After SRS What Has Changed?

[Traci Elizabeth]

Aside from the obvious physical change what other changes have you experienced after SRS?

[Kathryn Martin]

To properly answer that question I would have to talk about very "intimate" things, and that is not in a physical sense but rather in an emotional and spiritual sense. And since this is an open forum that can be seen by anyone who googles my name, I am not comfortable saying anything here. You know like colleagues and clients ...etc


Aside from the obvious physical change what other changes have you experienced after SRS?

[Bree-asaurus]

I can't share here... but I wanted to agree with Kathryn that this would be better suited for the private forum. I'm pretty sure any transsexual here who has had SRS is a member of that forum :)

[Frances]

This is something on the subject I posted here in an old thread. It's still true.

I did not wake up feeling any different. As a matter of fact, I did not wake up at all, the surgery was done under epidural, and I was awake the whole time. The epiphany came slowly over time as I started lowering the shield I had built up from being an incongruent woman who passed very well while knowing and feeling that something was very different.

As I did not have to protect a secret identity (and this is done subconsciously), I started really interacting with the world as a woman, freely and without guilt. I am still learning everyday what it means to be a woman in various situations. And this happened because I no longer focused on physical transition. Before, I would stand back a little and think about the things that had to be done in my transition instead of being in the moment. Now, I am ready to open up, figuratively and literally.

[Stephenie S]

Frances pretty much summed it up for most post-op transgendered women. It is only after SRS that the real job of learning to be a woman can begin.


S

[noeleena]

Hi,

My ? would be what happened long before any surgerys, because that will determin what happens after surgerys,
How i was born & with what, that would enable me to live as a person first, then allso ...being ... a female . part of my make up what made me a female ,Psychologically ..Mentally..& Emotionally. & some details concerning my body, all added up to being born with both male & female & you know what i mean.

Surgery was allso a part of my body makeup, yes very importaint, yet not what makes me who i am,

I did not ask why am i not a female because that ? has no relervance because i was one any way, just haveing that mix of male / female,

What changed with my surgerys, acceptance as a normal woman no ?s asked, being able to express my self in a way i could not for most of my life, being a very strong woman who knows who she is & with out ?. very confindent & self assured, Love who i am & yes with all my failings & faults ,
my changes have taken place over 17 years, long before surgerys, if you like i was being preped, something that was lovely ,
My mind set was allready as a female / woman from very young, So i never had any issues about my self & who i was/ am.

Surgery sets me apart from men, im different yet still a part of socity, & yes i have many friends & some rather neat men friends, & they allso accept who i am & i can still work along side them , & the most importaint thing is im just noeleena & she's only a woman. so did surgery;s play a part i belive so yet it really comes down to i really am a woman & female from birth just i happen to be a little different thats all.

...noeleena...

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Thanks Frances...that sounds just right...

The whole "question" in my head was gone...

[CharleneT]

Third vote for Frances's version, I'll add that life seems easier. Of course that is not true in many ways, but the BIGHUMP is past and that makes all the other smaller ones much easier to deal with. I have peace in general now, which is quite nice. I agree with the Step/Kate 'it all starts after SRS' but not with quite the their same zeal. I think it might be better put as it all stops with SRS ... and you get the chance to start over. THAT is more amazing than I think most realize. It was only 40 years ago that our options started to even include the idea of physical transformation ! I like the quiet of just living vs all the craziness of RLE and early transition.

[Traci Elizabeth]

:hugs:
This is something on the subject I posted here in an old thread. It's still true.

I did not wake up feeling any different. As a matter of fact, I did not wake up at all, the surgery was done under epidural, and I was awake the whole time. The epiphany came slowly over time as I started lowering the shield I had built up from being an incongruent woman who passed very well while knowing and feeling that something was very different.

As I did not have to protect a secret identity (and this is done subconsciously), I started really interacting with the world as a woman, freely and without guilt. I am still learning everyday what it means to be a woman in various situations. And this happened because I no longer focused on physical transition. Before, I would stand back a little and think about the things that had to be done in my transition instead of being in the moment. Now, I am ready to open up, figuratively and literally.


i REALLY LIKE YOUR RESPONSE FRANCES! :hugs:

[Stephenie S]

"I REALLY LIKE YOUR RESPONSE FRANCES"

Well, Frances seems to have a pretty good grasp on life.

S

[Jennifer Marie P.]

