Quote from: KayXo on March 15, 2016, 04:48:02 PM
And then the question: will it ever end? will next surgery finally make us feel good or will it take yet another one and another one to eventually realize it's all in our minds or really, that we should stop caring and live our lives.

We do need body positivity and self-acceptance just as much as cis women do, because at some point you do need to stop seeing yourself as somehow lesser just because you don't live up to an ideal, but the thing to remember is, at the end of the day, we're not cis women. We're not taking something that is fundamentally functional and getting it improved upon for purely personal-satisfaction reasons, often we're doing it because we're correcting a defect of sexual development which caused us to not develop something that we should have developed in the first place, or to correct the development of something that shouldn't have developed. For us, our reasons for surgery are much more commonly the equivalent of reconstructive purposes rather than cosmetic, and therefore our satisfaction rates with them are WAY higher than cis women's satisfaction rates with the same surgeries.

Take for example breast augmentation... according to studies, in the average transgender woman BA improves her satisfaction with her breasts by 59%, sexual well-being by 34%, and psychosocial well-being by 48%. In cis women, these numbers are only increased by 43%, 27%, and 33% respectively.

Studies on on voice feminization surgery are limited, but the one that did such a study showed an improvement in the self-reported dysphoria index in patients from a pre-op average of 0.2 to a post-op average of 1. (Not sure what the scale was, because I don't have access to the full article.)

Yes, there is a point where you need to accept how you are in order to be happy, and a lot of people do expect too much out of surgery, expecting it to somehow solve all of their social or loneliness issues, or take them from unpassable to passable, and obviously those aren't going to happen and one needs to have realistic expectations. But if there's something that, even after years, is still a persistent bother, almost every single study on surgery shows a decrease in neuroticism and anxiety afterward. (Except in patients with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, who consistently show no benefits from surgery.)

It can be a big deal. Just make sure that it really is because of a physical defect, a logical measurable difference that can be corrected in a logical measurable way, and not a defect in self-esteem or self-image or idealization/envy of other people. (Which is where most regrets and negative outcomes come from.)

Quote from: Dena on March 15, 2016, 08:21:00 PM
half therapy to learn feminine speech patterns. If you already have the speech patterns down

I never cared about feminine speech patterns. My speech patterns haven't changed, only my resonance and I pass 100% of the time...excluding my slight paranoia and fears. I don't think this is important at all. My 2 cents.

Unless you meant something else by patterns and I misinterpreted. 

I agree about the speech patterns. I never focused on changing mine, that change just kinda happened on its own I guess but either way speech patterns themselves dont really matter, its modulation in the voice that does.

I can totally relate to what you are asking, Kay.  However, in the end I'm still getting VFS, even though I pass 100% of the time, including when I have a 'bad' day.  I think it's due to people making decisions based on the 'big picture', which voice is just one part of...

Still, I have this nagging dislike of my voice and I do know that my laughs and a few other things are just not right sometimes.  Plus, I have an irrational lack of confidence at times, especially in circumstances like speaking to groups in public.  Hopefully I'll address some of this.

Aside from some SRS correction at some time, I'll be done with surgeries after this.  The only one I regret is getting a BA ages ago.  It made me feel better at first, but now I wish I'd perhaps left them whatever size they'd be naturally today.  Still, I'm happy.

Anecdote over!

Quote from: Denjin on March 16, 2016, 02:21:00 PM
I do know that my laughs and a few other things are just not right sometimes.  Plus, I have an irrational lack of confidence at times, especially in circumstances like speaking to groups in public.  Hopefully I'll address some of this.

Aside from some SRS correction at some time, I'll be done with surgeries after this.  The only one I regret is getting a BA ages ago.

Well - for me, VFS made me much more confident, but I also must admit that there are some corners where insecurities still hide. Coughing is not THAT much different, and the worst thing is if I get anxious for irrational reasons, my voice gets strained really fast and then sounds a bit fake and then that makes me more anxious etc - basically what happens is that I subconsciously try to force my voice to be more feminine to overplay the insecurities but post OP this causes no feminization but rather a voice distortion. I suspect it did the same pre OP but in addition to distorting the voice it made it somewhat higher pitched ?

I also regret having had a BA because they cut the nerves there. But on the other side I did not want to have the deformed breasts as they were back then - I just believe now that there would have been better ways to go about this and make them look good.

Kay you use a few key words that tell your frame of mind is WAY different than mine. I was born a woman. I did have a birth defect but I got it fixed. I am a woman. I am nothing more.

I dont use the P word because I am a woman. There is nothing for me to prove. I am a woman. You might not agree but thats totally your choice.

I got my voice changed because I wanted my voice to be as close as I can to the person I presnet to the world. If you or someone else is happy with who you are thats totally ok. I kind of think Hillary Clinton got a facelift to make herself look younger. I got my voice done so I sound better.

Finally I resent people that tell me I am different. I dont need to be reminded. I can only strive to be as normal as I can and that includes a frame of mine that is DEVOID of using the P word or comparring me to whats that thing cis women. Again I am a woman.

Katie

Katie, in a few words, you are saying you do things for yourself and you don't need others to validate you are a woman. You also don't care what others might think. I respect and admire this. I wish I was in that same state of mind but the outside world, how others perceive me, their feedback affects me. That's the reality for me. I'm not afraid of intolerance but of different behavior if indeed I am found out as a transsexual woman, that I will not be treated the same, etc. I just want to live normally as a woman. But, perhaps, if I was indeed found out, I'd realize that it's not bad at all, that I am happier this way, being vulnerable and out and that what matters most is not how others treat you or perceive you but the freedom of being you, no matter what. I need to follow my own advice to others.