Jennifer Bilek "When Transition Regret Pays"

https://www.the11thhourblog.com/post/wh ... egret-pays

The medical industrial complex (MIC) is currently capitalising on a growing niche within the ‘gender identity’ market: detransitioners. Detransitioners are people who’ve had their sexed bodies medically and surgically altered to fit their mental image of themselves as the opposite sex or neither sex, and then regret the process. Detransitioners attempt to reclaim their sexed bodies through reverse surgeries and by stopping cross sex hormones. This process isn’t always successful. The process can be as intense on the body as the initial procedures. If they have gone too far in altering their bodies, detransitioners may never be able to get close to the body they once had.

One man is seeking to change all that. Making a name for himself as a ‘reversal surgeon’ for men with transition regret, Dr. Miroslav Djordjevic, a Serbian medical doctor, speaking in a Dutch documentary in 2018, reported having operated on 14 men, with 60 more on his referral list. These surgeries cost an arm and a leg – literally: “We have to find enough flesh,” reported Djordjevic, “and enough of the right flesh, to create a new phallus, a scrotum and testicles. We use a piece of the arm, the leg or the back to create a new penis. After that we use some different tissue, for example oral mucosa or bladder mucosa or maybe some other part of the skin to create a very long urethra channel, and we use penile implants to enable an erection.” Multiple procedures are needed, and the process may take a year and a half. One newspaper quotes the price of this surgery at some €18,000, while another surgeon, Dr. Harold Reed, estimates it can cost from $75,000 - $100,000.

Lee, a 32 year old detransitioner, convinced she was supposed to be male, who started taking testosterone and had a double mastectomy at 24, followed by a full hysterectomy at 26 (removal of the cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries), understands the expense all too well. At 30 she detransitioned and her insurance would not cover her breast reconstruction surgery. The surgery to reduce the size of her enlarged clitoris felt like too much of a risk.

Garrett (22) another detransitioner moved in the opposite direction: at 21 he started taking oestrogen, followed by the removal of his testicles after just 3 months. A year later he got breast implants but within six months he decided to detransition, had them removed and stopped taking cross-sex hormones. He recently had testicular implants which he says makes him feel more like his “old self.” He will need a separate surgery to have the breast tissue removed that he grew while on oestrogen.

With their gonads removed and no longer able to produce sex hormones naturally, both Lee and Garrett would have been permanently involved with the MIC whether they detransitioned or not – they’ve now simply changed which synthetic hormones they take.

Unfortunately, even if the price is right, there are procedures that can’t be reversed - not yet, anyway. Dr. Djordjevic acknowledges that it’s currently not possible to create “functioning male genitals for a fulfilling sex life.” He sees this as a challenge: “We’re researching the possibilities for penile transplant surgery.” In recent years a number of penis transplants have successfully been performed: the world’s first in 2014, followed by a handful of increasingly complex operations.

Increasing demand for penises means supply efforts must be met. A number of men already include their penises and scrotums as part of organ donation, but the biggest procurement issue is the not knowing when a donor penis will become available. It would make things a lot easier if the living were as happy (or desperate) to donate reproductive organs. This is where Dr. Djordjevic has his Martin Luther King moment: “There are 1.5 million people registered as transgender in Western Europe. About half of them are male-to-female, and the other half female-to-male. That’s 700,000 males [sic], whose penises will be removed and put in the garbage. My biggest vision is to collect all organs; uterus, ovaries, testicles, and penises. Collect these, create a bank in Europe and use some of these organs for better results and better functioning.” This ‘European Central Bank of Reproductive Body Parts’ would be a medical milestone in the commodification of the human body where we would not only be the consumers but also the consumables.

There are no stats available on the market value of detransition surgeries and treatments. We don’t have accurate data on the actual number of detransitioners, let alone an idea of how many would be willing to undergo reversal surgeries. In the absence of cold hard facts what we do know is that an increasing number of detransitioners are sharing their stories on social media, detrans support groups are popping up around the world, and in online groups like the Reddit detrans group which has grown to 19K members. One gender clinic in Sweden, the Lundström clinic, has seen enough patients come back with regret to start offering trauma care.

