Vaginoplasty Only

[JessJames1968 (imported)]

I would absolutely love to have an external/cosmetic vaginoplasty, while retaining my penis. It would make me feel complete, and still leave what the spouse wants me to keep.

I recall seeing a picture on BME of a man who had an artificial vaginal canal just below the shaft, which was fully erect, where his boys used to be. I've no idea what it was made of though.

[mynhii85 (imported)]

I recall seeing a picture on BME of a man who had an artificial vaginal canal just below the shaft, which was fully erect, where his boys used to be. I've no idea what it was made of though.

Is it anatomically possible to have both? Can a surgeon construct a vagina (regardless of depth) only with the scrotal skin without cutting the penis? Of course, I assume that both testicles are gone.

[Caith721 (imported)]

I'm quite certain they CAN, but whether they will do this is another matter entirely. I have plenty of scrotal skin to form labia, now that my testicles are gone.

[mynhii85 (imported)]

I'm quite certain they CAN, but whether they will do this is another matter entirely. I have plenty of scrotal skin to form labia, now that my testicles are gone.

I'm relieved to hear you say that surgeons can do this. What I don't understand is why they are hesitant to do this if you are approved by other psychiatrists and/or gender therapists.

I'm curious. How did you get to the process of removing your testicles? I'm sorry for asking you this question because I don't have time to read your previous posts to know who you are.

[Caith721 (imported)]

I'm 53 years old, and strongly transgendered with a formerly terrible case of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). I worked with my gender therapist, my psychiatrist, and Dr. Reed in Miami Beach to satisfy the WPATH (formerly HGBIGDA) requirements for irreversible gender surgery.

The reason most doctors would not perform a cosmetic vaginoplasty/labioplasty while leaving a penis undisturbed is because it doesn't satisfy WPATH requirements as a "generally accepted procedure" and it doesn't satisfy the binary either/or dichotomy of male/female. In short, it's a matter of ethics for the surgeons.

[mynhii85 (imported)]

I'm 53 years old, and strongly transgendered with a formerly terrible case of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). I worked with my gender therapist, my psychiatrist, and Dr. Reed in Miami Beach to satisfy the WPATH (formerly HGBIGDA) requirements for irreversible gender surgery.

The reason most doctors would not perform a cosmetic vaginoplasty/labioplasty while leaving a penis undisturbed is because it doesn't satisfy WPATH requirements as a "generally accepted procedure" and it doesn't satisfy the binary either/or dichotomy of male/female. In short, it's a matter of ethics for the surgeons.

Thank you very much.

I really admire you for your strong will. You're a lot older than I am, yet your will is much younger than mine. It's difficult enough for me not to fall into the right category for transgender. Not being American born is another, but that is another story.

From what you say, it seems like WPATH is too rigid when it comes to categorize people. When you worked with your therapists, did you have to sign a liability waiver that leaves them no responsibility for your outcome? Certainly, that means the therapists have to do what is best for their patient without infusing their bias.

According to what you say, sex-reassignment-surgery surgeons are skilled enough to do vaginoplasty without cutting the penis, but they refuse due to ethical issue. What I don't get is which ethics they are trying to push: ours or theirs.

As long as they lay out every detail about the surgery and the possible outcome that may or may not fit our expectations, surgeons fulfilled their ethics. At least, that is what I think. I'm willing to accept the risk and the result, and I won't mind signing a paper that holds them no responsibility for the outcome that I am looking for as long as they do their best care for me.

Is the Standard of Care in other Western countries as specific and rigid as in the US?

[janekane (imported)]

I'm 53 years old, and strongly transgendered with a formerly terrible case of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). I worked with my gender therapist, my psychiatrist, and Dr. Reed in Miami Beach to satisfy the WPATH (formerly HGBIGDA) requirements for irreversible gender surgery.

The reason most doctors would not perform a cosmetic vaginoplasty/labioplasty while leaving a penis undisturbed is because it doesn't satisfy WPATH requirements as a "generally accepted procedure" and it doesn't satisfy the binary either/or dichotomy of male/female. In short, it's a matter of ethics for the surgeons.

I do not satisfy the "

binary either/or dichotomy of male/female,

and it does not satisfy me.

Nevertheless, the WPATH standards of care are appropriate for quite a few transgendered-realm folks and are quite profoundly inappropriate for me.

However, the standards, in printed form, are merely marks on paper, while I am an actual, real, living, valid person.

I deem an actual, real, living, valid person to outrank any number of mere marks on paper.

I do not expect everyone to agree with me, though.

[mynhii85 (imported)]

I do not satisfy the "

00]
binary either/or dichotomy of male/female,

and it does not satisfy me.

