FFS - Who Needs It, Who Wants It...

[DawnL]

I don't think I could do it though - being ambiguous that is. Maybe for a few months, but the *constant* stares and snickers would eventually wear me down.

I couldn't and that was my reality full time prior to FFS.  Stares, nudges, knowing looks, snickers behind my back.  I
braved it--I forced myself to--but I couldn't live like that forever.  We could get into a long philosophical discussion
here about real beauty as opposed to the shallow standards of the modern western world but it doesn't mean much
in the real world.  People are routinely judged on appearances, in chance encounters, job interviews, romance.  When
I've gone to meetings and listened to people struggling through transition, in many cases appearance was a problem. 
I didn't say so because hearing that doesn't help anyone.  Is it unfair?  Incredibly so.  But it's a reality that most of
us have to deal with.  My transition was easier because of it.  Those of you who don't need it or can live without it,
that's great.  For many of us, it's the difference between success in transition or relegation to the fringe of society.

The other issues about vanity or conceit are silly.  If people want to look better, age well, I see nothing wrong with
it.  Good cosmetic surgery does not fail after five years as suggested above.

Dawn

[melissa90299]

I don't think I could do it though - being ambiguous that is. Maybe for a few months, but the *constant* stares and snickers would eventually wear me down.

  For many of us, it's the difference between success in transition or relegation to the fringe of society.

That is the reality. I was watching a documentary on LOGO on a late transitioner who was going through a lot of difficulty. She was getting ready to have her SRS and the end of the program was when she had her surgery and went to Key West and met some man in her bar and had her first contact with a man. Her presentation was AWFUL. She looked like an NFL linebacker in drag. I kept wondering why she didn't opt for FFS instead of, or at least, before SRS. And also wondered why her therapist would even approve here for SRS. Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty. She even questioned why she would have to disclose to a potential lover that she was trans as if they couldn't already figure it out. (Besides her very male face, she had a big beer belly, big arms, legs and hands) I have seen a lot of women who look like her who think they pass just because someone occasionally calls them ma'am to be nice.

[brina]

Hiee,
  Another thought that has come to mind considering FFS is this. Is it not largely in part due to

Internal Valadation versus External Valadation? I don't know perhaps I have just been lucky in that I

have not been overly beat up due to my looks. Have I heard the snickers and seen the looks, YES,

but over a year ago now. Do I think people are simply being polite to me when I am out in public,

not a chance, as experience has taught me that adults love to beat up on people they percieve as

being below them. In the end I suppose it comes down to the individual. For me I Want to be as

natural as I possibly can be. If people are going to judge me by my appearance only then to me they

have the depth of an OIL droplet on water, and I have no interest in them. Oh well just some more

of my musings on the subject.

Byee,
  Brina

[Kate]

She looked like an NFL linebacker in drag. I kept wondering why she didn't opt for FFS instead of, or at least, before SRS. And also wondered why her therapist would even approve here for SRS. Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty.

Neither passability nor beauty are requirements for SRS or transition in general.

[cindianna_jones]

My hubby told me the other night that when he retires in 4 years, at 52, he intends to go in for some major work.  I've never heard him say anything like that before.  I'm pretty sure that he was joking.  But I chimed in:  "I want some too!" as I thought about the bump on my throat.  He said "Cool, we can go together".

I would like to get rid of it but I've lived so long with it that I don't know if it makes all that much sense at this point.  Besides, I didn't even think it of it as a problem until I started participating in the forums here.  It's funny how you can be influenced by all of this in a negative way.

Cindi

[tinkerbell]

She looked like an NFL linebacker in drag. I kept wondering why she didn't opt for FFS instead of, or at least, before SRS. And also wondered why her therapist would even approve here for SRS. Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty.

Neither passability nor beauty are requirements for SRS or transition in general.

I concur with Kate on this.

Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty

Probably because the program was about transsexualism and not about physical beauty


tinkerbell

[Refugee]

She looked like an NFL linebacker in drag. I kept wondering why she didn't opt for FFS instead of, or at least, before SRS. And also wondered why her therapist would even approve here for SRS. Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty.

Neither passability nor beauty are requirements for SRS or transition in general.

