I am a woman-with-a-penis. That's one word: woman-with-a-penis. And as a woman-with-a-penis, I know secrets that you probably think you know, too -- but trust me, you don't. So I'll tell some of them to you, and you'll better understand.
First of all, I am a woman-with-a-penis who does not want her penis, thank you very much. While this is true for me, you should know it's not true for everyone in the transgender community. Some who identify themselves as cross dressers and no-op transsexuals do in fact want to keep their penises, and certainly should. Others undergo orchiectomies ('orchies' for short), which is the removal of the testicles only, leaving the penis itself intact. Some do this as a preliminary step to Gender Re-assignment Surgery, but others do it as a procedure unto itself. And some transgender women who undergo breast augmentation and feminizing facial surgeries will take no hormones so they can retain the ability to have erections and ejaculations. If that is their path, then I say brava. The courage it takes to follow one's course should always be applauded.
My experience is not theirs, however. I am a woman of transsexual experience who would rather not have these inches between her thighs, nor any of those so over celebrated accompanying abilities. And I haven't for a while now -- like since childhood. I won't bore you with any adolescent traumas -- those sorts of things have been rehashed again and again on CNN and in Barbara Walters specials, where cashing in on all the lurid drama for easy ratings seems to be the true order of business. I will say, though, that in the present tense I am a late onset transsexual (someone who began transition in mid-life as opposed to the more optimal adolescent years when hormones would have had a greater effect), whose pre-op status is not by choice.
Want another secret worthy of a Fox pseudo newscast? That look of pain you see in Richard's picture of me holding the knives? -- that is real sadness in my face and real pain etched into my eyes. Pain and sadness not because I am holding sharpened blades between my legs, but because I cannot bring myself to actually use them.
Here's another one. Did you know that during Gender Reassignment Surgery, penile skin is inverted to make the neo-vagina? And that to make one's new vagina as potentially orgasmic as possible, you need to keep the nerve endings of your penis invigorated? That's because an atrophied penis may end up a deadened vagina. So you are encouraged to keep those synapses sparking as much as possible -- with masturbation as the preferred method. So the way to make sure you have the most viable vagina is to play with the one part of your body you'd rather never touch or see again.
I wish I could tell you I was either kidding or dreaming.
Here's another uncomfortable truth you can think about, and that's just how maddening this process can be. How frustrating and infuriating it is to know you are unable to continue in your transition, your process, your spiritual journey (because its impact really does reach that far down into you, touching your very core), not due to a lack of will or want or need or real-life experience or support, but because of something as mundane as money. Money! Dollars and cents, Benjamins and pennies! Knowing that you have come all this way, jumped through all the hoops the therapists and medical providers have forced on you just so you can even start on hormones -- only to find that the insurance companies have set up brick walls against you because they want to define your surgeries as 'cosmetic' and 'elective'. Oh really? -- cosmetic? Let them tell me of someone, anyone, who in any god's name would have 'elected' to make this their life. Who chooses to wake up every day in a body stuck in this half-transition between sexes. Who would choose to go out and face a world hostile to trans-folk.
But I don't want to leave you with the dull impression that this journey has been anything but incredible., or that I would rather go back to a pre-transition time when wearing the wrong gender was akin to slow suffocation. No matter how tough the toughest days have been, they are nothing compared to all those days that went by before I got my first Estradial perscription. In fact, these are empowered days when every step of my heel leaves a spark on the street behind me. But I won't lie to you either: there are infuriating facets about this journey that have nothing to do with being transsexual and have everything to do with someone else's interpretation of it. And that brings me to my final not-so-secret: I'm going to survive their ignorance.
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