Why this wasn't priority for me.

[CosmicJoke]

Hi everyone. To make a long story short I have been living full-time as female for 15 years. The only procedure I had about 13 years ago was a bilateral orchiectomy. I have been on hormone replacement therapy a little longer than that. I started it when I was 18 and really have no problems with passing as female unless it is divulged that I am transgender.

The thing that confuses me the most especially at this point in time is why my existence is so confusing to some people. Femininity was always shamed in me but I saw masculinity almost respected in some biological females that I know personally. It was a huge double-standard.

I guess you can say this is why I feel that sex is not the most reliable indicator of gender. I am looking at getting the vaginoplasty procedure done soon but I also don't believe it will really change the issue that I mentioned above.

I was just curious if anyone else sees gender the same way I do or maybe GCS was at the bottom of your to-do list like it is mine?

[VictoriasSecret]

Hey there,

The issue I see is the labels we give ourselves and those from others.

What is most important to you in your life? How you see yourself or the perception of what others see or think of you?

Everyone's experience in transitioning to whatever degree is different even though there may be similarities.

You have to live with how you look and feel in life, no one else.

The have or not to have GCS is a very personal choice.

We make that decision based on what is best for us as an individual, not because of someone else's experience or opinion.

Advice can be given but at the end of the day, the final decision is yours.

Good Luck. 🙏

[CosmicJoke]

Hey there,

The issue I see is the labels we give ourselves and those from others.

What is most important to you in your life? How you see yourself or the perception of what others see or think of you?

Everyone's experience in transitioning to whatever degree is different even though there may be similarities.

You have to live with how you look and feel in life, no one else.

The have or not to have GCS is a very personal choice.

We make that decision based on what is best for us as an individual, not because of someone else's experience or opinion.

Advice can be given but at the end of the day, the final decision is yours.

Good Luck. 🙏

Hi! Thank you for your reply. I don't think I've seen you around here before but that was actually very helpful.

Thanks again! I hope you stick around. :-)

[VictoriasSecret]

I'm glad it was of some help to you. I have just joined Susan's place today so I'll be here for a while!! 🙏

[Allie Jayne]

I understand it this way. Many of us have Gender Incongruence, and this is when our identity doesn't match our perceived birth sex. We all perceive our gender identity differently, and the more we align with our own identity, the less dysphoria we feel.

Many of us have a vision of what we should look like, and if we can match that vision, we will have reduced our dysphoria to levels we can live comfortably with. It seems like you are in this group. I am in another group, less concerned by my appearance and social acceptance, but possibly my vision is more about what I am inside. I didn't seek physical or social transition, but I did have a big dysphoria trigger with my genitals. GCS dramatically reduced my dysphoria, so much so, I suspect if I could have had GCS initially, I might not have needed to socially and medically transition and would have been happy living as a male.

So if you are in a place where you don't have significant stress for your genitals, it would only be for practical reasons that you might pursue GCS. Sadly, many of us look at other people and impose their expectations on ourselves. Just because other trans people get GCS, it doesn't mean that is right for you! Think about why you are considering surgery, and what is right for you.

For example, I had no desire to get breast augmentation. I have an issue with having foreign material placed in my body to feel more 'me' ( this is my hang up, I don't impose it on others! ). I had one B cup and one A cup, and this was making it difficult to buy bras. I was regularly being misgendered (which didn't overly worry me), and a trans friend persuaded me that my life would be better, for practical reasons, to get implants. I did, moving up to D cups, which better suited my frame, bras were easier to find, and I was misgendered far less. In the end, augmentation worked for me, but it had no effect on my dysphoria.

It's so worth working out what you need, and why, so you make informed decisions on what is right for you.

hugs,

Allie

[Charlotte_Ringwood]

Heyya,
To me what you say makes sense. I think the feeling of gender and the presentation of gender can be two completely different things. You could feel totally comfortable in your womanhood and not change anything outwardly and be ok.

Others may get dysphoria from their physical appearance and this becomes important for them to change. But that's almost to say it's body dysmorphia caused by gender dysphoria in a way.

As gender is such a personal and subjective thing then people have a different set of parameters they see as defining their gender ranging from physical to their state of mind.

