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Hard Lessons Learned
As she rolled her chair back from the exam table, she said what no trans woman wants to hear.
Content Warning — this essay will touch upon surgical procedures and female genitalia. Please move on if you are uncomfortable with, or offended by, these topics.
At the beginning of October last year, I had the second of two surgeries that have collectively changed my life. Though the second surgery was shorter in duration than the first (5 hours versus 9 hours), the recovery has been — unimaginable. That’s a strong word for this scientist to use. My life is devoted to anticipating experimental outcomes. Everything I do is carefully planned. I’ve been taught to anticipate multiple results and to incorporate the appropriate positive and negative controls into every experiment. These controls serve as a reference for the outcome. Without them, the data can be readily misinterpreted.
Nature is funny that way.
My second surgery was a full depth vaginoplasty. You’ve heard “out with the old and in with the new”? No collection of words can more aptly describe the procedure. The surgical description includes the term “penile inversion”. You don’t have to be an MD to comprehend the logistics of the process — assuming you understand basic male and female genitalia.
