Dilation won't bother me a bit. When I have my SRS I'll dilate til I'm blue in the face if I have to, lol! I'll do whatever it takes to have my SRS. It means everything to me. Hell, if they didn't need the tissue I'd have cut what's there off a long time ago and maybe used it for fish bait. I used to have my SO to keep reminding me they need the tissue to  make my vagina. Now that she and I are broke up, who knows, I may have a date with the emergency room parking lot and my fillet knife........................... if something goes wrong with my insurance coverage.

Ally

Quote from: Allyda on June 25, 2014, 05:45:29 PM
Dilation won't bother me a bit. When I have my SRS I'll dilate til I'm blue in the face if I have to, lol! I'll do whatever it takes to have my SRS. It means everything to me. Hell, if they didn't need the tissue I'd have cut what's there off a long time ago and maybe used it for fish bait. I used to have my SO to keep reminding me they need the tissue to  make my vagina. Now that she and I are broke up, who knows, I may have a date with the emergency room parking lot and my fillet knife.

Ally

ouch! I know the feeling though

Quote from: stephaniec on June 25, 2014, 05:51:30 PM
ouch! I know the feeling though

Glad you understand how I feel. I can't stand to look at, or even touch the repulsive thing. My insurance is covering my SRS though, so I edited it to include"..........if something goes wrong with my insurance coverage."

Ally

Right now I'm so disgusted with the gross worm between my legs that I can't see this not happening at some point. As others have mentioned, at one point I wanted to cut it off. While I've always been grossed out by it, its gotten worse since I realized who I am.

Its not a big deal to me at all as I feel infinitely better just starting HRT and living full time.  As of right now, I'm not going to be getting the surgery, most likely orchie, but not GRS.  In the future, I may change my mind, but now I'm fine with downstairs.  Now my head hair, you betcha Ill do something about that!

I can relate to all of you feeling this way. Many of us are hoping for that miracle money coming in for the surgery. If I won the big lottery, there would be no doubt on getting the SRS done. Hopefully enough money to get all the necessary surgery to become as passable as possible, including the voice surgery. I can tolerate the male organ, which I affectionately refer to as the "clit" and the other ones as the "ovaries" just so I can fantasize it in a way to get me through life the way I am. At my middle age, it is the only way to survive this gender mistake thing. It was a long, long time to suffer through it, but I have gotten this far, in any case. And why do they call it "middle age?" That would make me to live to 128, lol!

Quote from: Emily King on June 25, 2014, 10:15:18 AM
It's very important to me.
I have cravings, that I can't really take care of, and being a hetro female I need the right parts.  Or, let me put it this way, if I can't have surgery then I may as well be dead.

HANG IN THERE - YOU WILL SURVIVE AND MAKE IT.

I first realized that I had the wrong parts over 60 years ago.  The time was not right then to do anything about it and I have not had any real opportunity since then. I would still like to loose those currently unneeded things but the opportunity isn't there for me.

I'd say the big surgery is definitely very important to me, eventually. I'm not in a huge rush yet, but of course the sooner the better. Also, if for some reason my doctors recommend against it for reasonable medical risk, then it probably won't be the end of the world, just very dissapointing.

I fantasized abut having a properly functioning vagina at least since I was 13 (before I had any idea what one looked like) so it has pretty much been a (half) lifelong dream even though I didn't realize I was trans until this year.

I don't even think about GRS now. I had an orchi a few years ago, so I'm good.

I'm teaching myself Spanish and plan to travel to Chile or Argentina to have GRS as the cost is significantly lower, not to mention the favorable exchange rates. I'll prolly travel on my own as that's how the situation looks now, but maybe not. IDK. I'll prolly have my nose down down there too, unless I can get insurance to cover it given it was broken in the past and I have a deviated septum. It' snot neccessary but it's a teeny bit crooked and points down from the incident(s) that turned what was once a cute little nose into this. It only points down when I smile from the loss of cartilage strength.

So, yeah I guess the surgery is important. But I'm in the camp that it isn't a surgery for everyone and if you have doubts, don't do it. A post-op trans woman, pre-op trans woman and non-op trans woman are all the same to me: women.

Prior to and in the immediate period following my coming out, it was hugely important to me, and I couldn't even look at that area of my body. But I feel like it's not quite such a big deal now that I've been on HRT for a few years, as a lot of my dysphoria has ebbed away with the other changes to my body and my complete acceptance as a woman, and just knowing that so long as I remain on HRT, I'm never going to get any more masculine than I am right now makes living with the genitalia I was born with a lot easier in the short term. ^^ It's still absolutely something that I want in my long term future, though, for a vast selection of reasons which include pure dysphoria, wanting to reduce the amount of pills I'm taking every day, the fact that my newfound sexual and romantic attraction post hormones seems to be targeted at guys, the desire for less anxiety using female changing rooms and facilities, and even just simple things like wanting to wear tight fitting clothes without hassle and being interested in visiting Japanese hot springs sometime. So I guess basically... uh... really important, but not life or death anymore.

