Transition

Transition is not for me, to be honest I don't think it ever has been even if circumstances during my early life had been different. I admire and support anyone who choses the transition route, it is an immense undertaking fraught with difficulties. Apart from the huge commitment and risks involved, why would I want to? Yes it would be nice to have my own boobs, but as I am not full time I suspect there are times when they would get in the way! At my time of life, I now just want to enjoy myself, so I can see little point in putting myself through the long and difficult process. Transition is promoted by some as the panacea for those who want to become the woman of their dreams, it may be for some but transition is clearly not the be all and end all. It obviously works for a lot of people, the fabulous April Ashley is a prime example, but sadly not for all.

Gender reassignment surgery is a complicated procedure that, to be honest I don't know much about, but it is a procedure that has been carried out for a long time, by now it should have reached the point of being almost a routine operation, as other procedures have which were once considered pioneering, that, it would appear, is just not the case. I have read a blog post by Sue Richmond (suerichmond.blogspot.com) which tells of a number of instances of reassignment procedures that have not gone according to plan or the patient has suffered as a result of poor after care and infections here in the UK. This is very disturbing, a woman waiting years to transition then finally getting the operation she has always wanted only to find she ends up suffering because of poor care.

Another reason that prompted me to write this post is that over the years a number of post op girls have wanted to reverse the procedure or far worse, have taken their own lives. This has led me to consider if the whole thing should be looked at from a different perspective. As far as I can see when 'corrective surgery' is used to remedy something like a serious heart condition, many years of research and study has been carried out, at great expense, to find the cause, once the cause has been discovered suitable action can be taken to make life better for person involved. It seems to me that very little research has been carried out as to why men like me want to dress and live as women, or want to be women. Without the research how can anyone really know what is the best form of action to take? That being the case, certainly from my point of view, why would I want to go under the knife?

So what is the answer? Well there is no answer, it's extremely unlikely that anyone would fund a study large enough to really get to the bottom of all this, even if they did it would probably turn out that we are what we are, just as nature intended, perhaps not to 'society's' norms but, none the less perfectly normal as we are. For me to commit myself to such a drastic procedure, I would have to judge that the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages and risks, the truth is the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence so I can't personally see any advantage of transition, for me at least. 

However although I don't want to transition I will always offer support to anyone considering going down that route, and just as importantly continue that support after the surgery, because it seems to me this is where things sometimes can go very wrong.