I am struggling with the level to which I plan to keep active in the trans community.  Although I still have some aspects of transition remaining, hair removal being the most pressing but also psychological and social integration elements (i.e. voice, clothing, cosmetics, etc.), I am rapidly approaching the ultimate goal of “natural blending” into the sea of femininity.  Although just about everyone in my world knew Bob, the truth is I am not him- a fact obvious to those around me a lot.  The more I just be myself, be Gwendolyn, the less people even remember Bob.  And that’s the crux of this whole question.

I feel a responsibility, perhaps even a calling, to act as a ambassador for our community.  As a highly-educated woman, an accomplished professional, a spouse married only once and for 20 years now, and a parent of two beautiful and well adjusted kids, I can be a powerful advocate to those who are uncertain about transsexuality and would otherwise take the path of least resistance and marginalize us.  That someone like me would do this given everything I had to put at risk, the price I still had to pay even with the support I have been given, says volumes.

An example of this was last week where I spent the week as the guest of honor for Trans Awareness Week at Washington State University, my alma mater.  The Gender Identity Expression and Sexual orientation program invited me out and I had a wonderful time.  The young people I spoke with, nearly all either gay or allies, had excellent questions and very thoughtful insight.  We spent hours talking about what it is to be a transsexual, how it compares and contrasts with being gay, and how it fits into the whole quilt of human gender and sexual orientation.  It gave me great hope for the future.

Still, as I do things like this i keep one foot in the past, one foot in the identity of a transwoman and not simply as a woman.  Even if I can keep it separate, it confuses people around me and subconsciously reminds them I used to be a “he”.  Yvonne, especially, just wants me to go forward.  She wants me as a woman, not a transwoman.  As always, shades of gray are not her thing.

Ultimately, this is all about the overarching question of “what do I do now?”.  I know I must go forward, but what does that mean?  Decisions, decisions…

The past few weeks have been remarkably busy and it’s been easy to space the blog.  I’m sorry for those who are actually sticking along with it past the “big event”.  I can’t promise I’ll be the most regular poster, but I’ll keep doing my best.

Objectively, I can assure everyone I am doing fine.  The surgical area is healing well.  Still no infections, and no more loss of grafts since I lost the clitoral hooding back when I flew back home.  All bleeding has stopped- I still am draining fluid from around my clitoris and from my vagina, but it is clear and Dr McGinn has assured me it is normal.  I expect to be using a light pad or panty shield for about a year.

Aesthetically, things are doing pretty well.  I’m not exactly symmetrical, but neither is anyone naturally so either.  I still believe when the swelling goes down that it’ll all look fine.  It’ll be about 6 months post-op (early April) before i have a confident sense of the result.

When I went into the surgery, I told Dr McGinn that my priorities were safety>sensitivity>aesthetics/appearance>vaginal depth.  In the end, I think she followed the priorities pretty well.  I came through quite safe and sound.  As the nerves reconnect, I have confidence I’ll be quite reasonably sensate- areas previously “dead” have been coming back slowly.  The aesthetics are pretty incredible when you consider what I started with.  As far as depth, well, let’s just say it simplifies things that I remain married to Yvonne and don’t have to rely on it.  For those transwomen out there looking to go with Dr McGinn and who plan to move forward with heterosexual relationships, I encourage you to have a frank discussion with the good doctor regarding your prospects.

For those transwomen who are looking to go with Dr Christine McGinn and want to discuss in more detail my experience, don’t hesitate to email me at rlmoscoe@hotmail.com.  I can’t promise to answer immediately, but I will answer.

As far as life, Ive been catching up at work in anticipation of returning there physically at least half-time on Nov 30.  I’m up on my emails, although i have a growing folder of stuff put aside until I return.  December will be a month busy with catch up.  I have spoken with my PCP, Dr Marilyn Darr, and she agrees my progress warrants a partial return to work.  The paperwork will be done this week, and from Nov 30-Dec 11 I’ll be working 4 hrs a day.  After that, I expect to be back in the saddle full time.

So, that’s my progress.  7 weeks out, I have no regrets and would do it all over again.  referring back to the post-op segment of the news clip, I really am just living my life now.  It’s nice to finally fit.

My recovery is slowly progressing.  I am following all the instructions regarding self care and things seem to be progressing reasonable well.  For those interested, I’ll detail the status- for those uneasy about talk of vaginas and clitorises, feel free to skip.

