Stuck in my thoughts.

[agent_dani]

I keep thinking of the therapist stating "the risks of losing sensation and having complications is not a valid concern in this day. It was a problem with older SRS procedures and surgeons. The modern ones have eliminated that risk" and the endocrinologists asserting "if you don't need SRS then you aren't trans and taking HRT has to be bad for you."

it wasn't a one-time thing, it was hours of interrogation about my feelings about surgery every month for 4 years, until I finally gave in to their demands. All of it lies hiding the actual risks.

Comments

[cmcmck]

In truth it was genuinely a problem back when I was dealing, but by the time you were dealing it shouldn't have been.

I was one of the first to get the surgery giving clitoral sensitivity and I was warned that it might not work. Before that, no one had any sensation down there.

The same 'experts' no doubt (male of course) who told people that if they didn't wear skirts/heels/make up/long hair/jewellery they couldn't be women.

As it happens, I did/do all those things from time to time, bur even so...........

[agent_dani]

Mine, right up until that surgery (and one of the two surgeons even then) were all cis women. I have no clue on the odds of it - the only intentional step of avoiding the cis man in any of it was one of the two therapist in the Research Triangle because he required 4x as long to write a hormone letter (he was also the only other option when my therapist pulled the "it's these two surgeons or start over" and he had informed me that if I tried it then I would have to wait 2 years to get a surgery letter from him.)

The "it shouldn't have been" was the issue. Though they never so directly said it they wanted a return to the classic gatekeeping because they felt that created better outcomes. Of course, they were obviously defining that as "trans people knew their place as the lowest class of society then and didn't try to rise above it."

[cmcmck]

Which shows how little they knew about 'back then'- I had a successful career which ended in senior management and have a successful marriage.

[agent_dani]

They were entirely good with that if you were "one of the good ones who otherwise did it the right way." In some ways this got worse than it had ever been as backlash to access improving in some areas.

I still wonder if forcing my choice of surgeon was about ensuring I had a crap result as punishment for not fitting their standards.

[cmcmck]

I chose my counsellor, I chose my pshrink and I chose my surgeon- not sure if that counted as 'the right way'. I certainly didn't do gatekeepers!

[agent_dani]

That's damn lucky! When I was doing it there were two psychs and two endos which were the total of who would write letters and prescribe HRT for at least a 200 mile radius. All were gatekeepers so my choice was deal with that or not transition. They knew it and directly said, "you need us, we don't need you. If you don't want to deal with this then you can deal with not having medical transition."

They were happy to write referrals for other HRT Drs, even in other states, and for other surgeons, including the first 3 I asked for, but only for others clients. For me they weren't because they decided I had it "too easy" - that I got recruited by top IT firms rather than being fired and having to struggle with multiple part-time jobs, etc.