Ada

Same as the rest of the fediverse

Was the vaginismus like involuntary contractions that created too much resistance for the dilator?

Not contractions, more like a permanent contraction. Well, semi permanent, as it resolved eventually. But until then, it was contracted tight 24/7

Has there been any thought about seeing the surgeon again or looking into rehabilitation, or is it easier to have moved on?

My surgeon retired, as did one of the others, leaving a single Australian surgeon with a long wait list, with no guarantees he could fix it, especially given it was another surgeons work. In theory though, I could get PPV with him, but still an uncertain outcome at the end of a long wait list.

In theory I’ll do it one day, but the older I get, the less likely I’ll bother

But I’m impressed by your healthy and adaptive mindset about it.

Heh. That’s me with the benefit of time. When I was going through it, I didn’t have a healthy adaptive mindset

My case was a bit more complicated than my previous post outlined. After a year or so of dilating, and having difficulties, I went back to my surgeon for a followup when I was supporting a friend who was having surgery with the same surgeon.

He had a look at things, and confirmed the presence of scarring causing the issue, but his examination also triggered something like vaginismus, and it became impossible for me to dilate with anything but the smallest dilator for a month or so after. By the time that issue resolved, I had lost more depth and girth from the lack of meaningful dilation. So I spent some time trying to regain what I had lost, but ultimately getting back to where I was before the vaginismus would have taken months, with no guarantees of success, but given that even full success was back to a starting point that wasn’t working for me, it become really hard to keep dilating.

And then covid happened, and my surgeon cleared his lists and stopped taking bookings. I wasn’t able to have penetrative sex anyway even before any of this happened, so at that point, I couldn’t see the point in continuing.

It was a pretty big deal for me, and it left me feeling crushed. But, the way I looked at it was that even though I couldn’t have the sex life I had hoped for, that was also true before I had bottom surgery, but bottom surgery left me feeling comfortable in my body in a way I’d never had access to before, so I was still better off than where I started, even if I didn’t end up where I had hoped to.

Basically, after my healing was done, it just never got any better. No matter how much I dilated, the largest dilator was never comfortable, and with the effort it took to use that, nothing made out of flesh and blood instead of rigid plastic was going to stand a chance.

Because it was never comfortable, and I was never able to have penetrative sex, I ended up just giving up on dilation during the covid lockdowns.

I had a very different experience unfortunately. It turns out that I had quite a bit of internal scarring, so dilation was never pleasant for me. It wasn’t hard to do, but it didn’t feel comfortable. Sort of like stretching a piercing. It was tense and uncomfortable.

Still, despite that, it was a life changing experience, and I’d do it again every time if I had the choice!

Ok, let me give you another produce perspective.

I had breast augmentation and it’s been a huge source of joy.

But something else that’s a source of joy for me is seeing the goofy smile of joy on a trans guys face, when he shares a photo of the first time he went swimming topless after top surgery.

You don’t need to assume talking about the things you want will make other folk unhappy just because they don’t want it. Play it by ear and respect people’s boundaries if they do express discomfort and you’ll be fine.

Which brings me to my conundrum. Is it wrong to identify with a label if there is no way of achieving it? Like if there is no surgical possibility of transitioning to the body that I want, am I still trans?

I can not say this loudly enough, but fuck yes you are!

You don’t have to use the label if it doesn’t feel right for you, but if it does, it’s yours for the taking. Being trans is about who you are, not what you do. Being trans or gender diverse is about saying “This whole sex and gender thing you’ve assigned me, yeah, it’s not working for me”. And that’s you. What you do with your experiences is up to you, but the experiences are there and they’re real, no matter what your external circumstances.

All the trans women I’ve known and loved have hated their og anatomy, and I felt like it would be insulting to say that was what I wanted for my body when they fought so hard to get rid of it.

Not at all! What they wanted was bodily autonomy! And that’s what you want!

And again, to bring a personal experience in to this, the person who helped me understand who I am, and accept who I am is a trans guy. He was the first trans person I’d ever spoken to, and what struck me was that despite his experience being the “opposite” of mine, he was also the first person I’d ever spoken to who understood what I was saying, who I didn’t have to explain myself to. He just got it.

