Alterations

Of course that photo is scary. I mean who wants some ego maniac slicing into you with reckless abandon. Ok that is a nutty picture, I know. And it is not how I really feel about it, trust me. Although I will say in my survey of surgeons who make most of their living "helping" girls like me look like the women we should have been, they are for the most part requiring very little enhancement of their own self opinion. In my experience, true to form for the breed. It takes a special bravado to have the confidence to cut somebody else.

Let's face it (pun intended), if you are considering this kind of thing you are basically saying to another human being, please make me over in your image of what a woman should be. Realize that their image may likely be different than yours. And no matter how valid, or amazing that image is, it is indeed theirs. You are about to yield your future to this person. Yes, they are likely well trained, well experienced, and well known. But at the end of the day, you are putting the whole deal in their hands.

For me that will happen in October. I go for FFS. I know many folks focus on the so called bottom surgery (SRS, GRS, GCS, M-O-U-S-E) as the demarcation of transition to their trueselves. But I think that transition event for me is in October with my mug. I have mixed emotions about that. For one it spells the point where I will probably no longer be able to fake being a dude. Yes I know, you are saying that my "dude impression" is now an epic fail. But reality is I have been pulling it off, folks always seem surprised when I come out.

There are some girls that have told me that I do not need this. That I "pass", or blend. That I look like somebody's mom. And in many ways that is what my goal was all along, CEO soccer mom. I did have a vision of me. I got most of it so far. I have had purists say I am bending to societal norms, and things like, "Most natal women could benefit from FFS". Or "You are obsessed with conforming to the the gender binary." This may all be true. But I did not embark on this journey to prove a point to anybody but me. And my goals are simple. Live a normal life. Or as normal as a transwoman can in in our part of the world in the second decade of the 21st century.

I recently saw another therapist because that is what the "rules" say you have to do if you want to move forward with all of this. I find it ironic that you have to "prove" you are sane, saner that most people, before you can do your bottom. And yet for the face, there is nothing. And despite the rhetoric, the face is the thing that will change your world the most. I suspect the hoops are to make the male dominated medical community comfortable. I keep looking for the whole, whoops I made a mistake crowd. They do not seem to be around. This second therapist, a nice person, asked me "What are your expectations?". I asked with respect to what? I think he was confounded by my response. He said "surgery". I asked which surgery? Again the bottom was the focus. Interesting.

So I told him the bottom is not the big thing. The face is. I told him my expectation was simple. Sunday morn, no makeup, to the store, buy a paper, "Here's your change ma'am". That is it. Period. Would more than that be great? You bet, but I do not expect it.

He went on about dilation and how I would have to do that from now on. I told him yeah, and that I will need to shower and brush my teeth everyday too. I wonder if sometimes the grilling is to make everybody else at ease. I am going to say yes. I do not know a post-op transwoman that does not make comments on dilation. Not because it is a problem but because it takes time out of their day. And in that sense, it is a "pain".

I posed a question to my primary therapist about "regrets". Mind you she has been practicing for something like 25 years in this space. So she has seen a lot of "us". I asked her, do you know anybody that de-transitioned. Meaning, after surgery decided whoops. She said no. Do you know anybody that had remorse or regrets, she said yes. That most regretted not doing it sooner in their lives. And that even those folks that had lost everything, work, home, family still had to move ahead and still regretted not moving on this sooner.

I am not a shrink. I do not even play one on TV. But my thoughts are that given that kind of experience how often do mistakes really get made? I suspect much less than getting the wrong operation in the hospital, or botched anesthesia, or goofed blood test or prescription errors. And you know those happen, my guess is with a lot more frequency that you want to know. But because this is about gender everybody is scared. Interesting (yeah I know I used it twice now).

And so my time draws near. I still have a lot of coming out to do. Coworkers/employees/customers/kids school/etc. That is what the next few months will be about. But by LifeDay I will be complete enough to live something like an authentic life. The rest will come in time.