I concur with Kate on this.

Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty

Probably because the program was about transsexualism and not about physical beauty


tinkerbell

I hate to sound cynical, but showing a well "indistinguishable" TS isn't something the news media is ready for yet.  Remember, they still get ratings for showing us as nothing but a bunch of freaks.

Oh and as for the "linebacker in drag", my mom golfs with a natal female that looks like that.

[DawnL]

Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty

Probably because the program was about transsexualism and not about physical beauty
tinkerbell

The ability to pass isn't necessary about beauty and any program discussing transsexualism should
certainly address the issue since so many of us spend so much time talking and thinking about it.

Dawn

[tinkerbell]

Oddly, the program never explored her lack of passabilty

Probably because the program was about transsexualism and not about physical beauty
tinkerbell

The ability to pass isn't necessary about beauty and any program discussing transsexualism should
certainly address the issue since so many of us spend so much time talking and thinking about it.

Dawn

You are right.  The ability to pass isn't but having cosmetic surgery to improve your male features is.  I still haven't seen a transformed face by FFS that is not beautiful.  And although most of us spend so much time talking and thinking about passing, in the end transsexualism is still about gender incongruity and FFS is a type of cosmetic procedure.....oranges and bananas in other words...


tinkerbell

P.S.  From one of the greatest FFS surgeons' website..... BEAUTY.

[melissa90299]

[quote author=Tinkerbell link=topic=7839.msg56304#msg56304 dat

The ability to pass isn't necessary about beauty and any program discussing transsexualism should
certainly address the issue since so many of us spend so much time talking and thinking about it.

Dawn
[/quote]

I still haven't seen a transformed face by FFS that is not beautiful.

Oh thank you! I am assuming that you have seen the pics I posted. But not all women who have had FFS are beautiful, far from it:

http://beginninglife.com/FFS.htm

Article on Dr Ousterhout

Claire Roberts had tried plastic surgery: two nose jobs, plus a surgical procedure in which her jawbone was shaved down to create a softer contour.

But nothing really worked. A transsexual who decided late in life to transition to female gender, Roberts went to San Francisco plastic surgeon Douglas Ousterhout last fall and requested a new face. She wanted to "pass," which in her case meant altering a Governator jaw, a large nose and a low, protruding brow line that "made me feel about as feminine as one of the females in 'Planet of the Apes.'

"I felt like I could not shift over to a full-time gender position until my face -- my identity -- was correct," explains Roberts. The 59-year-old Seattle musician and retired business executive is 6 feet tall and has a 25-year-old son. He found out about Ousterhout's innovative facial feminization surgery online and decided to take the leap. The results, five months later, are dramatic: instead of the receding hairline, lantern jaw and (actor) Geoffrey Rush profile, Roberts is a perfectly plausible female.

Ousterhout, who practices at the California Pacific Medical Center's Davies campus on Castro Street, is widely considered the country's foremost facial feminization surgeon. This is because of the cranial and maxillofacial techniques he developed to change the shape of the skull. Unlike most plastic surgeons with their standard menu of tummy tucks, eyelid lifts and rhinoplasties, Ousterhout, 70, brings skills he acquired at the Center for Craniofacial Anomalies at the UCSF Medical Center, where for 25 years he was head surgeon and worked on children born with severe skull deformities. In 1998, when HMOs reduced reimbursements for skull surgery ("I wasn't going to be able to afford my practice"), he switched to female feminization surgery full time.

"Most plastic surgeons aren't bone doctors," Ousterhout says, "and never spend time really analyzing the difference between the female and male skull." None, he claims, delivers the radical results he's achieved with 918 procedures beginning in 1978.

Surgeons who perform the work are rare. Ousterhout declined to estimate the current number, but Chicago plastic surgeon Mark L. Zukowski, who performs 80 to 100 facial feminizations per year, guesses there are "at most 12 (doctors) in the world, with three or four top people." Beverly Hills surgeon Gary Alter, whose practice also includes sexual reassignment and labiaplasty, is one of the more prominent specialists and does about 50 facial feminization operations per year.

