Hi all!
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:55 pm
OK. Where to start? I guess the beginning is as good a place as any. I was always a bit socially awkward growing up. Often a target of bullies. I wouldn't say I was depressed though. I had and still have a tight circle of very close friends. But even your best friend can't defend you from everything, especially the fickle and often cruel realities of high school. The incident that changed my life occurred a few weeks into my freshman year. It was particularly humiliating and very public. I'll spare you the details and leave it at that. As I was still trying to find my place in the social pecking order at the time, lets just say this set me back a bit. I of course also was in the early stages of puberty and had all of the body security issues that come along with it for many if not most boys. Fourteen is a tough age for a boy- maybe if I were older or younger, at a different point in my emotional development, I would have been able to "get over it", or maybe not. But what ifs are worthless. I did not get over it. And ever since September of 1998, I have hated my balls. Don't misinterpret this as some sort of gender identity issue. I am a guy. I like sports, video games, beer and other "guy stuff". I prefer women romantically, although I have experimented with men. But I have no desire to become a woman. I just really, really HATE my balls and I don't see that ever changing. Psychological trauma can be just as damaging and permanent as any physical trauma.
To understand where I am today and why I didn't succumb to the urges to "take care of" my problem years ago, maybe I need to go back a bit further. I come from a family of doctors. My dad is a urologist, as was his father, my grandfather. I have an aunt who is a general practitioner, an uncle who is a general surgeon and another uncle who is a cardiologist. Two other aunts are nurses in a trauma ward. When the family gets together, the dinner conversation inevitably turned into a game of one upmanship in which each brings their best, most disturbing story. The best stories involved lots of blood and/or other bodily fluids. Bonus points for the most ridiculous lie that the patient would tell about the origin of their injuries. One of my dad's go-to stories involves an aspiring transsexual who couldn't afford the necessary medical procedures, so he decided to do it himself. Predictably, it didn't go well. He nearly bled to death and in addition to the outward scars, he did irreversible damage to his urinary tract and bowels. Needless to say, the one thing I absolutely will not do is self mutilation.
I've known about MTF surgeries for quite some time. But that doesn't really apply to my situation. I've always believed there weren't really any options for someone like me. I'm 31 now and have tried to repress my feelings for years, figuring nobody could possibly understand and that the mere mention of my desire to have my balls removed would get me labeled as a freak and committed to a mental hospital. But a few days ago, while reading a completely unrelated news article, I came across a link at the bottom of the page to an article about voluntary surgical castration for non-transgender men. The author's general premise was that the whole idea was absurd, but a series of links from there led me here. The last few days have been a whirlwind of emotion and excitement reading about others' situations. Everyone's situation is unique, yet I found myself relating to the underlying feelings of many of the other people on here. At this point I don't know whether an orchiectomy is the right decision for me and my situation. But the mere discovery that it might be an option has been incredibly liberating and encouraging. There have been times over the last few days that I was half tempted to call up the often cited and geographically reasonable Dr. Arnkoff (I live in northeastern Indiana, he's in Detroit) and ask for his first available appointment. But I'm going to take my time with what is obviously a very important and very permanent decision. I'll continue to research the procedure itself as well as the aftereffects and see what I can do to find a sympathetic GP and possibly a therapist. I don't want somebody who will simply try to talk me out of it, but somebody who can recognize that it is my decision and respect it as such, and help me with my future medical needs if I decide to go through with it.
Any decision is probably at least six months to a year off. While I have fantasized about it for years, my discovery that surgical castration could be a real option is much more recent. I want to take the time to process that transition from fantasy to reality and to properly research all aspects of that reality. My very preliminary, probably overly romanticized idea, would be to have it done on one of two days- either my birthday as a gift to myself, or on the anniversary of the day that in my mind started it all, the symbolism of which I believe could go a long way toward my sense of closure.
To understand where I am today and why I didn't succumb to the urges to "take care of" my problem years ago, maybe I need to go back a bit further. I come from a family of doctors. My dad is a urologist, as was his father, my grandfather. I have an aunt who is a general practitioner, an uncle who is a general surgeon and another uncle who is a cardiologist. Two other aunts are nurses in a trauma ward. When the family gets together, the dinner conversation inevitably turned into a game of one upmanship in which each brings their best, most disturbing story. The best stories involved lots of blood and/or other bodily fluids. Bonus points for the most ridiculous lie that the patient would tell about the origin of their injuries. One of my dad's go-to stories involves an aspiring transsexual who couldn't afford the necessary medical procedures, so he decided to do it himself. Predictably, it didn't go well. He nearly bled to death and in addition to the outward scars, he did irreversible damage to his urinary tract and bowels. Needless to say, the one thing I absolutely will not do is self mutilation.
I've known about MTF surgeries for quite some time. But that doesn't really apply to my situation. I've always believed there weren't really any options for someone like me. I'm 31 now and have tried to repress my feelings for years, figuring nobody could possibly understand and that the mere mention of my desire to have my balls removed would get me labeled as a freak and committed to a mental hospital. But a few days ago, while reading a completely unrelated news article, I came across a link at the bottom of the page to an article about voluntary surgical castration for non-transgender men. The author's general premise was that the whole idea was absurd, but a series of links from there led me here. The last few days have been a whirlwind of emotion and excitement reading about others' situations. Everyone's situation is unique, yet I found myself relating to the underlying feelings of many of the other people on here. At this point I don't know whether an orchiectomy is the right decision for me and my situation. But the mere discovery that it might be an option has been incredibly liberating and encouraging. There have been times over the last few days that I was half tempted to call up the often cited and geographically reasonable Dr. Arnkoff (I live in northeastern Indiana, he's in Detroit) and ask for his first available appointment. But I'm going to take my time with what is obviously a very important and very permanent decision. I'll continue to research the procedure itself as well as the aftereffects and see what I can do to find a sympathetic GP and possibly a therapist. I don't want somebody who will simply try to talk me out of it, but somebody who can recognize that it is my decision and respect it as such, and help me with my future medical needs if I decide to go through with it.
Any decision is probably at least six months to a year off. While I have fantasized about it for years, my discovery that surgical castration could be a real option is much more recent. I want to take the time to process that transition from fantasy to reality and to properly research all aspects of that reality. My very preliminary, probably overly romanticized idea, would be to have it done on one of two days- either my birthday as a gift to myself, or on the anniversary of the day that in my mind started it all, the symbolism of which I believe could go a long way toward my sense of closure.
