Um Jeito Trans de Viver

i knew pretty much none of this before i happened upon the blog of someone who had phalloplasty without vaginectomy. this is all stuff a surgeon would explain to you - but you may never consult a surgeon if you, like i did, think the only option available for phalloplasty is forearm graft phalloplasty with testicles, vaginectomy, clitoral burial and urethral lengthening, and that doesnt work for you.

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)

Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????

Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.

Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song

We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"

When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."

During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid

When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."

When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."

like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time

this is a way better model... you'll still get transphobic & intersexist drs of course but i prefer this to male / female or even having separate questions for gender & sex.

we get to decide how we identify.

not the clothes we wear.

That's not fair.

In portuguese, much like spanish, we have no gender neutral pronouns. People who do not use ele/dele and ela/dela (he/him or she/her) all use whatever neopronoun suits them best in portuguese (ie elu/delu, eli/deli) because we have no access to a universal gender neutral pronoun like gringos do. When I brought this up upon them making fun of my "neopronouns", they said to suck it up, and that being foreign does not make neos valid.

In mocking people who use neopronouns in english, you are mocking a very large sum of latin american genderqueer and trans people.

I know various latin language speakers that struggle with their identities in their native tongue due to us not having they/them equivalents, so they are forced to let go of their, in example, brazilian queerness, to appease to anglos who would harass them and call them mockeries of trans people for not sticking to what The Cis want.

When non-anglos tell you the usamerican and british dominance over queer spaces ruins things for them, they mean it. We are forced to repress our identites because you people think they're too "out there and problematic". We are forced to suppress our own queer culture because we don't fit into your neat little boxes of what makes someone gay what makes someone a lesbian what makes someone trans or what makes someone anything else.

You tell us to remember "our queer elders", but do you know of any queer latin american figures? We learn your history, and you refuse to learn ours because you already have "too much on your plate". You disregard us and shame us for not fitting your ideals of queerness and using labels for ourselves you dislike, and try to baby us and tell us the proper way to be gay.

Your culture is not universal.

You are not saving queer people by making jabs at other queer people you don't personally get. Odds are you are harming an entire group of foreign queers you never bothered to consider, because your anglo bubble is too self important.

If you want to do queer people a real favour instead of getting mad at identities that existed long before you were even born, here. Make yourself useful. Donate to queer brazilian housing and support programs. Your beloved dollar is worth a lot more than the Real. Even five dollars help.

Casa Um

Eternamente Sou

I had ALT phalloplasty, glansplasty, scrotoplasty, no urethral lengthening (UL) with vaginectomy. This means that tissue from my thigh was used to create my penis, my urethra was not extended or moved (so I don’t stand to pee) and my vagina was closed. I feel like this detail is important because this is one of many variations for this procedure and what I opted for/out of were decisions made according to trade-offs between personal benefit and risk.

I opted out of UL because I do not tolerate catheters well and, due to my very active lifestyle, was not willing to risk longer term catheterization or bladder spasms which would impede my quality of life. This risk, for me, outweighed the benefit of standing to pee.

I opted for ALT knowing that I would likely need debulking (which I didn’t end up needing but opted for anyway out of preference). Debulking is a procedure to make the penis less girthy as ALT phalloplasty is more girthy because of the nature of tissue on the thigh. I chose ALT because, first and foremost, I did not want scarring on my forearm. My ALT scar is covered by clothing most of the time which I appreciate. I also chose ALT because I have skinny forearms, which wasn’t ideal for forearm phalloplasty (RFF).

Vaginectomy, for me, was a no brainer. I have never used or connected with that part of my body so I wanted it gone.

Glansplasty is a procedure to make the glans (head) of the penis and was a short procedure done after my initial stage of surgery. I may get it redone but I’m still undecided on that. Scrotoplasty creates a scrotum, I was ambivalent about this procedure but have grown to more appreciate it over time.

I am considering further surgeries: erectile implant (which creates the ability for the penis to “get hard”) and testicular implants (fills to scrotum with testicle implants). But I’m undecided and want a break from surgery while I finish my degree and focus on work. I’m also considering phalloplasty tattooing to help enhance the contour and coloring to make it appear more like a cis penis.