For $22,000 to $40,000 -- roughly twice the cost of sexual reassignment surgery -- Ousterhout's patients undergo as much as 10 1/2 hours of surgery. They remain in the hospital two days after surgery, then transfer to the Cocoon House, a bed-and-breakfast facility run by two nurses in Noe Valley, for eight days of convalescence.

Eighty-five to 90 percent of Ousterhout's patients are transgender. Ninety-five percent come from outside the Bay Area. "I have one patient who wants the surgery so badly," he says. "She's in a coal-mining town somewhere in Kentucky and she says, 'I don't dare dress as a female where anybody can see me. Literally, I'll be killed.' And she's probably right."

Most of Ousterhout's patients, like Stacy Windsor of British Columbia, grew up thinking they were accidents of nature. "I figured out that I was supposed to be a girl when I was 5, when I was in kindergarten," she says. "For some reason there'd been this terrible mistake."

At 24, Windsor (not her real name) is one of Ousterhout's youngest surgical patients. Six feet two and lanky, a computer programmer who started taking female hormones and dressing as a woman at 19, Windsor came to San Francisco after researching Ousterhout on the Internet and reading testimonials.

Her mother, Karen, has flown in from southern Ontario to be at her child's side throughout the surgery and recovery. "She's my baby," Karen says. Not supporting her would be unthinkable, she adds, especially when "one of three transsexuals ends her life before the age of 30."

"It's pretty rare, sadly," Windsor says of her parents' support. "I had read all these horror stories on the Internet saying, 'If you're still living with your parents, be packed and ready to go when you come out to them.' And of course they were both totally fine with it."

Windsor, who looks like Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry" -- only much more feminine -- is speaking in a private room at Ousterhout's office, its walls covered in plaques and diplomas from Ousterhout's long career. She's nervous about being exposed, especially at work, where everyone assumes she's a biological female. She asks not to be photographed for this story, or identified by her real name.

The procedure, she hopes, will help her not only to pass but also to feel more "integrated" in her female identity. "I'm having the jaw tapered," she says. "And I'm going to have the chin reduced and brought forward."

The male skull, Ousterhout explains, has more hooding over the eyes, whereas females have a more "open, convex orbit." During facial feminization surgery, Ousterhout pulls the face back from the forehead and removes part of the forehead bone, leaving a more feminine contour. The chin, which in men is wider and 20 percent longer than the female mandible, is reduced to female size and shape through a process called a sliding genioplasty. "It's like taking out the salami between two pieces of bread," he says.

"I also don't like the width of my nose," Windsor adds. In fact, it's as masculine and unavoidable as Adrien Brody's. The surgery will also lift her upper lip closer to her nose, allowing for a more feminine smile. It's a subtle difference, Ousterhout says, but men have a vertically longer upper lip than women. It's not noticeable when they smile, but when a man's lips are parted a few millimeters, the upper teeth are hidden. Ousterhout shortens the upper lip by making an incision immediately beneath the sill of the nose.

Last of all, the most obvious factor and biggest giveaway for transsexuals is the thyroid cartilage, or Adam's apple. While many surgeons make a small transverse incision in the front of the neck, immediately above the cartilage prominence, Ousterhout approaches it through an incision just behind the chin to leave less obvious scarring.

Eight days after her surgery, a few hours after her sutures and bandages are removed, Windsor welcomes me to the Cocoon House, where she's been napping and blunting the post-op edge with a series of gradually less potent pain pills. Her face is a bit pumpkin-like with orange and purple bruises and swelling around her nose, chin and jaw. Her voice is a tad weary.

"It's a horribly painful operation to recover from," Stacy says. "I was under anesthesia 13 hours. Transplants don't take 13 hours!" When the bandages were removed and she saw her new face, "I popped a Valium. It's such a huge change from how I looked before." For the next six weeks, Stacy has to take saline nasal spray six times a day. She can't wear glasses, a bicycle helmet or any kind of protective headgear for six months. Six days after our last visit, she sends an e-mail from British Columbia:

"My scalp incision shed a lot of hair around the edges, making me sensitive about people noticing it. And there's new stubble there, which will be a complete pain in the butt to style in about a month. I can't pluck my eyebrows because of risk of infection. ... I basically look like Stalin, or Bert from 'Sesame Street.'

