My Gifted Life

After my first question to the therapist, can you make this go away, we started talking about things and my primary issue was that I indeed could never be a “real” woman. This is something I’ve had to come to grips with, and it took up a great deal of mental energy at times. It boils down to what does it mean to be a man or woman.

The naive answer is clear. You have the parts of a man you’re a man and if you have the parts of a woman you’re a woman. But is it really that simple. I’ll assert that it is not. I’ll first address this with a simple thought experiment. If someone was able to remove all your sex organs, would you continue to be a man or woman as you are now. I’d say the answer is clear. Lacking being transgender, you continue to be the sex you were before your parts have been removed. Perhaps remarkably sadder, but the same fundamental sex and gender.

What does that ultimately mean? It means, at least to me, that one’s gender identity is centered in the brain. It follows that if the brain believes the body should be that of a woman, it will expect a female body and despite reality to the contrary will be at odds with the sex organs it finds on the body of a man. So the gender identity is based in the brain, not in the physical reality of the body and thus it is reasonable to find a situation where the two are at odds given how fetal development works. The gonads differentiate at about week eight and the brain quite a bit later.

This then forms a reasonable explanation for why transition works. Transition brings the body more in line with the mind and reduces the difference between what the brain expects and the senses detect. That fact that some of this is, in effect, smoke and mirrors, is besides the point, the dissonance is satisfied in a large enough fashion to quell the feelings of dysphoria. Indeed people don’t all need the same degree of accommodation. One person might just get by living as a woman, where another needs to go all the way through to reassignment surgery.

It’s important for a trans person who’s intending transition to take some time and perhaps aim to do the minimum necessary. It might not be a permanent fix, but then again it might just calm things down to avoid all the heartache that will come from family, friends and others over your transition. But that’s a question only the person transitioning can answer. I simply assert that the decision need not be rushed.

So can I be a real woman? As of the current state of the art no. They can remove the testes and turn the material from the penis into a vagina. For most sensation and the ability to orgasm is preserved. Labia can be created that look realistic and as one person I was with put it when asked basically said, looks like a duck, feels like a duck, smells like a duck, it’s a duck. They can’t, actually create a real vagina but this was done for a very few natal women born with a rare medical condition where the vagina and uterus as missing in development. Someday they will probably be able to tissue culture the parts you need. However, most people are satisfied with the neovagina created for them. (as is also done for natal women with certain congenital issues.)

But despite the pessimistic answer, and like a lot of things, you can get close enough to answer the need.