Quote from: Joanna Dark on July 22, 2014, 12:44:13 PM
A post-op trans woman, pre-op trans woman and non-op trans woman are all the same to me: women.

I feel the same way, we're all women regardless of status of transition, prior and beyond.

Allie

It means everything to me. I won't see myself as myself until I have "gone all the way" because I have never seen myself as any other way even though my anatomy does no match right now with my brain it will one day.

This is a different question for me now. I've been on HRT for 9 months . My mind has felt so much more normal then it did for my whole life. I think  every nanosecond of having the proper anatomy. the problem for me is my age, whether the time left on the planet make it logical to do the operation. If this path was shown to me 10 years ago , yeah go for it. but now I don't know. If I could do it within the next year , yeah it be worth it., the thing is as long as I'm changing and progressing to look totally female I feel so much better then I ever have. I'd truly would love to be totally correct, but given my age maybe it's not an absolute necessity. Maybe I can achieve a true sense of womanhood without the remodeling and maybe  I can't. To be honest I'm very confused at the moment.

Quote from: stephaniec on July 22, 2014, 09:13:12 PM
This is a different question for me now. I've been on HRT for 9 months . My mind has felt so much more normal then it did for my whole life. I think  every nanosecond of having the proper anatomy. the problem for me is my age, whether the time left on the planet make it logical to do the operation. If this path was shown to me 10 years ago , yeah go for it. but now I don't know. If I could do it within the next year , yeah it be worth it., the thing is as long as I'm changing and progressing to look totally female I feel so much better then I ever have. I'd truly would love to be totally correct, but given my age maybe it's not an absolute necessity. Maybe I can achieve a true sense of womanhood without the remodeling and maybe  I can't. To be honest I'm very confused at the moment.

I also happen to be sitting in a bar right now drinking tequila sunrises so I'm  not all that clear headed.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on June 21, 2014, 08:51:40 PM
If you had asked me this question at the beginning of transition, I would have said that it was the most important thing in the world to me, possibly even more important than the social transition itself. I had severe bodily dysphoria, so much so that I actually attempted freezing my own genitals in ice around age 16, and constantly had (happy) dreams about cutting the damned thing off.

Shockingly, though, transitioning has significantly eased my genital dysphoria. Having smooth skin and hips and a feminine body shape has made it much more bearable, and HRT cutting my sex-drive down to basically nothing has made it such that I really don't think about it that much anymore. (Erections are my primary source of genital dysphoria, so now that I don't have to worry about that AT ALL anymore, it's not as big of a deal.) It still does bother me, mainly just because tucking is a pain in the butt, it severely limits my swimsuit options, interferes with my ability to fully see a girl in the mirror, makes me a bit nervous of being "found out," especially when I'm using the bathroom, and I'm sure if I was actually in a sexual relationship it would be a HUGE deal, but at the moment it's really not something that makes me miserable every day anymore. Most of the time I'm able to ignore it. So SRS has dropped down from being my #1 priority to just being something that I'm hoping that at one point I can get in the future.

My #1 priority now is seeing a girl in the mirror, and being able to just live as a girl without worrying about it anymore. I'll start worrying about SRS again once that's out of the way.

Carrie, I agree with you completely.  Socially, most of my friends are straight.  They all treat me as a woman. They introduce me as a female to other friends, and so far I've had huge acceptance. 

To me, I don't know that I'll ever really need it to validate who I am.  Had I been 20 years younger when I began transitioning, maybe I'd see things differently. But beginning at age 39, and never having kids, nor being able to give birth, I don't feel bad about it. But I don't blame any of my sisters here for needing the surgery.  More power to you.

Hm... I don't want to say I never want it... I mean I have days where I want it more than anything... but idk... I'm also kinda actually happy with my bits. I mean it's more everything else that is the problem. For as much trouble as that part of me has caused me... idk, I still feel sexy and confident with it still... and idk, maybe some day I'll want SRS, but I don't know, technology is moving so fast in the medical field that I'm fine waiting.

I know for myself it's a necessity. I'm never gonna feel truly at peace till I do. 

Previously I would have said very important but not essential for me to function in society. However, the experience last week of finally feeling cured has been the most profoundly positive and fulfilling of my life.

I had FFS in March and two weeks ago SRS. FFS was by far the larger step for me. I know pass nearly 100%. My largest challenge is still my voice but I work on it.

SRS is by far the more painful event. :-( For me it is like the dot on i. I am not finished until I had SRS. In three months when everything is healed I can just take a shower in the gym. With a feminine face and a vagina I will pass even with my maleish body, I am only a few months on low dose HRT and only one months on full HRT.

Lara