Whew! Lots of info, right? These are big procedures completed over multiple stages and are very unlike chest surgery, hysterectomy and other surgeries I had completed prior. When I was first considering this surgery I didn’t know there was flexibility in terms of tissue donor site and UL. I waited to have this surgery and am so happy I did because the information I gained from research and consulting with professionals and folks with lived experience was so valuable.

Was surgery hard? Yes. This surgery was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I’ve never been so uncomfortable for the first 2 weeks after recovering. I had to re-learn how to walk. I couldn’t sleep. Peeing hurt… but would I do it again? Yes. It was worth it for me but I can’t underscore enough that that doesn’t mean I didn’t have moments where I felt regret while recovering because post op depression is a thing and I was in pain while adjusting to a new body part that was also a healing surgical site… LOTS going on there!

3 years on I feel really at home in my body. Just having a penis is such a comfort to me in ways I didn’t anticipate. I’ve had a feeling my entire life that I was missing a body part and this was it. The quiet gender euphoria of just sitting and feeling my body and for once feeling complete in that is something that’s hard to articulate.

I’m thankfully back to full mobility and got back to full mobility about 3 months post op. I was grateful for this since a long term recovery wasn’t what I wanted. There are still weird twitches, pains and feelings, especially around my donor site (thigh) from time to time but nothing that inhibits me. Just interesting when it happens (usually when weather gets colder?).

What is one thing I would want to go back and tell myself before surgery? Well:

Your penis will feel HEAVY. Like it will fall off. It won’t fall off and your body will adjust to the weight in an area you didn’t have it before. Until then it will feel like you need to hold it at all times.

Hopefully this helps someone as an overview of what an experience with this procedure may look like. Again, my goal is to put information out there and have frank conversations— because it’s these same things that greatly benefitted me in my surgery journey.

Finally— my inbox is open for anyone that has questions. I am in a privileged position to feel safe talking about these things and I feel comfortable doing so. Not everyone does, so please don’t assume that this invitation applies to other folks who have accessed surgery unless they say so.

Something about the media calling it a fight and not a murder, not a hate crime and how MMIWG2S+ are never looked for, never investigated, never seen as victims.

Something about the media portraying them as the aggressor and native youth always being seen as the aggressor, even in death.

Something about the hospital who released them despite going through head trauma and how the medical system ignores native people, and how the medical system was created through experimentation on native people.

Something about trans youth being told to “just leave” and Oklahoma being their homelands.

Something about Oklahoma legislature and two spirit people existing in Oklahoma before Oklahoma existed.

whenever i'm outside in a skirt or dress and my beard and body hair are fully visible, i do get a lot of compliments from fem people and women, but i actually get a very large portion of my comments from masc people and men. i originally thought that men would be the most hesitant, but i actually get a lot of men who approach me saying things like "i really dig what you're doing" or "keep that up" or even things like "you dress like how i feel on the inside." that one really stuck with me.

if this many men and mascs are willing to approach me- how many more feel the same way and were too shy or scared to say it out loud for fear of judgment from those who may overhear?

we societally groom men and AMAB people to believe they don't want to wear dresses, skirts, and makeup- but they do. whether or not these people were all transfem eggs or gay is not for me to speculate on; what i want people to take away from this is that people of all gender identities want to wear dresses, skirts, and makeup. people of all gender identities want to dress in different ways. we teach each other that women only wear certain clothes and men only wear certain other clothes, but that's just not the reality of it.

It is O-fucking-Kay if you think you’re trans except for that one thing

If you think you might be a girl but you like having your hair short, or you don’t like wearing dresses, or you don’t want to wear makeup, that is totally okay

If you think you might be a guy but you like having long hair or you really love skirts or you wear lots of sparkly jewellery, that is totally okay

If you think you might be nonbinary but you really like presenting in a way that aligns with your agab, that is totally okay

If you think you might be trans but you aren’t sure if you want hormones, that is totally okay

If you think you’re trans “except for…” that is totally okay and get this: you don’t have to change that part of yourself to be trans

i don't care if you wouldn't want that for your body, there's no good reason to make trans people feel bad about the bodies we want and desire for our bodies. that's literally just transphobia. i hope you know this. telling trans men that our bodies will become "ugly" and "disgusting" is transphobia. being disgusted by trans bodies is transphobia. being disgusted by testosterone and its effects is transphobia.