As per another thread in which we saw a discussion about individuals' comfort levels with SRS affected regions, there may also be a very variable factor here: namely the magnitude of the dysphoria associated with said regions. While coercion should never be a solution, I can envision situations where pressure from therapists and friends may actually have a positive impact: such as when a person's dysphoria is highly correlated with their genital configuration, and they would greatly benefit from it, yet they are avoiding SRS for other, potentially lesser, reasons (e.g. feeling anxious about surgery or societal fear of the finality of the step).
The flipside of the matter is of course that the individualist in me is very, very leery of anyone bearing supposed gifts of "great advice and goodwill"
. What is between my legs should only ever concern a very small number of people: those who are in a position to ... ehm ... "visually verify" my status. Social acceptance should not be impacted by this at all, as I see no reason to disclose my status to anyone other than the aforementioned persons. If someone outside of that circle asks a question on the matter, I would probably answer their question with yet another, one that hits at the same level of intimate detail, hopefully making them realise the invasiveness of what they just said (if they nonchalantly answer it, I shall reserve feeling rather uncomfortable and simply excusing myself, I hate people who give real answers to questions that were intended to be rhetorical...
).
I realise that I am being a bit idealistic here, and times can / will arise where disclosure of status is difficult to avoid, but unless it is in a medical context I have no qualms of giving the response I think is best for me, regardless of genital reality. Let's face it, our situations are non-trivial enough as it is, and I see no incentive to give other people an additional handle to try to exert some twisted sense of superiority.