As safeguards for destroying one’s sex organs are steadily and systemically being eroded through concerted lobbying efforts around the world, sex surgeries on healthy sex organs will rise, along with the number of detransitioners. Profits from surgeries on people’s healthy sex organs are already projected to rise into the billions by 2026. In the smorgasboard of surgery and medicalisation it’s easy for the actual human to get lost. Maybe that’s the point – deconstructing the human body to mere fleshy Lego blocks to be repurposed and rearranged while the gender identity marketing machine sells the dream of ‘becoming your authentic self™’.

What makes a eunuch?

Matt Smith asks Richard Wassersug questions

https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/article ... transcript

M: What you are listening to is a recording from 1902 of Alessandro Moreschi, an Italian singer who is known as a castrato. These men have a high vocal range as a result of castration before puberty. And with that uncomfortable thought, I'm Matt Smith and this the La Trobe University podcast.

Richard Wassersug is a professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and an adjunct professor with the Australian Research Centre of Sex, Health, and Society at La Trobe University. For years, he has been studying eunuchs. And while the castrato are no longer singing, castration is an old practice and it is still found in modern times.

R: And it turns out that the term eunuch has changed over the years. It has quite a different meaning since we don't have a specific class of people in society castrated to serve governments as these were official roles and they dressed up differently, they looked differently. They had a whole culture unto themselves. We don't have that. But when you look at the medical definition of what it means to be eunuch, it is a castrated male. So although there are not many people who go around calling themselves eunuchs and there are people indeed who would seek castration who wished to be degendered, emasculated but don't necessarily wished to present as female and they are by technical definition modern day eunuchs.

M: How did they come about in today's society? There seems to be one branch where it happens for medical reasons. One thought of eunuch that way, and one way if they go bad and willing...

R: The most common reason for a male to become castrated which can be achieved with either chemicals or surgical castration, is for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer and hundreds of thousands of men are chemically castrated right now.

Now none of them would identify with eunuch because the term has such a pejorative negative connotation and the doctors and the patients don't use the term and if they heard it they probably wouldn't like it but at the same time, it is also true that there's a very small group compared to prostate cancer patients of men who don't wish to be males but also don't wish to be females and they are within the transsexual world even invisible to the transsexuals because that of the transsexual typically presumes a binary.

If you're male you wish to be a female. If you don't wish to be a female you wish to be a male. But these individuals often dislike their malehood, their masculinity but mostly their male thoughts. Their libido they find interferes with their life. They hate it, then they decide to be free. The main thing the testicles produced that affects their behavior which is testosterone. So they wish to be testosterone-deprived. And many of them will go out and actually castrate themselves. Ah, 15% of them do. Some of them go to underground cutters.

Some of them get the castrations done legally but ironically if they do it they probably have to claim that they're transsexuals who wished to be females, get the castration and then don't go further with it. And indeed one quarter in the European study of all supposedly male to female transsexuals after getting castrated decided not to go any further with the treatments with the, they just didn't necessarily desired to have breast implants or be feminized. They simply were very happy once they got off of testosterone.

M: How many people are we talking here? Do you know what sort of numbers.

R: By our estimations there are seven to ten thousand of modern day voluntarily emasculated men in North America at this time. That's not inconsequential. My concern for this population is unfortunately that they're not recognized medically they aren't even recognized within the set of broader queer community. So they have really no other options but to go underground. If they try to go to a doctor and said, "Look, I can't stand it anymore. Please remove my testicles or give me drugs that'll destroy them," they're afraid they're going to get locked up most of them and some of them will in some mental institution.

So they not go into the medical profession. They're not recognized by the medical profession as a recognizable group and consequently they go underground for treatment and that is a serious, serious problem.

M: You said that the word eunuch has a negative connotation, should we be using a different word? And the word eunuch wasn't always a negative...

R: No. There's a, a very famous book by Germaine Greer, an Australian, called The Female Eunuch from about 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And it talked about emasculation of women as a political issue. So to use the word eunuch now is a pejorative term. And our society is supposed to be hypersexual. We got a society that is out there particularly in the streets of Melbourne and elsewhere displaying their, their body form to the attention of anyone who's interested. We are sexual all the way.

So now wished to be asexual, to wish to be castrated is considered just so weird that it is something that people are stigmatized by, hide from. To say someone's a eunuch is to say they're totally physically and mentally disempowered.

