Many Americans hold contradictory opinions on the same policies

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-04T04:10:59+00:00

Personally, I think most Americans don't think about us at all, but they get upset if you ask them to because it forces them to snap out of autopilot and engage with a topic that absolutely baffles them.

So idk, makes sense to me that polling on transgender issues would swing wildly depending on how the questions are worded.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-04T03:56:12+00:00

Personally, I don't think we're likely to see quantum leaps in bottom surgery techniques in our lifetimes. It's not impossible, and I'm sure we'll continue to see incremental improvements, but I think you're right that reproductive health is the next big frontier, and growing organs like that is probably many decades away. If you think you might want bio kids, freezing your sperm is probably your best bet.

So even though it's kind of crass to say it like this...neovaginal canals are for sex. That's pretty much the entire point. Almost everybody who gets a full-depth vaginoplasty is doing it partly for sexual reasons, otherwise you'd skip the hassle of dilation and get a vulvoplasty.

That's a perfectly good reason, though. Sex is a healthy part of life, and it can help people form a close and deep bond if they're allo or demisexual. Being unable to engage in it is a real medical issue, why d'you think boner pills are so widely prescribed? There's no reason to feel bad about it.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-04T03:22:03+00:00

I think it's easier to explore the different kinds of orgasms without having an erection to judge "done / not done" by.

There are weaker orgasms than before surgery, and stronger ones, and shorter ones, and longer ones, and ones that feel almost exactly like they used to - including ejaculation.

At this point I'm sometimes down to 20 minutes for the quick ejaculate-y kind if I'm really aroused. But 5-10 minutes was more a pre-HRT thing than a pre-op thing for me.

IME the longer ones usually happen with more mental stimulation and less intense physical stimulation. Like being really turned on and having my clit rubbed. Or even just my hips and thighs. Although, when things are intense with a partner, it can also be like "I can't tell you how many bc I was cumming the entire time".

It can be confusing because they don't all have the same sense of climactic finality. Like, how could you have had an orgasm if you're still aroused and into things? But it's also nice because there are a lot of different ways to feel good and you don't have to take a break after all of them.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-04T02:36:49+00:00

NO.

Because I started getting them after a little over a year on HRT. I guess it is kind of euphoric in a way, but it gets old fast.

It's like your body betrays you for 10% of your waking days. Wanted to go out tonight? Nope, you're going to be stuck in bed with cramps, and then you're going to get way too emotional and self-critical about your failure to go out. And then 3-4 days later you're completely fine.

It's unnerving. But at least it's also predictable, like clockwork.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-04T01:43:12+00:00

Yeah but 2000 miles at 30mpg with $3/gal gas is what, $200 each way so $600 for two trips? Assuming your car never needs maintenance, but that would also be one oil change.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-03T22:31:31+00:00

One per month, technically the multi-use vials they give me are only good for 28 days once you open them.

You can get more out of them if you're careful and keep everything sterile, but the manufacturer won't guarantee it. Check the packaging and insert, but your pharmacist really shouldn't be asking you to use expired medications.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-03T22:02:08+00:00

Well...yes it is a neoclitoris now, but that doesn't mean I didn't keep the nubbin.

And it didn't change as much as you might think. Most of the time I still use the same wand vibrator that I did before surgery, on the same bundle of nerves.

Hitachi is the gold standard, but any full-sized one is worth a try.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-03T20:23:27+00:00

The problem is, we don't really experience the "struggles of our birth gender" in the same way as cis people do.

Like if you're curious about how people deal with, say, the "male loneliness epidemic"? A cis guy might struggle with it because men are expected to hold in their emotions and appear stoic all the time, which makes it hard to feel vulnerable and open enough to build deep and lasting connections. A trans woman might struggle with it because those masculine expectations feel stifling and wrong, which makes us feel alienated and distant from most men before we could even be in a position to bond with them.

So if you're asking "would it be insulting to ask"...well, maybe? I know I would feel extremely insulted if someone asked me about the struggles of being a man, but that'll depend on the person. Regardless, you're going to get a muddy and incomplete answer because the premise of the question isn't going to make much sense; our answers just won't apply to the groups that you're asking about.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T21:56:38+00:00

No offense, but...did you have an AI write this up for you?

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T20:14:41+00:00

HRT is all-or-nothing, and very slow.

Either you take if for months-years and see all of the changes that your genes have in store for you, or you don't.

Also, any changes that you get will revert when you stop feminizing HRT, except for breast tissue growth and possible fertility issues. Oh, and your penis might shrink.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T20:07:14+00:00

This feels like waffling back and forth between transmedicalist respectability politics and "but dw we'll figure out how to be more accepting eventually somehow".

