Sorry to post so late to this thread, and I'm new without an introduction yet, I will post one when I get some more time.
Anyway I just wanted to make a few quick comments on FFS. From what I have found FFS did not give me a completly new face, and the changes were slow and subtle. But also emotions and mental preceptions play into it a lot. One has to be prepared mentally to embrace and accept the new you thats looking back in the mirrior. Also friends and family that are really close and have been close since the beginning of transtion, and depending on how they feel about the transtion and how well they accept it and you, they will have preconceived notions of what you are "supposed" to look like, and this can actually skew there mental preception of what you look like, which can inturn positivtly or negativitly affect your own mental preception of what you look like. It can actually be a very emtionally confusing thing. However, but although I did move away and leave most of my past life behind when I transitioned, I did recently make contact with an old high school freind I knew like 6 years ago, and when he saw me, he saw said he could see nothing but a 100% female, just a girl. He had no other preception of me except that of a high school boy, but not seeing me for all those years, and not seeing the gradual changes of transtion and later FFS, when he did see me all he saw was a girl. Its the anonymouus third party prespective that is our best guage.
I actually had SRS and lived fulltime for over 5 years before I decided on FFS, I was passing well, so I fugured I did'nt need it, and all of my family kept telling me I did'nt need it, but that is in part because famaily have a preconceived notion of what we are suspossed to look like. But anyway, even though the HRT and being young did femminze my soft tissue, I knew underneath the bone was a result of testosterone and was very male, so I ended up having Type III forhead reconstruction, and sinus setback, orbital rim burring, complete rhinoplasty, to match my new forhead, scalp advance, forhead lift, which also lifts the brow, jaw and chin contouring, upper lip lifting surgery, and a face lift to pull the skin up along my new jaw line. when I look in the mirrior now I don't see a totally new face, becuase a lot of what we see is determined by our emotional, mental, and pre-conceived notions of ourselves. But I do see 100% female, and this is what society sees as well. Which is what I always wanted. In my own opion we can either set our sites on becoming beautiful or gorgeaous transsexuals, or just looking like ordinary girls, and thats all I want, to just walk down the street and be another anonymous girl.
Another thing to consider with FFS, is to have real FFS, I have seen some girls, becuase now apparently there are a lot of doctors out there doing soft tissue work calling it FFS, in the short term soft tissue work may soften the apparance and make things temporarily more round and femminine, but in the long run the bone will still be male, and there are huge and oftentimes very subtle diffrences in the shape of the bone, Specially around the eyes and the forehead. I was passing, and always thought my forehead and level of bossing was fine, but as it turned out I needed a type III re-construction, which as I see now made a huge diffrence, and now I no that not only is the soft tissue on the surface femminized, so is the bone underneath, so as I age and the skin drops and sags, it will be in a female direction, becuase the bone has been changed to a more female type.
Just in my own opion and from what I have seen, most TS's ultimatly do need some level of FFS that includes bone work, and its not nesscarliy changing or giving you a new face, its just making the whole thing more female, the soft tissue and the bone, and this does make a huge diffence.
In my own thinking of FFS, I knew that my main focus had to be on just looking female, not nesscarily being beautiful, but looking 100% girl, no matter how much makeup I was wearing, or what kind of clothes I was wearing. I knew that if I focused on getting a "new" pretty face, that I would more than likely be disappointed, and this is what I had to menatally prepare myself for, so that I and others would get the same preception, regardless of preconceived notions of what I was "suppossed" to look like.
-passiflora-