Ironically history shows that not to be true. That is the eunuchs were, in many cases, from one end of Asia to another for about three thousand years, they were running large empires. When things about the sultan or the caliph or the emperor having, you know, hundreds of wives and therefore being very, very empowered but somebody had to be running the government. He, they weren't even breeding but somebody had to be making the government work and virtually all these cases it was the eunuch class of individuals who had the brain power and wisdom and the personality types that allow them to do it.

So our current pejorative term of a eunuch just doesn't apply to the reality of what we now know about androgen deprivation. Nevertheless, it's hard to come up with an alternative term, which is helpful. And in my own personal view is that this is the correct medical term so I use it.

M: It's understandable that you'd need as a class of, I suppose wise men who would run empires back then, but what was the benefit of being eunuchs? Why were there specifically eunuchs?

R: Well just actually now we're finishing up a manuscript, which actually asks the rather intriguing to me a very basic question and that is, what is the personality effect of castration? One has contemporary stereotyped that the person's a wimp afraid of everything but the eunuchs were generals, past eunuchs were, the senior diplomats, they had to be wise and firm at certain points but it turns out we actually ran on the internet what's called the Big Five Personality Test.

It's a well-established test that defines personality and we ran it for 150 eunuchs who were androgen-deprived voluntarily castrated individuals against a huge amount of other people who filled in our survey because it was posted in the site called eunuch.org and people who are interested could fill it in as well. So we have individuals who are androgen-deprived and we have somewhere like 1300 of people who identify as wannabes. They're fascinated with and liked the idea of being castrated but they haven't gone forward with it. So they're very similar personalities in terms of all these presentations of odd obsessions.

The difference is one subgroup has actually is androgen-deprived. And we actually now what it means to be androgen-deprived in terms of what effect it has in this well-validated standardized personality test. And it turns out the one thing that changes radically is agreeability goes up. Now that means unlike a person's a wimp but someone says what you want to go to this movie or that movie and they say I don't care. But it's also true that if they decide, you know I'm happy to do what you'd like. I don't need to fight over it. I will save my fighting for more important things. This is wise.

A lot of the wisdom comes from being agreeable. We suspect that was the key trait that made them so effective as diplomats, negotiators, people who could resolve a tension conflicts to prevent them from becoming worst and to allow empires to continue for generations upon generations. They provided stability. The wisdom that comes by not being reflexively aggressive, which is sort of what happens with teenage males who are high on testosterone.

M: Well it sounds like we have the testosterone, you might be a bit more level-headed, assumedly.

R: Testosterone levels are highest in young adult males and continually decline afterwards. We talk about testosterone fueling aggression but it doesn't do that quite simply as, as it wouldn't be implied by that statement. The typical aggression we're talking about is reflexive-reactive aggression. So for instance if a high testosterone individual one can imagine an 18-year-old male, he has cut-off in his car in the highway, he might get angry and say, "I'm not going to let that guy get away with it," and go chase the guy in the other car down the highway. The average female thinks about it and says, "No, all right that was rude, insensitive. But what have I could have gained by starting a fight here?" And then decide not to. And women just stay out fights they tend to survive better for it. Young adult males tend to die in car accidents at a higher rate and then who cares if the eunuchs to have the control by being off of testosterone they could not be reflexively aggressive. That doesn't mean they couldn't be assassins and some of them were.

The difference was it wasn't that in the heat of a bar room brawl, it was a well-thought of murder when the eunuchs did it. So the idea that they are wimps isn't quite right. The idea that they're controlled and thoughtful I think is a better perspective of what you can gain if you get off the testosterone.

M: Men who go through castration as a treatment for cancer, how is that different from people who voluntarily go through it? I take there's a lot more of an adjustment or a lot more coming to terms with the situation.

R: That's a superb question and it's a major area of my interest and research. It turns out that without knowing how testosterone affects personality formally, there are sort of myths out there in the medical literature and they are inconsistent but I think I can resolve some of the inconsistencies. You have men who don't want to believe that they've changed and are embarrassed to be seen as changing. My classic example is a guy who cries at a television commercial for drunk drivers or smoking. Some issue that relates to human sensitivity. He's embarrassed. He's ashamed. He never did it before.