I seem to have avoided infection so far, which is good.  Bleeding is minimal now, and almost all from the area around my clitoris.  As I expected, most of the clitoral hooding graft, which used urethral tissue from inside my penis, has died and sloughed off.   I am not sure how it will eventually resolve, but I knew that graft was tenuous and there are options in the future to deal with it when the area is otherwise healed and blood flow is much better.  It is the least of my worries, and I’m not fretting over it anymore.  My significant remaining concern is bleeding from around my clitoris, deep under the remaining hooding.  I am still accumulating fluid forward of the clitoral area under my mons, and it drains from my clitoral graft.  I’m told by Dr McGinn that this is not unexpected, but I fear the area isn’t being allowed to heal right and there is no second chance for the clitoris like there is for the hooding.  There’s nothing I can do about it 3000 miles from Dr McGinn’s office, though, so I am left with being patient.  It can be so hard when the stakes are so high…

As stated, everything else seems to be resolving well.  The posterior portion of Dr McGinn’s work. my vagina is doing well.  Depth isn’t what I would have liked, but it’s more than enough for Yvonne and I.    The midline area, the urethra, is still healing but it looks fine.  I pee all over the place, but there’s still swelling and it may be months before I know where things actually end up.  The anterior area has already been discussed.

All in all, the whole area of Dr McGinn’s work is starting to look very natural.  There is still swelling, but I’m getting a firm sense of what it will look like 6 months out.  I am amazed at the magic she was able to accomplish.  Assuming the clitoris resolves and remains viable, I’ll have no problem calling it successful.

Exactly 52 weeks ago today, I made the decision to transition my sex from male to female.  As is obvious on this blog, my gender was female since forever- I knew what I was and what I wasn’t.  Until the Sunday after election day, though, I was till trying, as I had done my whole life, to make compromises short of just jumping in head first.  My counseling and medical care until Nov 8/9, 2008 had been focused on taking the edge off my gender identity dysphoria- specifically NOT about transition despite what I had warned my loved ones beyond Yvonne to expect.  From the 9th onwards, it was all about transitioning.

What broke, or rather firmed, my resolve was the passage of Prop 8 in California.  More than anything in my life, my outrage over such a fundamental imposition of the majority over the basic rights of a minority filled me such that there was no room for fear- just resolve.  For the first time in my life, I couldn’t connect to my prejudice against cross dressing, my fear of reassignment surgery.  My whole life I had cultivated fear and prejudice as my bulwarks against solving the source of my problem, and over the span of a weekend they melted away as I watched what fear and prejudice really mean to people, to families.  There was no room left in me for either.

Just as things happened very quickly in April-June of 2008 when I made the decision to feminize my hormones and within 10 weeks was on testosterone blockade and estrogen, things happened quickly once I decided to transition.  Within three weeks of Nov 8/9, I had gone shopping for feminine clothes and then wore them for the first time.  I told the kids just before Thanksgiving.  In exactly two months, I had changed my name and transitioned at work.  In less than a year from the decision to transition, 11 months, I was anatomically female.  So much pent up, so much behind the dam that everyone could see (Yvonne, my therapist, etc) except me.  Once the dam broke, things happened quickly.

I’m still dazed at how quickly…

When I transitioned back in January, I was able to change my name and sex on everything except my birth certificate, passport, and Social Security profile.  As noted earlier, the package has been sent to change my BC.  My passport will happen when i have the new, updated BC.

Social Security is another matter.  No one sees my social security profile except an employer and the Gov’t.  My current employer knows all about me and I have no plans to change employment, so there’s no reason to change there.  Under normal circumstances in most states, I wouldn’t be able to get a driver license with a different sex than my social security profile (a no-match), but Washington has an alternate mechanism and I’ve had “F” since January.  What this means is there is no practical reason to change my Social Security sex designator.

There is a practical reason to keep it as is.  As long as the US continues to be so messed up when it comes to same-sex marriage, by leaving SSA alone I avoid all sorts of complications for Yvonne should I kick the bucket before she does.   Out of concern for her, I think I’ll leave SSA alone despite my aversion to leaving anything with the “M”.  At least I don’t have to look at it… :-/

Today marks the forth week since my surgery.  I still have a hard time believing so much time has passed.  It has honestly been some of the fastest flying time of my life.  i am still sorting out my feelings about it all, and hopefully will distill something postable soon.

My physical recovery is coming along.  Open areas are healing, stressed tissue is recovering.  I still have bleeding from under the clitoral hooding and have no idea how that whole area is doing given I don’t want to dig around where things are still so uncertain.  It is so hard to be patient given the stakes there are so high.  A surprise has been a long loop of stitching that popped out of my vagina.  It is still attached at both ends, but extends out maybe two inches.  I have no trouble dilating around it, but I need to take a picture and send to Dr McGinn to confirm that I’m okay sniping it at each end and letting the attached points dissolve naturally.  Crazy times…

 

The past few days have been busy…probably more so than I should be doing.

Yesterday I actually had a few routine medical visits that didn’t have to o with the vaginoplasty.  I saw the dentist and my teeth and gums are great.  I also saw the ENT surgeon who worked on my nose back in May.  The result of that surgery wasn’t ideal, but it is better than what I started with.  He agreed with my assessment, but also warned me that “the enemy of good is better”.  We agreed to wait another six months to see how it continues to adjust and go from there.  I have a feeling I’m in for some minor adjustments come next fall.

