Two Rolls / Bodily Autonomy Is A Joy (Patreon)

Hello! I have two rolls today, both Fuji 400 shot in April on my Nikon N60. The Flickr gallery is updated, and here's Roll 1 and Roll 2 on Drive!

The short version of today's post: I got my orchiectomy without a hitch and am home recovering! I'm sore (expectedly!) but things are looking overall quite good; my surgeon was really great and the nurses were fantastic.

Longer thoughts, which might be rambling on account of leftover anesthesia in my system (TW for prior hospital trauma, some discussion of surgery itself):

It took me almost five years since starting estrogen, but I have now had my first "gender-affirming surgery". The orchiectomy, for those of you unfamiliar, is the removal of the testes. I was motivated to pursue it now because I am worried about the direction of the country and don't want to be detransitioned, and removing the part of my body that makes testosterone will prevent that for good.

Although I'd still love SRS (a traditional sex change operation), an orchi is much cheaper, with a much shorter recovery period, and a much shorter waiting list for the operation. I scheduled my orchi basically immediately after quitting my job in February and had it yesterday; right now SRS's waiting list is until late '26/early '27.

I was at first playing this off as no big deal ("it's just an orchi! we've been doing them for literally thousands of years! it's outpatient!"), but I became incredibly anxious in the last few days leading up to the surgery.

There are two key moments in my life that gave me honest-to-God medical anxiety. The first happened when I lived in Reno. I was hospitalized in the ER for stomach/hormonal issues, and I had nurse that was clearly not thrilled with trans people. I was alone with her, in a town I barely knew, and she made a "joke" about overdosing me with morphine... as she dosed me with morphine. The realization of how helpless I was in that moment shocked me, and seared it into my mind.

(She obviously did not hurt me, and I still to this day think she was probably just trying to get me to relax. Still, not a good joke.)

The second was last year, in the ER/psych solitary confinement cell. I still have fairly intense PTSD flashbacks to it all the time (even though I wasn't in it very long). I think the complete loss of autonomy is part of why I was so afraid, and the experience also seared into my memory.

Trans people broadly are usually skeptical of medical professionals, considering that we were only medically considered not mentally ill in 2013, when the DSM-V was introduced. "Best practices" for HRT have not been updated since the '80s, despite massive progress in synthesizing hormones; as a result, many trans women have a much more difficult early transition than they need to. Hell, conversion therapy is still legal in 23 states.

(Anecdotes are not data, but: my first therapist, in 2018, tried to convince me trans people were against "God's plan", despite ostensibly visiting him for anxiety.)

All of this is justification for the underlying fact that I do not like surrendering my autonomy, especially to doctors, but there is no way to get surgery without surrendering all of yourself to a bunch of people you have just met. My extremely visibly trans body, scars and tattoos and all, would be on display and I would be unconscious and they would be cutting into me. That level of vulnerability was utterly terrifying to me. It is the ultimate trust fall, and even though intellectually I trusted my doctor, I've hit the floor a few times.

And yesterday I had flashbacks, I cried, I was real scared! But the nurses were lovely, the doctor was fantastic (and has also done a couple of my friends' orchis!), and my wife was there. I went under talking about photography and, of course, my wife. The operation went smoothly. I woke up easily, and although I'm sore today, yesterday the pain wasn't even that bad.

And I felt something incredible when I woke up: genuine joy. This is the promise of transsexuality made physical: I own my body, and I will never need to fear detransition again. I still will need hormones to function well, but I don't ever need to fear my body the same way, and it feels incredible.

I really did not anticipate feeling this good about it; I went in anticipating something resembling maintenance, and I came out feeling liberated and happier about myself. It's fantastic.

The next realization was that this is what the world could be for us - indeed, it still is in many states (including Washington, thank God). I went in, a cis team of doctors and nurses were kind to me, treated me like any other human being (called me "she"), and I walked out more fully realized.

Transition in modern media (including some of what I've written!) is often reduced down to a battle with/examination of the self aided by modern medicine, but that undersells it. Trans people require a society in the same way we all do: friends, family, support, doctors, the ability to live our lives and be trusted to exercise our bodily autonomy are all just as necessary. This is a society worth keeping.

I trusted others, and they helped me be myself. I feel so much better. I refuse to lose this world.

I feel a glimmer of optimism I've not felt since late January; maybe it's the drugs or the warm days or the sun or the gender euphoria or whatever, but I don't care. I am going to treat it like it's just as "real" as the pessimistic depression was.

We gotta fuckin' win. Down that road is the only world worth living in.

<3 Vicki