"It's all stuff that's going to be just fine in the long term," she adds. "It's just gross now."

Stacy sees the facial surgery as being more about identity than vanity. She was homeless and on drugs two years ago, and says the expensive procedure -- $35,000 in her case -- was possible only because a family friend volunteered to front the cash. "Even if I'd found work in a field where I did well financially, it would've taken 10 years to save that much money."

"Ten really difficult years," her mother adds.

"I have a new opportunity here with the new face," Stacy says. "For the majority of Dr. O's patients, it's the difference between a very successful life and a sad and lonely, little life."

Not everyone agrees that FFS is desirable for transitioning transsexuals. San Francisco entertainer Veronica Klaus had genital reassignment surgery and breast augmentation but decided against facial surgery. "While I think it can be an important step in realizing one's potential, it's more important that one's self-esteem come first from the inside."

Lannie Rose, a San Jose author and transgender person. recommends facial feminization surgery only "if you have particularly masculine features and are having a difficult time passing in most circumstances." In her book, "How to Change Your Sex," Rose warns, "Although FFS is startlingly effective in feminizing the face, it only creates confusion if you wind up with a feminine-looking face on top of a linebacker's body; or very feminine features on a face that's still too damn large."

She's got a point: Think of Roberta Muldoon, the professional football player-turned-lady played by John Lithgow in "The World According to Garp." Or Roy "Ruth" Applewood, a Midwestern husband and dad, played by the bearish Tom Wilkinson, who shocks his family by coming out as transgender in the cable drama "Normal."

In fact, Ousterhout says, the size of the face is modified through FFS: "By reducing the forehead length through scalp advancement to a female position, and by reducing the vertical height of the chin in the sliding genioplasty, the face is made smaller in all regards."

For patients like Roberts, who go through life thinking of themselves as women despite a body that claims otherwise and then gradually find the courage to make the transition, Ousterhout's makeovers are life-changers. "The best way to describe this procedure and its impact on my life is that for the first time in 59 years my outside looks something like my inside."

Before FFS, Roberts says, "I thought I was ugly. I finally figured out that I didn't regard myself as ugly, but rather 'wrong.' The image in the picture was not me. Now it is, and that fact is so profound for me that I am still giddy from it!"

When the work was finished and she looked in the mirror, Roberts adds, "I said, 'Oh my God, I look like my mother!' While most women make this statement with chagrin, I made it with real joy. Actually, it's quite an overstatement since my mother was truly beautiful -- but I can now see much of her is in me, which touches me deeply."

[Sandy]

A lot of the girls here look to me like natural women but I'm seeing a 2D picture that most likely is the best one they can find.  That's what I do.  You'll never see a bad picture of me.  Why would I want to put my worst foot forward?  Kassandra has seen me in the flesh and if she was totally honest she'd probably tell you FFS would make a huge difference.  And you don't have to spend $40-50K to get that look.  A friend did a comparison between the famous Dr X and Dr Y and found Dr Y to be half the cost of Dr X.  And he's less invasive so there's a shorter healing time.

People will read your face first and they will do it in a couple of seconds.

Julie

Yes, Julie and I have met.  Think Lucy and Ethyl if you want to get an idea of how we get along... 

I personally think that she is being too hard on herself.  Of course just about anyone's apperance could be improved with a gentle application of sugical skill, and yes, Julie, FFS would probably make you 99 44/100% indistuguisable from a natal female.  And beautiful.  But realize you are already about 85-90% there already.  And really very pretty. 

In comparison, my cro-magnon features would require a jack hammer and bondo to smooth and soften into more feminine lines.  And even then I think I'd still have to sneak up on a glass of water...

Tell you what, Julie.  When you trade your face in, let me have your old one!  OK?

-Sandy (The ugly step sister)

[Julie Marie]

Few of us, if any, have been mistaken for natal females prior to beginning transition.  Why is that?  Is it because we have years, maybe even decades, of feedback where people read us as males?  I doubt that's the only reason.  Being comfortable in your own skin is indeed a major factor in passing but if you are battling major male features or are in the company of people educated in the difference, the chances of passing decrease dramatically.