From those appts, I went to the DMV to renew my license.  Washington is a border state and was the first to offer “enhanced” driver licenses (http://www.dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/edlget.html) which allows one to cross land and sea borders of the United States.  You still need a passport for air travel, but it simplifies going to Canada no end.  I decided the extra $15 was worth it and applied for one.  I thought the fact I have NOT changed my sex with Social Security might cause a problem, but it did not.  Whew!  I have a paper copy of the license now clearly with a F.  I expect the actual card will be the same.  This makes an actual passport unnecessary for now as I don’t intend to fly anywhere anytime soon.

From there I went to the post office and mailed out a package containing a letter requesting the name and sex on my birth certificate be changed to Gwendolyn Brooke Moscoe and F respectively, a certified copy of my original issue birth certificate, a certified copy of my name change court order, and the certified letter from Dr McGinn.  If all goes well, they will mail back in the enclosed, self-addressed, stamped envelope the original documents along with three certified copies of my amended birth certificate.  With that, I should be able to apply for a passport with the appropriate name and gender with no trouble.  Fingers crossed that all goes well…

I am finding I still tire pretty early.  By around 9pm, or about 14 hrs after I get up, I’m sore and pooped.  I tried to play DDO with the guild last night and had to lie down in middle of a quest.  Although everyone understood, it was still bad form…

 

I never mentioned this previously, but I was involved in a TV piece during the process of my surgery.  Here’s a link for those interested- it aired last night.

http://video.wwmt.com/m/27185718/living-in-transition.htm

I must admit it is surreal to see myself on the operating table…

 

My parents kept the kids Sunday night and got them to school Monday morning so we could rest.  Given how long the flight was and my exhaustion by the time we got back, this was very appreciated.  Unfortunately, I was unable to sleep in.  Never have been one to sleep much past 8am, and jet lag made that doubly so.

Monday was spent catching up on my dilating and starting to re-insert myself back into life.  The plane flight home pulled my recovery back more than i thought- I had little stamina.  Moreso, it became apparent over Monday that some of the skin grafts in the genital surgical area took a pretty hard hit from the long flight.

Tuesday, my concern for the grafts at the anterior portion of Dr McGinn’s work, the area around the clitoris, grew.  I sent a few photos of the area to Dr McGinn, and she wasn’t terribly concerned.  I also made an appt that afternoon with Dr Sara Becker, our local transcare resource, and she concurred with Dr McGinn’s remote assessment.

Since that time, the grafts have continued to rearrange, and I am more hopeful now that they will sort themselves out aesthetically well.  I am still bleeding disturbingly from the area around my clitoris, but I’m clinging to faith that everything will turn out well.

On Thursday, I graduated to using the wider of the two dilators given me by Dr McGinn.  My depth with the thinner one has stayed pretty consistent since my first attempt 17 days ago.  The thicker dilator runs maybe 1/2 inch less than the thinner, which is normal.  I will now be using both, one for depth and one for width.  I’ll be at this for about 6hrs a day now for 6 more weeks, then about 4 hrs/d after that.  Bleh…

As of now, the whole of the area still looks like a babbon’s butt (Dr McGinn’s phrase), but the swelling is subsiding and things seem to be healing well.  At this point, I think I have hopes for an excellent functional and aesthetic result.  Fingers will remain crossed for a very long time, though, before the jury settles on a verdict here.  I think this whole experience was given me to teach me patience.

As mentioned earlier, Dr McGinn cleared me to fly home during my final eval last Tuesday, Oct 20.  Despite the clearance, though, I knew the flight would be a trial, and I was not disappointed.

The good news and the bad news about my flight home was it would be a non-stop from Newark to PDX.  As a non-stop, I would spend less time locked up in an airplane.  The flip side, though, is I would not get a chance to lie down, even on the floor of an airport terminal, for 7 hours.  With eyes wide open, I trooped into Newark Liberty airport with donut in arm.

Processing through EWR wasn’t too bad.   The security line was long, but that’s par for the course at EWR.  We’re spoiled at PDX.  We then proceeded to gate 112 nearly 90 mins before the flight.  After about 30 mins, they announced the flight was going to be delayed 15 mins and that it would come in at gate 103.  Another 45 mins and they announced the flight would now be at gate 107.

Now realize Yvonne was stuck carrying BOTH our carryon luggage right now.  The poor dear was then forced to traipse all over the concourse, from one end to the other, and then to the middle.   I felt bad for her.

It was fortunate we were listening closely.  The signage on the gates never changed and the gate right next to us, 105, was for Portland, Maine.  At least one Mainer missed their flight over that confusion.

Eventually, we got on the plane and took off about an hour late.  The flight was bumpy, but it made unexpectedly good time and we arrived home right on time.  I was in A LOT of discomfort by the end of the flight.  Once I got home and could lie down and look myself over, I could see my mons was swollen terribly, but the labia majora not nearly as bad.  The more delicate structures (labia minora, clitoral hooding, etc) were also swollen, but they didn’t look terribly bad at that point.  I hoped a good night sleep would clear things up.  For the most part, it did.