Why I Had Sex Reassignment Surgery

06/05/2012 — Suzan

I was born transsexual and when you get through all the layers of
psychobabble and rationalization, all the talk about gender this and
gender that, being born transsexual meant I felt intensely
uncomfortable in my own skin.

I was pretty feminine even before I came out and started hormones.

I’ve heard a lot of people who don’t want or need SRS ask, “What
difference does it make?  Who sees what is between my legs except for
me and my partner?”

And you know they have a point…

The reality is I had SRS to feel at home in my own body.

I didn’t do it expecting some package of rights and privileges, hell
in 1972 there was no guarantee that I would get any rights or
privileges as a result of SRS.

I’ve said all this a hundred times before.

Today a quote caught my eye: “There is nothing noble in being superior
to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former
self.”  Hemingway.

Today Monica Helms wrote she has been Monica full time for 15 years.
That’s something in a world that is a bit harder for those who don’t
get SRS than it is for those who do.

I’ve seen her change a lot over the years, mellow out, fight for lots
of different causes, generally become a wiser person.

I withdrew from the Transwars not because the radicals quoting
Transgender Borg Dogma, but because I saw that most Trans-Activists
weren’t. Instead they were talking about fairness and equality, they
were also getting involved in other causes as well.

They were talking about the same issues of equality, health care,
housing, employment, marriage, and social justice I care about.

I never much liked the HBS set because they sounded like a bunch of
Ayn Rand worshiping right wingers.

When they talk about post-op rights they sort of make it sound like it
was an accessory package added to the base price of a car.  Something
you had to purchase the car to get.

That doesn’t  line up very well with my values which include the idea
that equal rights and protections shouldn’t be something limited to
certain groups while denied to others based on the color of their
skin, the shape of their genitals or the amount of money they have.

Today the Republicans blocked the Pay Check Fairness Act from coming
to a vote in the Senate.  They said that approximately half the people
in this country didn’t deserve to have their rights protected based on
the shape of their genitals, or if you will, their gender.

That is not equality.

I am horrified that CeCe McDonald is being put in men’s prison for
defending herself from being assaulted/murdered by a Nazi and his gang
of thugs.

CeCe is an example of the multiple intersects of oppression. Race,
class, cis-sexism the presumption of guilt rather than innocence. They
didn’t even give her the right to defend herself.  Had the Nazi
murdered her he would in all likelihood have been sentenced to less
time.

It sort of seems when people are all obsessed with being better than
other people because of something they had the money to buy, in this
case SRS, then they are sort of placing the wrong value on SRS.

I mean, “Did you get it to feel whole and comfortable in your own
skin, or did you get it to use as a status symbol that conveys greater
rights and privileges?”

What exactly have you learned, how have you grown as a person?

It would be very easy to look at the pain I experience over the years
with that Ayn Rand sort of view that says, “I had to suffer why
shouldn’t the next person?”

Except my friends who went through the same sort of pain are all dead.
There but for fortune go I.

Empathy for the suffering of others is something I’ve learned.
Compassion was shown me when I was hitting bottom.

Giving the same compassion to others and showing the same empathy that
was shown me seems a far better path to walk than spending my time
beating up on others who have a harder life than I have.

I’ve traveled the circle back to the values I sought to live when I
was a young hippie woman living in Berkeley.

I’ve learned to ignore the idea that I am superior to others just
because I had a little luck that they didn’t.

Hemingway was right. It is better to strive to be better than you were
before than it is to try to be better than others so you can heap
scorn upon them.

http://womenborntranssexual.com/2012/06/05/why-i-had-sex-reassignment...