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Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Matter of Individual Choice (1995)

Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Matter of Individual Choice (1995)

 ©1995 by Dallas Denny

Source: Dallas Denny. (1995). Sex reassignment surgery: A matter of individual choice. Unpublished (?) paper.

I’m not sure whether this was published.

 

 

 

 

Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Matter of Individual Choice

By Dallas Denny

 

When the average American thinks about a sex change (if he or she thinks about a sex change), the mental image is likely to be of some esoteric surgical procedure which transforms a man into a woman. This is, of course, the furthest thing from the truth. Genital surgery, when it does occur, happens only after a long period of body change and social readjustment, during which the individual comes to function in the new gender role.

Rather than being the magically transforming procedure it is often imagined to be, sex reassignment surgery is actually anticlimactic, for it occurs long after the “sex change.” Donald Laub, a surgeon, has termed SRS “gender confirmation surgery,” a term which more accurately describes what actually happens when a woman or man goes into hospital for a procedure which does not transform them, but merely gives them genitals which match the rest of their body and their social role.

Most men and women who permanently cross the gender line don’t have genital surgery. The reasons are many and varied: the individual may find the cost prohibitive, health factors or advanced age may mitigate against surgery, there may be fear of surgery or anesthesia, or the individual may feel that limitations in surgical technique make surgery undesirable (this is especially true for female-to-male persons).

For many years, the prevailing wisdom, both from the medical community and from transsexual persons themselves, was that when one had a significant transgender issue, the thing to do was to do everything possible to change one’s body to resemble that of the other sex (including having surgery), and then assimilate into society, “cured.” This presupposed that transsexualism was a mental illness, and that sex reassignment was, if not a cure, at least a palliative which helped the individual get through life despite his or her “sickness.”

That view of transsexualism was officially pronounced dead two weeks before I wrote this, at the International Congress of Gender, Cross Dressing, and Sex Issues, in Van Nuys, California. At that conference persons with transgender issues met on equal footing with clinicians and researchers to discuss transgender issues. I pronounced the pathology model dead, as did a variety of others both within and without the transgender community: James Green, Kim Elizabeth Stuart, Nancy Nangeroni, Martine Rothblatt, Bill Henkin, Ari Kane, Jason Cromwell, Anne Bolin, Walter Williams, William Dragoin, Holly Devor, and Walter Bockting, all of whom figured prominently in its demise. It was made clear in many ways that the old view of transsexualism as a sickness is being replaced by a newer view, in which it is instead seen as a unique way of being which can lead to a variety of different outcomes, each as valid as the next.

One of those outcomes is sex reassignment surgery. I have had it (Seghers, Class of 1991, thank you), and I would have it again. For many in the community, it is desired, and for many, it is absolutely essential. For others, it is unimportant or undesired.

When the average American thinks about a sex change (if he or she thinks about a sex change), the mental image is likely to be of some esoteric surgical procedure which transforms a man into a woman. This is, of course, the furthest thing from the truth. Genital surgery, when it does occur, happens only after a long period of body change and social readjustment, during which the individual comes to function in the new gender role.

Rather than being the magically transforming procedure it is often imagined to be, sex reassignment surgery is actually anticlimactic, for it occurs long after the “sex change.” Donald Laub, a surgeon, has termed SRS “gender confirmation surgery,” a term which more accurately describes what actually happens when a woman or man goes into hospital for a procedure which does not transform them, but merely gives them genitals which match the rest of their body and their social role.

Most men and women who permanently cross the gender line do not have genital surgery. The reasons are many and varied: the individual may find the cost prohibitive, health factors or advanced age may mitigate against surgery, there may be fear of surgery or anesthesia, or the individual may feel that limitations in surgical technique make surgery undesirable (this is especially true for female-to-male persons).

For many years, the prevailing wisdom, both from the medical community and from transsexual persons themselves, was that when one had a significant transgender issue, the thing to do was to do everything possible to change one’s body to resemble that of the other sex (including having surgery), and then assimilate into society, “cured.” This presupposed that transsexualism was a mental illness, and that sex reassignment was, if not a cure, at least a palliative which helped the individual get through life despite his or her “sickness.”

That view of transsexualism was officially pronounced dead two weeks before I wrote this, at the International Congress of Gender, Cross Dressing, and Sex Issues, in Van Nuys, California. At that conference, persons with transgender issues met on equal footing with clinicians and researchers to discuss transgender issues. I pronounced the pathology model dead, as did a variety of others both within and without the transgender community: James Green, Kim Elizabeth Stuart, Nancy Nangeroni, Martine Rothblatt, Bill Henkin, Ari Kane, Jason Cromwell, Anne Bolin, Walter Williams, William Dragoin, Holly Devor, and Walter Bockting, all of whom figured prominently in its demise. It was made clear in many ways that the old view of transsexualism as a sickness is being replaced by a newer view, in which it is instead seen as a unique way of being which can lead to a variety of different outcomes, each as valid as the next.

One of those outcomes is sex reassignment surgery. I have had it (Seghers, Class of 1991, thank you), and I would have it again. For many in the community, it is desired, and for many, it is absolutely essential. For others, it is unimportant or undesired.

The decision to have or not have genital surgery is the right and responsibility of the individual. It’s important, however, that at some point in their transgender or transsexual career, each individual realize that it is just that: an individual decision, and not a validation, not a merit badge, not a red badge of courage. Surgery, or the desire for it, is not a mark of one’s “realness” or dedication, but one of many options that we can choose from in our transgender careers. If we choose to have it, then we should be supported in our decision, and we should support the decision of others not to have it. If we choose not to have it, then our decision should be honored, and we should not speak against those who have the surgery.

When we as a community and we as individuals realize that surgery is not the inevitable outcome of being transgendered, but that if we want it, we can have it; when those who want or have surgery no longer feel they are more legitimate than those who don’t want or have it, and when those who do not want it stop accusing those who do want or have it from perpetuating the binary gender system, or of being unable to make a responsible decision, we will have achieved an important goal.

If we choose to have it, then we should be supported in our decision, and we should support the decision of others not to have it. If we choose not to have it, then our decision should be honored, and we should not speak against those who have the surgery.

When we as a community and we as individuals realize surgery is not the inevitable outcome of being transgendered, but that if we want it, we can have it; when those who want or have surgery no longer feel they are more legitimate than those who do not want or have it, and when those who don’t want it stop accusing those who do want or have it from perpetuating the binary gender system, or of being unable to make a responsible decision, we will have achieved an important goal.