He looks at it in himself as a weakness now he's androgen-deprived and start to feel sorry for himself. The other way of viewing it is, "Hey I'm sensitive to something I've never been sensitive before." This is interesting. What we see is in terms of the interactions that we deal is say, heterosexual couples where he is a prostate cancer patient on these androgen-depriving drugs. He knows he's changed. His wife knows he's changed. She says, "Dear, I've never seen you cry before." He said, "What do you mean I'm not crying." And he shuts her out.

So now the denial of the change. He's now offended her and they're in trouble. The alternative is, we hear this occasionally from patients, "Yeah my personality's changed and now we shared Kleenex over a movie." And they both sit there and I've been with these couples and they laugh and hold hands and we realized that they have recognized the change, accepted the change and don't see that as a demeaning change, they see it as something that they can share. So I think it's incredibly important for us to understand what testosterone does. What testosterone deprivation does and acknowledge it and accept it find out what its strength and weaknesses are.

The fact is that half of our species all the time is living with less than half of the testosterone that men are and they're doing totally well. They're not dying, OK. They're not necessarily wimps. I mean I believe that the leader of this country right now is female and she's doing more or less OK. She survived, anyway for the moment. But the point is that you don't have to have the testosterone of a 20-year-old male in order to ascend and be somewhat effective in a political situation.

M: Rudy Giuliani is an example of a castrated man.

R: That's an excellent example. He's a perfect example we know that he actually was on these castrating drugs. We know about also some stuff about his personality womanizing and aggressive and, oh in a not popular way. And he comes out after he gets prostate cancer and goes on these drugs as a thoughtful statesman. And I think it's a perfect example though I have no idea how offended he would be if I said, "Hey what's it like to be a modern day eunuch?" But he is an example of someone who is a modern day eunuch.

M: That's all the time we've got for the La Trobe University podcast today. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, you can send us an email at [email protected]. Dr. Richard Wassersug, thank you for your time.

R: A pleasure.

Fajar Setiawan "What exactly is male-to-eunuch gender dysphoria, and what are the signs?"

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-spec ... -dysphoria

Even in the gender spectrum and today’s immense support for LGBTQ, eunuch is still something that people would frown upon. Nevertheless, it is more multi-faceted than just “gender dysphoria”.

I have a friend who is not only a eunuch, but also a nullo (slang for “nullified”) which means that he voluntarily cut off his penis and balls completely. These are at least features that I identified after I interacted him. these details might seem uncomfortable so please consider with precaution. And read this with open mind and positive manner:

1. Eunuch phenomenon is multi-faceted. Some say that it is a unique form of either gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia, or even the mix of both. Nonetheless, what clear is that eunuch and nullo have a detached or undesired feeling against their genital part of body. Unlike transsexual who wants to change the whole thing, eunuch is more interested on modifying their genital but prefer to keep their male appearance. However, this alone doesn’t necessarily determine their identity wholly. That’s why eunuch phenomenon can be called as a partial gender dysphoria.

2. One most striking attitude of a eunuch (and nullo) is sexual passiveness. It could be either the lack of sexual desire or their desire to be the “passive” part of sexual activity. This feature later constitutes their inclination of identity and expression (I prefer to not differentiate the two). Some of them become non-binary. Others become stereotypical masculine men. This is due to sexual passiveness is rendered in many forms. Some of them loathe sexual desire. Some want to control it but not nullify it. While others did that just for fetish. This feature then influences the next point.

3. A lot of eunuch and nullo, like A LOT, is kinky or active in kink community. Their sexual passiveness is often intertwined with their lifestyle of submissive-dominant relationship. A lot of clandestine practices of penectomy and castration are done by kink people, mostly dominants. Therefore, eunuch also emerges as a sexual fetish rather than a whole new identity.

4. Nonetheless, their sexual desire still exists. For eunuch, they can only squirt blanks (spermless cum). But for nullo, they can still feel sexual desire and squirt but due to the lack of penis, they mostly got pleasured from anal stimulation (that’s why nullo community are mostly gay).

Simply put, the most common symptoms of eunuchism is the lack of ownership feeling to their genital. This symptom affects the eunuch’s sexuality and gender identity. It can be either an asexual or an extremely submissive bottom.

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:37 am Fajar Setiawan "What exactly is male-to-eunuch gender dysphoria, and what are the signs?"