I was watching "House" the other night.  Dr House, who is known for being quite brutal with people, was trying to get his understudy to drop his focus on a pretty girl he was hitting on at a party.  House says, "No Adams apple, small hands, good sign."  Then the girl leaves in disgust thinking the understudy is into TSs.  Immediately I thought that TV was teaching the unaware how to spot a transsexual.  How many other times has something like this been put before the general public?  And kids today are more aware of our existence than ever.  Passing will become harder and harder.  A decidedly feminine face will at least create sufficient doubt that the average person will play it safe and treat you as female.

Not everyone wants to go through life fighting to be seen on the outside the way they feel on the inside.  And even fewer can ignore the looks and stares one gets when they are clocked.  A person born with a physical facial deformity will learn how to handle the insensitive gawkers they encounter in life.  But ask them if they could have an operation that would make them look normal would they do it, I'll bet almost all would opt for the operation.  There are enough challenges in life without having to battle just to get to ground zero.

Sandy, you are too kind, as always.  But I have some make markers I will have to deal with all my life.  Each one requires some energy to overcome.  Sometimes that comes in the form of physical energy, sometimes mental energy.  But each one saps some energy from me.  And with that energy used up it gives me less to deal with all the usual things one has to deal with in an average day.  The more male markers I can eliminate, the easier life will be. 

Right now, transitioning has created a problem on the opposite end of the spectrum.  I get looks at work that have me wondering if I am being read as a transsexual, mostly from the young guys.  Long hair, boobs, facial changes and even mannerisms will give me away to the trained eye.  And that makes me uncomfortable.  I can do all the mind games with myself that I want but it's still going to bother me.  When I fully transition I expect to get clocked once in a while.  But if it happens all the time it will eventually wear on me.  Battling being female inside, while pretending to be male because my body is male, has been wearing on me all my life, and I'm getting tired.  Transitioning has given me great peace of mind but if I complete my transition and I still have that battle going on, this time trying to pass, I will never find real peace.  The battle will still go on.

There isn't enough years left in my life to do all the things I need to do to be able to pass 95% of the time, not to mention the cost.  But I don't need to pass 95% of the time, 75% would be great.  That means only 1/4 of my waking hours will I have to deal with trying to get the same respect as a natal woman.  The rest of the time I can go about my day living the way it should have been.  I believe having FFS by a skilled surgeon will give me that opportunity.  And thinking about living a life where I'm not in a constant battle gives me lasting peace of mind.

I still have to overcome the concerns about having surgery with all its potential dangers, possibly not being happy with the results (I've read many stories where one has gone back four, five or more times to make adjustments), taking a substantial portion out of my retirement money, all in hopes of accomplishing a goal some might see as feeding my vanity.  I've never had surgery of any kind in my life and I have no idea what to expect.  But when I imagine being able to look in the mirror and see a woman, especially when I'm not wearing makeup, that creates an inner peace I couldn't get any other way.

Julie

[angelsgirl]

There are plenty of "natal females" that get work done to feel more attractive and there's really not anything wrong with that, it's a personal choice. If you feel that you need it to be satsified with yourself, then you should absolutely take it into consideration. 

As a girl of Italain heritage, I will say that I don't consider a nose to be overlarge until it has its own calling area, so I'm not going to be much help as far as my opinion goes on who should get a nose job.

But, I will say that as a "natal female" I dislike my forehead (I call it my fivehead) but these are the nitpicky things that plague all girls. However, as long as my bangs will cover it, it doesn't bother me enough to consider surgery, but if it did, I'd save up for surgery!  If it bothers you enough, hey, go for it! I could ramble on about inner beauty because I personally believe that's what really matters, however, I am no longer naive enough to believe that the world actually operates that way.

By the way, I really like the term "natal female", I haven't heard it until this thread but I like the sound of it a lot more than GG. GG kinda sounds like a sex toy or something. Ewww....

[Refugee]

By the way, I really like the term "natal female", I haven't heard it until this thread but I like the sound of it a lot more than GG. GG kinda sounds like a sex toy or something. Ewww....

Oh an article I read on TS children referred to "her male-bodied daughter" and a couple "female-bodied sons".  GG is just so antiquated.  I've heard from alot of old, old TS that they used to be referred as "Changes", you know the emphasis on it being a "Sex Change".