For me I turn this on its head again as inside I feel agender. I can't lock onto any gender. I'm just me which is a melting pot of personality traits that stereotypically span all genders. However I'm gaining huge mental benefits and euphoria from transitioning to female. But this doesn't change the internal feelings. Having surgeries for me will just make me feel happier about my body, and more at peace in my mind. But not essential by any stretch. I think a lot is about feeling that feminine softness, care and tranquility I associate with being a woman.

Charlotte 😻

[KathyLauren]

You have to do what feels right for you.

GCS was a low priority for me, but it was important.  I transitioned during the first Trump presidency, and, while I am in a relatively safe country, I could see the writing on the wall that a right-wing crackdown would target us.  So, while HRT and transitioning my presentation and documentation were higher priorities, I had a feeling that a surgical transition would be necessary for survival in the future.  It was a couple of years before I had my surgery, but it was the right thing for me.

[Susan ✅]

Dear CosmicJoke,

What you wrote makes a lot of sense, and honestly, I think far more people in our community will relate to your experience than you might expect. Living full-time for fifteen years, having already taken the steps that mattered most to your well-being, and only now considering vaginoplasty isn't unusual at all. We each build our lives in the order that feels right, not the order people expect.

What stood out most in your post was the way you described the double-standard you grew up with—how femininity was punished in you, while masculinity was encouraged or even admired in some women you knew. Many of us were shaped by those mixed messages. When you're raised in an environment where your natural way of being is shamed, it's no wonder that the categories other people insist on feel too rigid or too limited.

Your lived reality reflects something a lot of trans women understand: people fixate on sex as if it tells the whole story of a person, when in practice, the way we live, move, communicate, and express ourselves is what people respond to. You've been read and treated as a woman for most of your adult life—not because you "pass," but because you built a life aligned with who you are. That's real. And it's why you're seeing that surgery, while meaningful for many of us, doesn't magically fix other people's confusion or biases.

A longtime friend from my pre-transition life also shows how people can grow. He had accepted me from the beginning when I came out in the 1990s, but he later admitted that, at first, he understood being transgender almost entirely through a sexual lens. Eventually, he came to realize it was never about sex at all—it was about someone finally living as who they truly are. And when he first saw me after my surgery and facial feminization, that understanding fully clicked into place. Since then, he has become one of my biggest supporters and advocates.

"When I saw her, everything about her was pure joy," he said. "She radiates it. And people around her can see how deeply she deserves that happiness."

For some women, GCS is essential from the start. For others, it becomes a priority only when the rest of life is stable. And for some, it isn't a priority at all. None of those paths make anyone "more" or "less" of a woman. They simply reflect different needs.

From what you've shared, it sounds like you already know yourself incredibly well. If vaginoplasty is something you want for your own comfort, intimacy, or completeness, then it's worth pursuing. But you're exactly right that it won't change how people who don't understand gender will react. Their confusion isn't about your sex or your surgery—it's about the limits of their own framework.

You're living your truth, and you've been doing it for a long time. That clarity counts for far more than strangers' confusion ever will.

If you decide to go forward with GCS, I hope it brings you whatever sense of wholeness you're looking for. And if your priorities continue to shift over time, that's okay too. You're allowed to build your life in the order that fits *you*.

We will be here to cheer you on!
— Susan 💜

[Asche]

For the most part I haven't been conscious of much dysphoria, and it has mostly not been a (conscious?) motivation.

What makes it difficult for me to talk about any of this is that I feel like I've spent my life split into two people: the conscious me that deals with the demands of the world, and an inner me whose workings I mostly am unaware of.  (I call it "DID lite.")  I think this is because I grew up in an environment (home, school, etc.) where if I ever acted from my own impulse or from my own thinking, I was punished or shamed or ostracized or looked down on like the skunk at the garden party (usually more than one of these.)  Nobody, absolutely nobody wanted to know anything about who or what I really was, nor to have to be aware of its existence.  So I created the "outer me" that tried to behave and talk and think as I was expected to, but when I was safely alone I could live as the "inner me."  But every now and then, I feel a strong impulse to move my life in a particular direction, and I call this my "inner oracle,"  which I assume comes from the "inner me."  For instance, after a decade or so of hearing about trans women, and reading a blog post which seemed to describe me, I was seeing a therapist, and in the middle of the session, my "inner oracle" told me, quite to my surprise: "you're going to transition.  Just thought you might like to know."  I think a lot of feelings stay in the "inner me" and don't get felt by the "outer me."