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-spec ... -dysphoria

Even in the gender spectrum and today’s immense support for LGBTQ, eunuch is still something that people would frown upon. Nevertheless, it is more multi-faceted than just

“gender dysphoria”.

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:37 am I have a friend who is not only a eunuch, but also a nullo (slang for “nullified”) which means that he voluntarily cut off his penis and balls completely. These are at least features that I identified after I interacted him. these details might seem uncomfortable so please consider with precaution. And read this with open mind and positive manner:

1. Eunuch phenomenon is multi-faceted. Some say that it is a unique form of either gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia, or even the mix of both. Nonetheless, what clear is that eunuch and nullo have a detached or undesired feeling against their genital part of body. Unlike transsexual who wants to change the whole thing, eunuch is more interested on modifying their genital but prefer to keep their male appearance. However, this alone doesn’t necessarily determine their identity wholly. That’s why eunuch phenomenon can be called as a partial gender dysphoria.

2. One most striking attitude of a eunuch (and nullo) is sexual passiveness. It could be either the lack of sexual desire or their desire to be the “passive” part of sexual activity. This feature later constitutes their inclination of identity and expression (I prefer to not differentiate the two). Some of them become non-binary. Others become stereotypical masculine men. This is due to sexual passiveness is rendered in many forms. Some of them loathe sexual desire. Some want to control it but not nullify it. While others did that just for fetish. This feature then influences the next point.

3. A lot of eunuch and nullo, like A LOT, is kinky or active in kink community. Their sexual passiveness is often intertwined with their lifestyle of submissive-dominant relationship. A lot of clandestine practices of penectomy and castration are done by kink people, mostly dominants. Therefore, eunuch also emerges as a sexual fetish rather than a whole new identity.

4. Nonetheless, their sexual desire still exists. For eunuch, they can only squirt blanks (spermless cum). But for nullo, they can still feel sexual desire and squirt but due to the lack of penis, they mostly got pleasured from anal stimulation (that’s why nullo community are mostly gay).

Simply put, the most common symptoms of eunuchism is the lack of ownership feeling to their genital. This symptom affects the eunuch’s sexuality and gender identity. It can be either an asexual or an extremely submissive bottom.

Clearly I wasn't interviewed for that one. I can play on both sides of that fence, both the passive and active. Nullification has actually made me of active, in a sense.

The Third Gender and Hijras

https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-co ... and-hijras

https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/rpl/file ... 1597338930

While recognition of genders outside male and female has only recently been discussed in Western societies, in Hindu society, people of non-binary gender expression have played important roles for over 2000 years.

While the third gender includes a few different groups in South Asia, the most common are the hijras. Hijras are often born male but look and dress in traditionally feminine ways. Many, but not all, choose to undergo a castration ceremony, removing their male genitalia as an offering to Hindu goddess Bahuchara Mata. Other hijras are born intersex. Often called transgender by outsiders, Indian society and most hijras consider themselves to be third gender—neither male nor female, not transitioning. They are a different gender altogether. However, hijra identity is complex, and recently, some have identified as transgender and sought gender reassignment procedures.

***

In the book (see link below) "Life Of A Eunuch" I was attracted by chapter 14

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 10:44 am "Nirvana - Liberation", in which the author talks about the Indian nullo community.

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:18 am Dr Piyush Saxena. Life Of A Eunuch.

Shanta Publishing House. 2011. 530 pages

(free download)

Life Of A Eunuch - Dr Piyush Saxena

https://www.sooe.org.in/assets/pdf/life-of-a-eunuch.pdf

Wow, I loved this story. My dream would be to have such great surgeons near me, or to be able to pay for one overses.

7 Reasons why Ladyboys are so Prevalent in Thailand

https://medium.com/@xreasons/7-reasons- ... 48b46613c1

When looking for an exotic vacation, one of the countries that comes to mind most often is Thailand. This Asian country has a lot to offer for its guests: its abundance of magnificent temples with gigantic statues of the Buddha, the natural resources available for everyone to explore, their jaw-dropping beaches, famous cuisine and street food, and its reputation as a shopping haven for bargain lovers, among so many others.

But just like any other country, Thailand also has a side that others might consider seedy. Researching or reading about the country, there’s a huge chance you might encounter the word “kathoey”, which they use to refer to transgenders, better known as “ladyboys”. Thailand’s ladyboys are actually famous all over the world and many travelers go to Thailand specifically to meet them.