Im more confident about myself more relaxed and I love being a woman.

[Jorja]

The only thing that changed was me. Everything else in the world stayed the same. I became more confident in myself and all the confusion and turmoil were gone. I found that transition really does begin after you have had SRS. Everything before that was just training for what was to come.

[pamela_a]

The only thing that changed was me. Everything else in the world stayed the same. I became more confident in myself and all the confusion and turmoil were gone. I found that transition really does begin after you have had SRS. Everything before that was just training for what was to come.

Very well put Jorja and I also whole heartedly agree with Frances.

[Beth-Lock]

To properly answer that question I would have to talk about very "intimate" things, and that is not in a physical sense but rather in an emotional and spiritual sense. And since this is an open forum that can be seen by anyone who googles my name, I am not comfortable saying anything here. You know like colleagues and clients ...etc

I guess, being retired, I can allow myself to be less reticent. Since the matters which have a more physical aspect than Kathryn appeared to be thinking of are easier to deal with and more obvious to me at this early stage, perhaps it is best to concentrate on them here.

Incidently, when it come to the change of one's psychology and gaining a feeling of well-being, post-op, I am in a good position to separate the things caused by merely living as a woman and those dependent specifically on GRS, (surgery), since I spent quite a long time living as a woman, (and without female hormones) -- three years in fact, when I benefited noticeably from a feeling of more inner peace and was generally more comfortable in the world. (Of course if the endocrine clinic had not lost my file repeatedly, and health complications made it necessary to consult one, before HRT, I would have likely been on hormones long before. But then, that would have made my case lss sinteresting.)

Getting my mind around having, needing to handle to take care of its hygeine, (despite my squeamishiness) and dealing with the reality of using that completely new anatomy down there, was an awe inspiring experience and an awful surprise. Of course I knew the theory and had studied the pictures of female antomy in the medical material. But the realiy of actually having that anatomy right down there,on your person, is a little like the diffeence in studying the pictures of a bull fight, in comparisson to the experience of finding yourself actually in the bull ring one day, facing a real and quite angry bull.

Before GRS I posted a humorous prediction, that someone recently post-op would get up from a sound sleep or a little snooze, roused by the feeling of the need to go no.1, and rush to the bathroom, flipping up the toilet seat, as of old, and stand in front of the toilet, and basically being ready to go in the old male way. Though for months in advanc of GRS I had practiced going sitting down, it stlll happened to me a couple of days ago, as I predicted. I stood there, wondering why nothing was happening, until the bathrom mat started to get a litltle shower.

Though that is a trvial incident, it beng not too embarrassingly personal, it might stand in place of other experiences which are a bit too personal to recount, but do revolve around the combinatoin of change of anatomy and change of thinking, etc.

How do you replace the thinking about the most intimate area of your body with new thinking which is appropriate to the new experiences you will be having, before you know what they are? I guess it is a learning exprience with all the crudities of trial and error. It is like the ancient mariners, trying to navigate safely and purposefully in terra incognita, the areas in the map that are left blank, because he map-maker had no clue as to the shape of what was there. If anybody has a useful map, I would like to see it!

For example, it might occur to one while doing the dilations, that if vaginal sex is anyting like that, or even results in strange feelings of discomfort or pain down there which one gets intimations of now and again, how can that possibly be keenly enjoyable? The visiting nurse's comnent was not particularly reassuring, when she said that born women go through stretches of their lives, in which sex is not much fun, one of them being basically the age that I am approaching. Of course, the normal pattern of recovery from the operation and subsequent life's experences with the new anatomy, will answer these doubts one way or another and allow one to work through the re-orienting of one's life experiences. Or I certainly hope so.

And what do the dilations feel like? It is not like sex at all. In my experience it certainly has none of the pleasurable aspects of sex, and can be not just neutral, something tiresome that you just have to do, but at times, sligthly painful or uncomfortable.

Anyway, it is early days for me and I have a lot to learn obviously. In addition, everybody's experiences vary. But pehaps I have openned the curtains just a little bit, on at least one person's immediate post-op impressions.

Footnote: Dilations are done several times a day, post op. They consist of putting a dilator, a plastic medcal instrument, into the neo-vagina, and holding it there for a specific time, while you lie on your back. They look like very plain dildoes. Without their use as prescribed, the vaginal vault will close and the results of the GRS operation be ruined.

[Jorja]

This being an open fourm, let me just say everything and nothing changed for me.