So I don't remember having any particular gender dysphoria, but once I transitioned, I felt so much better (gender euphoria.)   And as soon as I was living as a woman, it seemed obvious that I should sign up for SRS.  I can't say I It took me 7 years to get there, mostly due to the messed up medical system we have in the US, but once I got to my hospital room after surgery and got to look at myself "down there,"  I just felt so much better about myself, even before they got the dressings off.

I had a lot of rational justifications for getting SRS, mainly that, like KathyLauren, I could see that the USA was headed towards rampant transphobia and the harder I could make it for the transphobes to identify me, the better.  (That was also why I changed my birth certificate (once it was possible), even though I think it's stupid, but then, that's transphobia.)

I did have one experience of gender dysphoria: I was getting some sort of medical test which involved me getting X-rayed multiple times while I was wearing only the usual hospital gown, and my testicles kept being very visible, and I felt awful about it.  That is why I got an orchiectomy, because I didn't need to wait 7 years for that.

So if you really want to know about my "priorities", you'll need to talk to the "inner me."  Who isn't good at communicating with the outside world.

And if you ever figure out how to communicate with my "inner me," let me know how you did it.  My therapist and I would love to know.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I grew up in an environment (home, school, etc.) where if I ever acted from my own impulse or from my own thinking, I was punished or shamed or ostracized or looked down on like the skunk at the garden party (usually more than one of these.)  Nobody, absolutely nobody wanted to know anything about who or what I really was, nor to have to be aware of its existence.  So I created the "outer me" that tried to behave and talk and think as I was expected to, but when I was safely alone I could live as the "inner me." 

This was my experience too. I did not see it as related to sex or gender, and I had no words to describe what was happening or how I felt. It wasn't until decades later, in therapy, that I could see it clearly in hindsight. Now, we have words for it that I did not have before.

[Allie Jayne]

For the most part I haven't been conscious of much dysphoria, and it has mostly not been a (conscious?) motivation.
  But every now and then, I feel a strong impulse to move my life in a particular direction, and I call this my "inner oracle,"  which I assume comes from the "inner me."  For instance, after a decade or so of hearing about trans women, and reading a blog post which seemed to describe me, I was seeing a therapist, and in the middle of the session, my "inner oracle" told me, quite to my surprise: "you're going to transition.  Just thought you might like to know."  I think a lot of feelings stay in the "inner me" and don't get felt by the "outer me."

So I don't remember having any particular gender dysphoria, but once I transitioned, I felt so much better (gender euphoria.)  And as soon as I was living as a woman, it seemed obvious that I should sign up for SRS.  I can't say I It took me 7 years to get there, mostly due to the messed up medical system we have in the US, but once I got to my hospital room after surgery and got to look at myself "down there,"  I just felt so much better about myself, even before they got the dressings off.


I did have one experience of gender dysphoria: I was getting some sort of medical test which involved me getting X-rayed multiple times while I was wearing only the usual hospital gown, and my testicles kept being very visible, and I felt awful about it.  That is why I got an orchiectomy, because I didn't need to wait 7 years for that.

Dysphoria isn't always a strong, awful experience, it can be that "strong impulse to move my life in a particular direction". It is that inner voice, and can manifest in many forms. Sometimes not seemingly related to Gender, but just periods of being not happy. It can be a low level impulse to go in a particular direction, but it is the force which pushes us to congruence.

I rang a surgeons office to learn just what was involved in GCS, and my intention was to gather all this information, carefully consider it in consultation with my wife, over time, and make a very informed and considered decision, but once the nurse answered, my "inside oracle" completely took over, and before I'd hung up, I had booked a tentative date and paid my deposit. It wasn't a horrible experience, but my conscious self had lost control to a powerful force within me. That force is dysphoria, and it is what pushes us towards things like crossdressing, joining trans forums, and transition. It can be almost imperceptible, or overpowering, deeply upsetting, or just a minor influence, as it is the tool incongruence uses to push us towards congruence.

Hugs,

Allie