Ladyboys have been around in Thailand for a long time and it’s quite a bit surprising that they continue to be so prevalent, despite the negative stigma associated with them. In fact, they are actually considered as part of the Thai culture. There are so many reasons why ladyboys continue to thrive, and here are some of them:

1: Thailand is much more open and accepting when it comes to matters involving LGBTs.

Unlike other countries, those belonging to the LGBT community in Thailand experience so much freedom because their society is much more tolerant. This is in contrast to Muslim countries where being a member of the third sex is a punishable offense, being one in Thailand doesn’t matter at all. Because they are free to express themselves, they are much more visible to everyone else, or as they say, they are “out and proud”. Of course, there are still a few locals who frown upon the LGBTs but they are mostly confined to the rural areas.

2: Gender reassignment surgeries and other similar procedures are rampant in Thailand.

As well as holiday tourism, Thailand is also known for its medical tourism, particularly those that revolve around gender reassignment. Thai people have easy access to these procedures so many Thai trans-men choose to undergo them and become full ladyboys instead of just dressing up as women. Accessibility and a relatively low cost makes it easy for men to become ladyboys so many take advantage of this.

3: Buddhists believe that ladyboys become so as a result of sins committed in their past lives.

Different religions have different views when it comes to matters involving homosexuality. Fortunately for the ladyboys, Buddhism, the dominant religion in Thailand, does not really frown upon them. They are considered the “third sex” in Buddhism and that they become so not out of choice, but because of past transgressions. This means that they have this belief that ladyboys should be pitied because it was not their conscious will to be ladyboys but they became so due to karma.

4: Ladyboys have become a tourist draw for Thailand.

Many foreigners see ladyboys as something exotic and through sheer curiosity they travel to Thailand to see for themselves what the fuss is about. Some of them seek ladyboys to get to know more about them and their characteristics and eventually make connections with them, some conduct studies and other research activities about them, and of course, there are some who seek ladyboys for other purposes.

5: Demand for encounters with ladyboys are still high.

Prostitution is tolerated in Thailand and it is an open secret that many foreigners travel to Thailand just to have sexual encounters with the locals, especially the famous ladyboys. The demand for such encounters has no signs of letting up, so many ladyboys make a career as prostitutes. Being a prostitute is mostly seen to be a job worthy of being pitied instead of something to be frowned upon so locals are tolerant of them and this is one of the main reasons why the trade continues to flourish in Thailand.

6: Their careers revolve around their identities as ladyboys.

Many of these ladyboys make a living out of being ladyboys. However, it should be noted that not all ladyboys are prostitutes; many ladyboys actually have other careers. In fact, Thailand has some famous artists and even politicians who are ladyboys themselves. There are also establishments who are focused on providing entertainment to guests that are ladyboy-oriented. In fact, cabaret shows involving ladyboys are such a big hit in tourist areas that some even require guests to book in advance.

7: Being a ladyboy is indirectly promoted.

Ladyboys are so prevalent that its not a surprise that there are contests and competitions involving them. The beauty contest involving ladyboys, known as the Miss Tiffany’s Universe, is so famous that many ladyboys aspire to win the crown someday. In fact, the competition is broadcast live on national TV and everyone can watch it. Aside from the beauty pageant, the boxing competitions involving ladyboys are also a crowd-drawer, to the extent that an award-wining film about a ladyboy boxer was produced and gained recognition in various international festivals.

These points demonstrate how an outsider’s point of view is vastly different from that of the local’s when ladyboys are involved. Many have this idea that ladyboys are merely sex workers and have a negative stereotype and while the former may be true, the latter is definitely far from reality. Ladyboys are no different from any other person; they just choose to live their lives the way they see fit by openly defying gender stereotypes. Fortunately for them, Thailand is accepting of them.

Thailand style of transgender surgery (animation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOKriV5AxuY

The Matrix is a 'trans metaphor', Lilly Wachowski says

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53692435

"That was the original intention but the world wasn't quite ready," says Lilly Wachowski, who came out as trans along with her sister Lana after the films came out.

Fans have speculated about potential meanings behind the iconic films and Lilly confirmed the theory to Netflix.

"I'm glad that it has gotten out," she said.

The Matrix first hit screens in 1999, when Lilly says "the corporate world wasn't ready" for an allegory - a story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning - about transgender people.