[Melissa]

Few of us, if any, have been mistaken for natal females prior to beginning transition.  Why is that?  Is it because we have years, maybe even decades, of feedback where people read us as males?  I doubt that's the only reason.  Being comfortable in your own skin is indeed a major factor in passing but if you are battling major male features or are in the company of people educated in the difference, the chances of passing decrease dramatically.

Yes and even for me, unless I put on tons of makeup and wore a wig, that never happened.  When I presented as male, I was seen as male 100% of the time.  I had almost 3 decades of this.  So then I go to transition and the effects of the hormones and my hair growing just have me reeling.  I mean it definitely took some getting used to and was completely unexpected.  I wish everyone were able to experience this.  I do know there are some really good looking girls on here (Melissa eyes Julie and Kate and a couple others) who just think they don't pass with their face, but I think they do.

That being said, I think people who are not 100% passable in terms of facial features or possibly even body can still pass really well.  It's all in appearing to be comfortable with yourself, living as if you have always been female (since you technically have mentally), and just acting your natural self.  It may take some unlearning of male mannerisms, but dropping them can actually be a relief.  If you truly see yourself as a female, then why can't you just be yourself?

Melissa

[Kate]

I do know there are some really good looking girls on here (Melissa eyes Julie and Kate and a couple others) who just think they don't pass with their face, but I think they do.

Awl, thank you, that IS nice to hear... though I'll probably forever doubt myself until it happens

That being said, I think people who are not 100% passable in terms of facial features or possibly even body can still pass really well.  It's all in appearing to be comfortable with yourself, living as if you have always been female (since you technically have mentally), and just acting your natural self.

Very, very true. One of the TSs in my support group fascinates me, as she's just so darn PERFECT. But not necessarily in terms of features. While she is pretty, I'm sure you could pull her apart feature-by-feature and see masculine traits, and yet... she's just so darn believable. In terms of an overall perception, she's just an ordinary woman. It's the sum total that makes her female in perception, and NOT having the perfect chin or nose.

I'll admit that there are limits of course. For some of us, FFS is indeed required in order to pass reliably. But as you suggest, I also believe it's possible to overcome many physical traits through behaviour, gesture, expression, etc.

[Rei Ayanami]

The only things I would ever look to change would be my nose it has a wide flat part near the bridge and  I would get a Treachea shave should the money every be available.

Rei

[Refugee]

I hate my nose, if I weren't going to transition I'd probably still get it done.  Other then that my only concern is my chin.

[cindianna_jones]

You know ....

I build and sell telescopes.  I outfit them with a very sophisticated goto and tracking system.  Lot's of people don't have tracking and goto on their telescopes.  For them, it is "not needed" and it is "cheating" to not be able to point your scope at an object in the sky.  It all boils down to money.  I've seen die hards melt once they use a tracking system and the very first thing they do when they have the cash is get a scope with all the good stuff on it.

So it is with FFS and the other surgeries.  If we can't afford it, we pass on it.  I did.  If I had the cash for it right now, I'd probably spring for it. Shoot... why not?  And if I could afford it, I'd have a personal trainer live with me along with a chef who would feed me only what I need to eat

I think that it is absolutely wonderful that they have been able to perfect the surgeries to be so successful.  I checked out the website listed above and there are some very pretty faces there.  If you can do it, go for it! Life is too short to not get something that actually makes some sense!

Cindi

[Melissa]

That being said, I think people who are not 100% passable in terms of facial features or possibly even body can still pass really well.  It's all in appearing to be comfortable with yourself, living as if you have always been female (since you technically have mentally), and just acting your natural self.

Very, very true. One of the TSs in my support group fascinates me, as she's just so darn PERFECT. But not necessarily in terms of features. While she is pretty, I'm sure you could pull her apart feature-by-feature and see masculine traits, and yet... she's just so darn believable. In terms of an overall perception, she's just an ordinary woman. It's the sum total that makes her female in perception, and NOT having the perfect chin or nose.

Yes, exactly and what I described is pretty much the mindset you need to have in order to pull it off.

Melissa