Nevertheless, the WPATH standards of care are appropriate for quite a few transgendered-realm folks and are quite profoundly inappropriate for me.

However, the standards, in printed form, are merely marks on paper, while I am an actual, real, living, valid person.

I deem an actual, real, living, valid person to outrank any number of mere marks on pa
[/quote]
per.

I do not expect everyone to agree with me, though.

Well, I identify myself as a homosexual man whose gender expression tends to lean more towards feminine side. That feminine side is not strong enough to make me want to live my life as a woman but make me desire to have a "small" female sex characteristic. I don't want an exact vagina; I don't want my penis to be cut; I only want to have my testicles gone and an orifice created under my scrotal area. What am I? Absolutely not a transwoman or a bi-gender person. I'm only a man whose femininity wants be recognized on the body.

If I'm not a freak, I'm probably the weirdest amongst transgendered people assuming that transgender is an appropriate label on me.

[Caith721 (imported)]

Janekane, I've read many of your recent posts, but never felt compelled to comment until now. You are absolutely correct, the former WPATH and DSM-IV treatment protocols are far too narrow. Fortunately, they were adopted over ten years ago, and are now about to be revised to support a much wider spectrum of non-binary gender identities. It's taken this long for the psychiatric and medical communities to collectively recognize there is a larger range of gender expression than simply either/or. The new protocols aren't perfect, but they are immensely better. Now, if only I could get my spouse to allow me more freedom of expression.

[janekane (imported)]

Well, I identify myself as a homosexual man whose gender expression tends to lean more towards feminine side. That feminine side is not strong enough to make me want to live my life as a woman but make me desire to have a "small" female sex characteristic. I don't want an exact vagina; I don't want my penis to be cut; I only want to have my testicles gone and an orifice created under my scrotal area. What am I? Absolutely not a transwoman or a bi-gender person. I'm only a man whose femininity wants be recognized on the body.

If I'm not a freak, I'm probably the weirdest amongst transgendered people assuming that transgender is an appropriate label on me.

If I pretend that there is a purely binary (dichotomous) choice regarding my understanding of myself, and if the choice is:

(1.) I am a valid person who, in being valid, has the ability to know myself better than anyone else ever will because I "spend more time and effort with myself" than it is possible for anyone else to do or have done.

(2.) I am an invalid person who, in being invalid, has no ability to know myself and therefore am totally dependent on other people to tell me who I am.

The difficulty I have with (2.) is terribly, simply difficult. No two other people have, in my lifetime of observations, ever told me that I am the person that anyone else has told me that I am. So, if I go with (2.), I find myself depersonalized and deindividuated, and my inner sense of selfhood tends to vanish like a phantasm of a vapor of a nothingness.

The difficulty I suspect "society' has with (1.) is also terribly, simply difficult. If every person is valid, then no one can actually be a freak and no one can actually be weird, for the simple, if terribly difficult, reason that every actual person is actually unique.

Consider the notion of some folks who study physics, "all electrons are the same." What does "same" mean? If all electrons are not the same, what are electrons and how does anyone usefully and accurately describe electrons? One might look at:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=355020

While I readily allow that all electrons appear to have, within measurement error limits, the same rest mass, the same electric charge, and the same magnetic moment, I do not find that all electrons have the identical wave function from time equals minus infinity to time equals plus infinity, and, to me, that is not merely because time equals plus infinity seemingly has yet to happen.

Were I to allow other people to define me and were I to totally accept being defined by other people, I have an inner state of stark, unmitigated terror which clamors for my attention, for that state informs me that, were I to totally accept being defined by other people, the person I really find myself to be would identically and forever vanish, and I would become as though an empty shell of nothingness, masquerading as though being a person and being incapable of recognizing the masquerade.

If one has the folly (or the foolish courage?) to ponder Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Suit":

http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html

One might regard the suit as the empty shell of psychological defenses that become the person observed when the person observed is defined by self and by others only by others.

What if BIID eventually stands for Body Image Identity Diversity, and Diversity is never deemed to be of disorder, for, without diversity, could anything except absolute disorder ever exist? Without diversity, nothing could be distinguished from anything else, and there would be no process, no mechanism, no pathway, from absolute chaotic disorder to any form of viable structure of any sort. Or, did I miss something?

Sorry, but I have yet to meet so much as one person who qualifies, as best I can yet discern, as a freak or as weird.

As a form of theory-in-use, it seems to me that I sometimes encounter people who find aspects of groupthink methods to threaten their actual lives and who seek to be real in a society which has yet to develop a set of useful beliefs which thoroughly validate humanity in terms of individuals and/or groups.

I am able, at best, to describe my experiences and share them here ,to the extent my ability with words allows.