But the director says the films have always been "meaningful" for trans people.

"They come up to me and say these movies saved my life.

"I'm grateful I can be throwing them a rope to help them along their journey."

The character Switch - who *spoiler alert* didn't make it past the first film - shows "where our headspaces were", Lilly says in a Netflix video.

"The Matrix stuff was all about the desire for transformation but it was all coming from a closeted point of view.

"We had the character of Switch - who was a character who would be a man in the real world and then a woman in the Matrix."

Lilly doesn't know "how present my transness was in the background of my brain as we were writing" The Matrix.

"But it all came from the same sort of fire that I'm talking about."

She was always drawn to science fiction because "we were existing in a space where the words didn't exist, so we were always living in a world of imagination".

Lana was the first of the siblings to transition, telling the New Yorker in 2012 how much she was struggling with her gender identity around the time of the second and third Matrix films.

"For years, I couldn't even say the words 'transgendered' or 'transsexual'.

"When I began to admit it to myself, I knew I would eventually have to tell my parents and my brother and my sisters.

"This fact would inject such terror into me that I would not sleep for days. I developed a plan that I worked out with my therapist. It was going to take three years. Maybe five."

Lilly came out publicly as trans in 2016 after a reporter from the Daily Mail turned up at her door.

"I just wanted - needed some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable. But apparently I don't get to decide this," she said in a statement to the Windy City Times afterwards.

"I am one of the lucky ones. Having the support of my family and the means to afford doctors and therapists has given me the chance to actually survive this process.

"Transgender people without support, means and privilege do not have this luxury. And many do not survive."

The Matrix trilogy - and particularly the first film, which won four Academy Awards - appear in plenty of lists about the "greatest science fiction films of all-time".

Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, wakes up to the reality that he's been living in a computer simulation his whole life - his physical body, along with the rest of the human race, is being used as an energy source by machine overlords.

There is set to be a fourth film in the series, directed by Lana alone, expected for 2022.

For eunuchs, even slavery comes at a price

https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report- ... ce-1556911

A group called ‘Salvation of Oppressed Eunuchs’ has made a film on the bonded life of a young eunuch who lives in a community in Virar. T

While human rights groups have extensively highlighted the existence of human trafficking in India that has enslaved millions of women and children, the slave-like condition in which most of the country’s eunuchs live is still largely undocumented.

A group called ‘Salvation of Oppressed Eunuchs’ has made a film on the bonded life of a young eunuch who lives in a community in Virar. The 55-minute film titled Aur Neha Nahi Bik Payee, made by the group’s chairman Dr Piyush Saxena, documents the life of Satish who is born with indeterminate gender. Driven out of home by his father, he finds shelter with a community of eunuchs where he takes on a new identity. Forced into prostitution due to financial demands made by the head of the community whom his inmates call ‘guru’, Satish leaves the group, only to land up in another abusive and exploitative situation.

Satish’s story bears resemblance to the lives of most members of the country’s 20-lakh-strong eunuch community. “The film highlights how eunuchs live in serfdom and bondage,” said Saxena. The film has been certified by the Central Board of Film Certification and there are plans to screen it in Mumbai. Last week, the film was released at Ajmer, during the Urs of the Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti whom the eunuchs revere.

Sagar Yadav, a trustee of the group, added, “If the eunuch wants to leave the ‘guru’, they are subjected to beatings and torture if they do not obey their gurus or share their earnings. If they want to leave the group, they have to pay the guru. They often borrow from another guru to pay the previous one. Then they spend years paying the loan. This is a kind of bonded labour.”

Saxena states that the ‘price’ of a eunuch is between Rs50,000 to Rs1,00,000. The castration procedure, called ‘Nirvana’, is illegal, and forces many to turn to quacks for the operation, putting them at great risk. “No surgeon will do the emasculation surgery, since they need certificates from an urologist, a psychiatrist and other experts that the person needs such a surgery. The poor eunuch has no access to expensive surgeons. So they go to quacks,” said Saxena.

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Valery_V (imported) wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:18 am Life Of A Eunuch - Dr Piyush Saxena

https://www.sooe.org.in/assets/pdf/life-of-a-eunuch.pdf

Aur Neha Nahin Bik Payee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndr278mL02M