Hi! Here via a link from dingsi. This is an awesome post that's helped me articulate some things I've been feeling. Especially this:
I'm a guy, I was born with a body that can't do what, being a guy, I want to do; I'm fixing it, as best as I know how. Nobody would criticize a cis guy who lost his penis in an accident -- or even at birth from a circumcision mishap -- or due to cancer and wanted to have it reconstructed. And yet, people both inside and outside ostensibly trans-friendly circles have opinions on what I want to do with my body that aren't positive. There are radical trans folks who say I'd be happy if I only understood that I don't need a penis to be a man, and there are conservative cis folks who say I'm mutilating a healthy part of my body. They all sound pretty similar in my ears.
I'm happy for the trans folks who don't feel a need to reconstruct their bodies, but I do (not that I can afford surgery now or maybe ever, but if I could, I would absolutely go for it). And the implication from some "ostensibly trans-friendly circles" that this means I'm ideologically inferior is really not a helpful thing. So it is helpful, anazingly helpful, to read another trans man, with feelings about his body similar to my own about mine, openly talking about it.
Best of luck with your surgery, and I hope your recovery is fast and trouble-free.
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Date: 2012-01-20 02:28 pm (UTC)I'm a guy, I was born with a body that can't do what, being a guy, I want to do; I'm fixing it, as best as I know how. Nobody would criticize a cis guy who lost his penis in an accident -- or even at birth from a circumcision mishap -- or due to cancer and wanted to have it reconstructed. And yet, people both inside and outside ostensibly trans-friendly circles have opinions on what I want to do with my body that aren't positive. There are radical trans folks who say I'd be happy if I only understood that I don't need a penis to be a man, and there are conservative cis folks who say I'm mutilating a healthy part of my body. They all sound pretty similar in my ears.
I'm happy for the trans folks who don't feel a need to reconstruct their bodies, but I do (not that I can afford surgery now or maybe ever, but if I could, I would absolutely go for it). And the implication from some "ostensibly trans-friendly circles" that this means I'm ideologically inferior is really not a helpful thing. So it is helpful, anazingly helpful, to read another trans man, with feelings about his body similar to my own about mine, openly talking about it.
Best of luck with your surgery, and I hope your recovery is fast and trouble-free.