In Which I Rant A Little

[clovehitched]

So a conversation develops in an IRC channel about post-op regret, and it starts me on one of my hobby horses. Thing is, I have been asked by several medical professionals whether I regret vaginoplasty (or "the sex change op", to use the vernacular). Some of these had no connection with the surgical procedure in question, and I cannot fathom any way in which the answer would have affected the care I was receiving from them at the time, so I tend to infer that the question is driven by noseyness, morbid fascination with genitals, and more than a little cissexism (the belief that the identified genders of cis people are more valid or authentic than those of trans people).

These uncharitable suspicions towards random doctors of whom I have, from time to time, been a patient, is made worse by the fact that none of them have asked me if I regret having had an endoscopic nasal polypectomy; this includes the ENT specialist who performed the follow-up to that same surgery.

So I sense a little bit of a double standard here. The answer to the question I keep getting asked by doctors is, "No". The answer I sometimes want to give is, "Does it affect what you're about to do?"

When really irritated, the answer I think I'd like to give is, "Mind your own sodding business. Anyway, so what if I do? There are far worse things than having to sit to piss. Three billion people, give-or-take, have to and, you know, joining their ranks was hardly the worst thing that could have happened to me in my life. Also, given the state that I remember most gents being in, especially the ones in pubs, it might make the world a better place if the other three billion joined us."

Hmm, it occurs that I might want to add "misogyny" to that list of reasons I've been asked.

So anyway, my plea to the medical community is, either stop asking me if I regret vaginoplasty, because I don't, or start asking me if I regret nasal polypectomy, because I do (it made my post nasal drip worse, and I'm now on far more drugs to deal with that little issue than I am for anything trans-related), and nobody has actually bothered to find out.

That is all.

Comments

[snakey.livejournal.com]

A lot of it also depends on your precise physical configuration, which obviously varies hugely amongst cis women, amongst trans women and amongst trans men (and FAAB genderqueers). Labial size and shape, clitoral/dick size, stuff like that - I piss standing up (without an stp) most of the time because of dysphoria, but I would not do it if I were not able to stand over the toilet, and in practical terms it would often be easier to sit down as it does not require, for eg, to put your trousers completely round your ankles.