Which is to say, in the gender diverse community, the stuff we have is common is far greater than the differences. The experience of each gender diverse person is unique, but at the same time, just like so many others before them!

I’ll avoid it anyway as I’d be scared of feeling like I’m insulting their masculinity by wanting something for myself that the surgery just isn’t advanced enough yet to provide for actual men like them.

Yeah, that is something you need to be careful of. Not yucking on other peoples yum. But you can still talk about it. You can talk about your own hesitations, and you can ask them how they feel about the same things you’re concerned about. Rather than “I don’t want to do it because it’s not perfect”, you can ask them to talk about their own relationship with bottom surgery, given that it’s not perfect. You can talk about your own concerns and anxiety, without positioning your experience as the one true perspective. They know it’s not perfect. But they do it anyway. And honestly, it sounds like hearing the perspective of someone in that position would be really helpful to you!

The truth is, no one can tell you, except for you, and often we ourselves don’t know. There is no single label used to describe what you’re talking about. It can be a form of non binary experience, but that involves your experience of gender, it isn’t just about the physical. There’s “altersex”, which doesn’t speak to gender at all, but it’s not widely understood, and is also popular with transmedicalists who try and gatekeep other folks validity, so it can carry some unwanted assumptions in people who do recognise it.

And honestly, there is the possibility that it’s not “just about genitals”. There could be more to this than you’re willing to admit, even to yourself.

I was similar to you. I’m a trans woman, and I spent so much of my earlier life literally wishing that I was trans specifically so I could access bottom surgery. If I could have had surgery than magically changed me down stairs, but changed nothing else, I’d have jumped at it. But, of course, there was more to it than that, I was just deep in denial… That’s not to say your experience will be the same as mine. I just want to raise it as a possibility for you to think about.

It’s a lot of words, but honestly, my advice is to just use whatever feels right, but without getting attached to the specific label. Use it as long as it feels right, but if it stops feeling right, give yourself permission to change it. And that’s true even if the label you end up with is “cis woman who wants a dick”. As long as the label is working for you, rather than against you, it’s the right label

I had this discussion with a previous blahaj user who commented that they saw their own transition as “just a medical issue” and “something in their history” because she’s cis passing, in a straight relationship and transitioned long ago.

I pointed out to her though that it’s not “just a medical issue” because it only takes one person outing her in the wrong circumstance, and she’s just at risk as any other trans person. Yeah, in an ideal world, for those who want it to be, transition would be a medical footnote. But we aren’t in that world. We’re in a world where even cis women face transphobia, because they don’t perform gender “correctly”. No trans person is safe from that, even though some are at less risk.

Trans folk that position themselves as different from and distinct to the more visible and out there gender diverse folk aren’t protecting themselves, they’re just putting themselves lower on the bigots priority lists. And yeah, sometimes, that’s what you’ve got to do for safety, but “safer” is not the same thing as “safe”

Why the fuck are people trying to justify misgendering trans women?

Transphobia. It’s really that simple.

What you’re looking for is an informed consent healthcare provider. (https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1DxyOTw8dI8n96BHFF2JVUMK7bXsRKtzA&ll=26.199827571693177%2C-113.38234069999999&z=3)

That’s also my face in my lemmy/piefed profile pic, and there’s a whole video on peertube!

But, I don’t have the purple anymore. I just used that photo because it was a good photo of my hair, where I was controlling the frizz, rather than the other way around :P

A couple were reported and I removed them, but I’m have no plans on going back and digging them out if no one reports them.

Yep! Head tilted in the shower, trying not to fall over and break my neck! Honestly though, I struggle with loving my hair. I know I should, but I find dealing with the curls such an endless task, it’s hard not to be resentful

Welcome!

We have the same hair!

There’s nothing I can do at the system level to stop them from being posted, but I am happy to remove them if they appear! Just report them or DM me

Lets just say I don’t agree. I find paper so frustrating. I lose it, or I can’t decipher what I’ve written. I forget it on some sessions… It’s an ADHD disaster. But with a laptop, even if I forget it, I can still use my phone to access the character.

I even use digital dice rollers when it’s not a PITA to share the results with the rest of the table.

Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right?

Why would it be banned?!

I honestly can’t remember the last time someone in one of my groups used pen and paper. Mostly (but not always) the dice have remained though!