articulate my reasons for them. When I started HRT, all she wanted to know is how I came the decision to start when I did. She is strict in following the SoC, and part of that means that she understands that they are meant to be flexible, not burdensome. And she has enough experience to know that everybody has a somewhat different experience of their gender.


(edited to correct a typo)

[Dana_W]

I can't really answer the poll question as posed.
For question A:
I hate my genitals and wish they were gone. Now. Unequivocally. But it's not the most pressing concern in my life. I don't let it be in part because the money doesn't let it be pressing -- the serenity to accept the things that you can't change and all that. It doesn't control my life. Having the bits I have is better than being dead. But part of the reason it's better is that I know at some far-off time in the future, I can chance that. But all of the options in the poll apply, often simultaneously.

Umm... what Alyssa said. Kind of. Except not so much on the "hate," but just as much on the "wish they were gone" part.

Except you know what? Not really. I don't wish they were "gone." I wish they were shaped the right way. That IS the procedure we call Genital Reassignment after all... they don't cut off your genitalia and give you something new. They reshape what you have. Sure I wish I was born with a female body in the first place, but the body I was born with is the only raw material I have to shape the new one.

And that's possibly the main mental disconnect I have with a lot of others on this topic. I don't see SRS as "taking away" things. Just reshaping. So how can I say I "hate it" now, and "love it" after? It's the same thing! Isn't this obsession with external form a smaller example of the very thing that has made us all struggle with other people's views of us?

Sorry... I started this reply attempting to ditto what Alyssa said, but I kind of spun off on my own point.

[lilacwoman]

wish they were gone and tried to help them along their way with string when I was younger and woudl you believe in Sept 08 I was op tabble to remove an undescended but the surgeon wouldn''t take other even though I begged him and told him I was three years RLE by then!

[Naturally Blonde]

I've found it hard living with this particular genitalia. I don't like looking at my genitalia and I've felt like this since I was very young, maybe 4 or 5. I hoped I would be able to change them at the age of 16 but it didn't happen and I think I was born too early. If I was born in the 70's , 80's or 90's I think it would have been addressed much sooner.

Before anti - androgens and HRT I dreaded the termoil of unwanted erections for no apparent reason and it was like something attached to me that didn't really belong to me. Some of you might think I'm nuts but I believe in reincarnation and I believe I was a female previously and both my soul and brain cannot cope with being born into a male body. 

[Janet_Girl]

You're not nuts, NB.  My theory is when I was head back to a new body, female of course, I collided with a male spirit headed for this one.  We of course wound up in the wrong body.

I have a feeling that that is an FtM that is doing the same thing to my body as I am to his.



Blessed Be
Janet

[Kaori]

... Having the bits I have is better than being dead. ...

Sorry to butcher your quote Alyssa;

I believe I feel very similar with the related paragraph.  And what I quoted is dead on with how I feel.

[Virginia87106]

My vote was for "I don't mind them".

I remember the first thought I had about my genitals, I was around 8 or 9 years of age, and I was lying naked in bed and looking at my body.  And all of my body looked so feminine, the curve of my hips, the roundness  and shape of my legs, prepubescent (possible) breasts, BUT here was this penis right in the middle of it all, and I remember not hating it, BUT being so amazed and curious as to why it was there, when all the rest of my body looked feminine.
I guess I still feel that way, and have learned through the years to adapt to it, and to make the very best of it.