(my english isn’t very good, this post was machine translated.)
hello! I’m a transgirl who just started using lemmy. 🥺
Today is my 21st day on SRS. I’ve felt very comfortable and happy during this time, even though I’m in a lot of physical pain.
(my english isn’t very good, this post was machine translated.)
hello! I’m a transgirl who just started using lemmy. 🥺
Today is my 21st day on SRS. I’ve felt very comfortable and happy during this time, even though I’m in a lot of physical pain.
I’d be happy to answer your question!
Yes, I got my SRS in China. As I said before, everything in China is for “stability,” so the prerequisites for SRS are not whether you are pass or have HRT and RLE, but whether you have clear parental consent and a clean criminal record.
I don’t know how to describe SRS technology in English, but you can use LLMs like GPT to translate and explain it. 我接受的是使用皮瓣成形阴道的 SRS，利用阴茎和阴囊皮肤作为主要供区组织瓣进行外阴及阴道前庭的重建。
You must pay for SRS out of pocket. There is no health insurance. Fortunately, the price is not too expensive (~65k RMB).
Chinese doctors are very professional, and the results are consistent. Although they may not be as effective as the best doctors in Thailand, they can still produce good results. I am very satisfied with my own results.
Unfortunately, China does not recognize same-sex marriage, and it is very likely that it will not for decades to come. Several years ago, some first-tier cities in China began experimenting with solutions to same-sex marriage, proposing a “designated guardian” system as a substitute for traditional marriage. However, with the deterioration of Sino-US relations, LGBT individuals were stigmatized as part of an “American conspiracy,” so the process not only failed to progress but actually regressed.
…Ironically, with Trump’s rise to power and the persecution of transgender people in the US, the stigmatization of LGBT individuals in China immediately slowed down. It seems China always likes to contradict the US.
In English we call this the “penile-inversion” method, whereby skin from the scrotum (陰囊) and from the penis is used to line the inside of the vagina. In the US they usually have you undergo a year of hair removal on the scrotum before the surgery. Did you have to go through that in China, if so I wonder what that process was like?
This is around $9,400 in USD, for others reading this - that is very reasonable. The anesthetic costs alone in the US costs much more than that. I think my surgery was over $140,000 (but insurance paid for most of it, I think I paid maybe $3 - 4k out of pocket?). I had to paid out of pocket for hotel expenses for two weeks, which was quite expensive.
I sincerely hope that if the US becomes unlivable there becomes a path to living in China, there are not many places for us to go, and China is at least a straightforward option (decent chances of getting a permanent job there, providing a long term legal basis of residence).
The media in the West has publicized this deterioration, so I am somewhat aware of it from those headlines, for example there was a major LGBT+ center in China that was shut down by the government, and they arrested women for writing lesbian erotica and publishing it on the internet.
That is interesting, I do not fully understand this - on the one hand, I understand historically Chinese culture influenced by Confucianism is very focused on respecting authority, and “filial piety” (respecting and caring for one’s parents). So it makes much sense to me that parental consent is so important or central. It also makes sense that being a criminal is a barrier, it is actually not too different in the US, for example the legal process for changing your name in probably most places in the US requires that you don’t have a criminal record.
However, I am deeply curious of what doctors in China think of gender dysphoria and gender transition - why do they think individuals seek this, on what basis is medicine so open to providing these surgeries to patients? In the West there is a history of gender clinics going back over 100 years, and the current standard of care has emerged from science and evidence about what is and isn’t effective at improving mental and physical health outcomes (what reduces or increases suicides, what increases or reduces drug abuse, etc.).
I have no insight or knowledge about the history of gender affirming care in China, when that care emerged in China or what that care looks like historically or now, what China’s medical establishment thinks of gender dysphoria, etc.
It is recommended but not necessary. It wasn’t even a year between my appointment for the surgery and the actual procedure, and because I was extremely anxious at the time and lacked the motivation to do anything, I didn’t get any hair removal treatments. Therefore, I have no experience with hair removal.
However, the doctor will manipulate the skin flap during the surgery to remove as much hair as possible and prevent hair growth inside the vagina. To my knowledge, no one who had surgery at the same hospital in the past year has reported vaginal hair growth, so I haven’t had any hair removal procedures.
OH MY GOD
I had heard before that healthcare in the United States was very expensive (before insurance). This figure greatly shocked me.
Yes, this is real. In fact, even earlier, in 2018, “MTF” and “药娘” (slang, literally meaning “girl by drugs”.) was blocked from searching on major Chinese platforms, and transgender forums in China were shut down. This prompted transgender people in China to flee to Twitter. (However, they don’t seem to like Reddit. btw I’ve never used Reddit before!)
Honestly, I don’t know why either; perhaps only God knows.
Transgender healthcare in China relies so heavily on a handful of doctors. You can even find the list here. Millions of transgender people in China rely on these few individuals to obtain certificates proving their suitability for surgery, and on fewer than five doctors capable of performing SRS procedures. To my knowledge, most Chinese MtFs go to Thailand. Therefore, I would say that SRS in China is essentially a very privileged procedure.
In my personal opinion, the level of transgender healthcare in China is terrible. If you go through the formal channels, after a long and arduous observation period and confirmation of your parents’ opinions, the hospital will prescribe medication based on medical consensus from over a decade ago, with alarmingly low dosages. Almost everyone is a DIY HRT advocate, including myself. I have nearly six years of HRT experience and have never obtained a prescription, nor even considered going to the hospital to get one. My other SRS-ed friends also continue with DIY HRT.
However, paradoxically, because China has a well-developed black market for HRT, it’s actually quite easy for people to obtain hormone, as long as you don’t have an obsession with “obtaining a proper prescription.” At the same time, everyone is well aware of this, and SRS doesn’t require an HRT prescription (or even HRT experience).
I seem to have gone a bit off-topic. In short, doctors who are still willing to serve transgender people under these circumstances are generally compassionate towards transgender people, although there aren’t many such doctors in all of China. We transgenders in China also rely heavily on the community to determine HRT dosage, SRS preparation and recovery, and so on. Doctors actually play a relatively small role for us.
Therefore, I think that China’s transgender medical system is mostly learned by some trans-friendly doctors from Europe and the US, while the actual medical process is mostly completed by transgender people themselves.