On Being Post-Operative

Local time: Saturday 5.16pm

The term "post-op" carries some pretty heavy connotations in trans circles. For many, it seems that SRS is the culmination of years of self-exploration, yearning, planning, and being generally tied up in the whole game of Satisfy-The-Therapist. Lots of people use phrases like "becoming whole", "life-changing", and "finally becoming a woman" to describe the experience of having gone through SRS.

I just don't think it's that simple.

It's true that reaching the point of SRS involves things that overwhelm your life; psychological examination, the Real Life Experience, those crucial letters of referral. When you get there and have the surgery, however, you're left with a big hole in your life where those things used to be. But I'm deeply aware that transition - by definition - is about moving on. Once you've gotten where you want to be, you're no longer in transition. Conversely, if you're stuck somewhere which you declare you don't want to be, you're also not in transition. My life changed for the better in February 2006 when I sought help from a clinical psychologist who, granted, knew very little about transsexualism beyond that some people switched sexes. I think I "became whole" in about December 2006 or January 2007, when I began living in earnest as the person I saw myself as. I've said time and time again that SRS isn't the biggest step for me, but just the tying up of some loose ends. I've wondered for some time how earnestly I meant what I said, and how I would feel after SRS, and I think I finally have some answers.

You know those physical examinations that always got to me so much? Post SRS, despite having been stirruped and examined and poked and prodded down there numerous times now, they haven't bothered me nearly as badly, save for the obvious and understandable embarrassment that having a roomful of people officiously staring at your naked crotch can cause. For me, there's been no halo of enlightenment, no sudden "this is it" realisation - in fact I've been waiting for such a realisation all month and don't think it's coming. But the old body image distress is gone, and hopefully with it, the last of my gender dysphoria.

There's a whole lot of new things to learn and get used to, new "tranny issues" as well as things that go with having female anatomy. There's a bunch of memories I can take away with me from this trip, and the warm thought that probably, the most invasive surgery I'm ever going to have is now behind me. But there's not going to be any more regular psychological probing, letters of referral, matters of incongruent identification documentation, or all of those other things that keep someone in transition emotionally and physically occupied. And while the journey through transition was fun, as far as I'm concerned, the end of all those things is all good.

"Post-op transsexual" is such a heavyweight term. But it's beginning to hit me that, well, that's what I now am: post-op. And that's all I'm going to linger on that note, because in the end, transition is about moving on.

And there's a whole lot of things I now want to get on with doing besides sitting down, twiddling my thumbs, and "being post-op". I'm not quite there yet: need to recover first, somehow fit all the new stuff into my life, and sort out some more documentation. However, I've gotten one of the bigger things out of the way now, and I'm glad and very much relieved.

My life hasn't and isn't going to change because of SRS - it's just been on hold and can now continue.