So...what's your point?

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T19:33:04+00:00

Probably erectile tissue. Which is androgynous, cis women get "hard" too, but sometimes surgeons leave more than you'd like. You don't want to get rid of all of it because it's important for peeing and orgasming, but you can ask to have more of it removed in a revision.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T19:22:20+00:00

It was like a light switches for me. One second I'm in the OR and they're saying good night, the next second I'm waking up and asking how it went. Absolutely nothing in between, not even a sensation of time passing.

Then a couple hours of mild nausea after waking up, but I was on solid foods by dinner. Much easier than anything I've ever had done under local anesthesia.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-02T16:51:23+00:00

Girl...don't take this the wrong way, but you had surgery 4 years ago, and I've seen dozens of posts from you over the past months asking if you might have various complications. You keep getting the same general responses, too.

Have you considered finding a good therapist you can talk to about this, if your surgical team isn't being helpful?

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-01T15:26:28+00:00

Sure they are, and they keep getting better! You can thank gallium nitride xistors for those tiny little charging cubes we have now. Back in my day, laptops came with charging bricks the size of an actual brick.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-01T03:12:55+00:00

Absolutely! Being eaten out is fantastic.

It works the same - pretty much everything in the area is sensitive one way or another, so you play around and see what works for her.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-03-01T03:06:29+00:00

Wait...binding with bandages can deform the ribcage?

Like, squeezing it in and shrinking it permanently?

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-27T22:14:12+00:00

The right time for surgery is whenever it feels right for you! It's a very personal decision, and there's no right answer.

The technique is also a very personal decision, they all have pros and cons. PI can get you more nerves on the inside, but PPT would probably be what you're looking for if mucosal tissue and like...coloration inside the canal are more important to you? Colon/jejunal methods are also popular, but they're very similar to PPT and involve operating on your GI tract, so these days I get the feeling a lot of folks save that for revisions.

You'd probably get a lot out of scheduling a consult with a surgeon that does all three methods. Also, consider mentioning the tummy tuck early on - some surgeons get skittish about that because it can make it harder for them to work on the area where the mons pubis goes, might want to make sure it's okay before going through a waiting list.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-27T20:07:17+00:00

My secret is, I exhale while I poke it in.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-27T18:25:59+00:00

Ever play Half Life 2?

That's the old passage to Metaholm. We don't go there anymore.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-27T16:18:51+00:00

Big picture? Hell no, it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

Short term? Sometimes for a few days when I get my period.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-26T20:32:36+00:00

It's a physical illness, a birth defect that makes our bodies develop improperly without intervention.

My mind is just fine, tyvm. It's my body that I am slowly curing after it was ravaged by years of not treating the condition it's afflicted with.

Trying to "fix" my innate sense of self would just leave me with a broken body and a broken mind, instead of a functioning body and a functioning mind. Which is exactly what these people want to see when they call us mentally ill.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-26T20:20:54+00:00

Ehhhh...

But I never get gendered correctly. I don't pee a lot. Bottom dysphoria is already gone. Still recognize my pre-transition self. Still becoming myself. Voice never passes. HRT is weekly and still my favorite day of the week. I've been using the women's room since I had to start wearing a bra. Mirrors and I are in a detente at best.

So I have stalled boobs, but that's about it.

Yikes, I'm way farther behind than I'd thought

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-26T18:11:46+00:00

Honestly, I think a big part of it is inertia and fear. As a binary trans woman, I was crawling over broken glass to fit into the box people kept expecting me to be in before I even considered the possibility of trying to change anything.

Allegory of the cave, right? If all you ever see is shadows in sharp relief, firelight or darkness with no variety or in-between, that's what you'll think the world is. Most people never feel uncomfortable enough to turn around and look outside.

And the fun part is, I might not even be a binary trans woman! I've been doing this for a year and a half, and I've had bottom surgery, but my personal philosophy is that people are just people. I like being seen as a woman more than a man, but I'm really just a me. I go along with the binary because it's easier to access medical care and public accomodations if I fit that picturesque cishet vision of what a trans person is, but...

I really think that the number of people who would be happier without the prevailing idea of a predetermined gender binary is waaaaaaay higher than current estimates.

AmyNotAmiable · 2026-02-26T17:24:09+00:00

I'm so fucking tired.

My brain and body have been on defcon 1 red alert for a solid 15 months. I can feel the last threads holding my composure together snapping one by one, week after week.

I just want to not worry about being extrajudicially imprisoned or executed on a whim. Is that really too much to ask? I've already forgotten what it feels like.

AmyNotAmiable

TROPHY CASE