Well, it finally happened to me. Somehow I now feel like crap for having a dick. I knew that at some point I wanted to get bottom surgery, but it hasn’t been because I desperately wanted to cut of my dick and felt shit because I still have one, but because I knew I wanted a vagina. Yesterday evening it turned around and now I feel absolutely miserable for still having one. Why does my brain has to make my life even harder than it already is? This type of Dysphoria is kind of a next level. It (at least currently) doesn’t really go away and noticing The source of my Dysphoria every time I move is next level crap.
I’m sometimes still a little dysphoric about my dick too, especially because I can’t wear some of the cutest clothes I want without having the feeling of presenting it to the whole world and it always being in the way, sticking out, hurting from tucking it away, but I lost interest in getting bottom surgery after realising it’s not a decision between penis and vagina, but a decision between penis and an open wound you have to dilate every single day for the rest of your life so it doesn’t grow shut… So I guess I just learned to deal with it because that thought scares me so much more…
Good news, this is actually not true!
A neovagina is not a perpetually open wound, and it’s also not true that you have to dilate every single day for the rest of your life. While it is healing, the skin graft and stitches do have to heal and they can fuse together if you don’t open the canal back up with dilation, but that’s just temporary during the initial recovery.
I just had a penile inversion vaginoplasty and the surgeon and their team told me that it’s my canal and I can do whatever I want, there is no obligation to dilate at all past the initial recovery, but if I wanted to maintain maximum width and depth I could dilate several times a week after the first year. They said it’s not uncommon for people to not dilate at all, and for penetrative sex to replace the dilation. Sometimes width can be regained later, the vagina will not seal up completely and is flexible.
Here are the specific dilation instructions I was given:
Here’s a helpful video covering the basics of a vaginoplasty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOtejnYWAU
The idea that the neovagina is a perpetually open wound that will seal up without daily dilation is misinformation shared by anti-trans activists, usually by TERFs. Instead the vagina is pretty much like a normal vagina in function an appearance, most people cannot tell the difference between a neovagina and a natal vagina. Gender-affirming vaginoplasties have some of the lowest regret rates of any surgery and are not only very safe, but have very positive clinical outcomes in increasing quality of life.
Well I don’t know what to say now… Fell to the TERF propaganda…
how does the neo vagina feel for you? Is it better now?
That’s OK, I lived most of my life not transitioning because of internalized TERF-like thinking (like that I would be appropriating women’s suffering by transitioning to become a woman, that wearing makeup or women’s clothes would be akin to betrayal to women by perpetuating sexist norms about femininity, or that I would never want to infringe on women’s spaces, and so on).
It’s only been six weeks since my surgery, so I have not yet fully recovered.
I actually had complications, some wound separation where some of the skin graft didn’t take near the base of the vagina, so part of the skin sloughed off. Despite that, I highly recommend it so far.
When I first looked at the vagina after the surgery, in the hospital bed, I fully expected to feel regret - instead I was flooded with relief. I had no idea how much I had been holding onto shame about my genitals, and I just broke down crying from the relief. There have been a lot of positive moments since then, and so far I haven’t even remotely felt regret even in the worst moments when I temporarily was told I couldn’t dilate while in the hospital and I thought I might lose my canal.
Let me know if you have any questions or if you are curious about anything.
Congrats with the surgery!