Ok so someone educate me about neo vaginas **Title edited by MNHQ at the OP's request**

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5191129/Transgender-woman-castrated-botched-surgery-NHS.html

From the mail - surgery does not always go right. I expect there is always a percentage that does not go right. It is always a risk with surgery.

Glad the title was changed to something more respectful. This information is much needed and absolutely fascinating to someone like myself who knows little about it.

Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings, and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25-year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26-year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.

'More than half reported moderate to life-threatening depression. Fifteen percent of the women rated their suicidal thoughts as life-threatening to severe.'

www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

It's akin to the hatred shown towards the likes child killers and rapists

That's interesting, because I do believe that some of the actions taken against children thought to be trans are child abuse & those performing/prescribing them should be jailed....

Abso-bloody-lutely.

Adults can do what they want to their own bodies, but to blithely state that hormone blockers and permanent surgeries are without side effects and 100% beneficial is WRONG. I will never see it in any other way.

There is a poster here who took Lupron or a similar drug also used for puberty blocking for a few months for gynaecological problems and still suffers from the permanent physical side effects.

Girls treated with "puberty blockers" i.e. chemotherapy drugs (lupron) for precocious puberty had lower IQ afterwards.

The problem is that lupron is tested and approved for use against prostrate cancer etc. It is being used off-label to "treat" gender nonconforming behaviour in childhood.

Common side effects:
redness/burning/stinging/pain/bruising at the injection site,
hot flashes (flushing),
increased sweating,
night sweats,
tiredness,
headache,
upset stomach,
nausea,
diarrhea,
constipation,
stomach pain,
breast swelling or tenderness,
acne,
joint/muscle aches or pain,
trouble sleeping (insomnia),
reduced sexual interest,
vaginal discomfort/dryness/itching/discharge,
vaginal bleeding,
swelling of the ankles/feet,
increased urination at night,
dizziness,
breakthrough bleeding in a female child during the first 2 months of leuprolide treatment,
weakness,
chills,
clammy skin,
skin redness,
itching or scaling,
testicle pain,
impotence,
depression,
increased growth of facial hair, or
memory problems.

JessicaEccles
I don't think anyone knows the effects on brain development. It has never been ethical or legal to use untested drugs on children (or adults) in this country.

But apparently it's now fine!

Don''t puberty hormones also have an effect on brain development?

Datun

So there is a pump inside a testicle? How is it operated?

By gently squeezing the pump inside the testicle, which fills the penile implant with saline.

Also used for men with ED.

Found this, which details options available for trans men who have undergone GRS. There are diagrams of penises but it's not too graphic.

www.trans-health.com/2013/penile-implants-guide/

So, yet another reason why puberty blockers are a disaster.
no idea if this is true.

Completely true. That's what's happened to Jazz Jennings.

I struggle to see what is offensive about the thread title. "Indulge me about X" is a fairly common form of words that MNers use when asking for a subject to be explained to them.

there was an interesting interview recently on radio 4, it was a woman who had wanted to be male all her life, and through puberty had taken male hormones etc.
Then aged 20, she changed her mind and remained a woman.
She said something that really shocked me, due to how ill informed people are on this point. She was highlighting the problems of puberty blockers for both sexes.

She said that if you do not go through puberty in your original body, then your sex organs internally and externally never develop.
What that means in practice is that while you can do a resaonable construction using a male penis to make a vagina, if you have been on puberty blockers, you only have a tiny, sexually immature boy's penis, and not only do you not have enough there to make a vagina, but because it never matured sexually, you can never use those parts to try and get sexual sensation in the new vagina.
So male or female, you are condemed to a life with no mature sexual sensation or orgasm.

So, yet another reason why puberty blockers are a disaster.

no idea if this is true.

www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=216929.0

Thread where transwomen discuss postoperative issues such as scars, internal hairballs, odour, male ejaculate, dilation, and loss of orgasm.

Yes

My understanding is that a flexible polymer tube and mini-pump (within one of the artificially fashioned testicles) are used to make the neo-penis erect.

So there is a pump inside a testicle? How is it operated?

Based on the pdf I read, the neo-penis itself is made out of a tube of flesh formed from a graft taken from the forearm or thigh, and permanently attached. The urethra is extended again with skin grafts (this is complex, as you can't use "hairy" skin, obviously). I believe (may have misunderstood the diagram) that the clitoris is usually left in place at the bottom of the shaft near the newly closed up perineum (too complicated to move, I guess).

My understanding is that a flexible polymer tube and mini-pump (within one of the artificially fashioned testicles) are used to make the neo-penis erect. It's a technique originally used in men post prostate-cancer surgery to treat male erectile dysfunction.

The whole thing sounds horrendous to me, and the results seem very poor indeed. I gather that most TIFs prefer either to leave things alone (testosterone will enlarge the clitoris slightly) or have a medioplasty performed, where the clitoris is freed from the surrounding tissue and ends up looking a bit like a very small penis.

There does seem to be a plethora of information on the net about neovagina plastic surgery, but the phalloplasty info seems to miss a lot of important bits out - like how to attach the graft they have created from tummy/arm/leg skin/muscle or wherever.

PricklyBall

I'm confused about phalloplasty. As I said, it's not an area that I like to google too much. All other areas, yes. But my phone has shown me images before that I wish could unsee.

As far as I know the (?) neopenis cannot become erect? Unless a metal rod is used? Is that something that gets taken on and off? Or permanently implanted, somehow?

It's not much of a surprise to me that very few women have this surgery, to be honest.

AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth

Don't get the thread deleted. Just ask mumsnet to change the title. They are always willing to do that.

I totally agree that the conversation needs to be had. I think we also need to talk about phalloplasty, since there is a huge number of teenage girls now identifying as transboys (and social contagion/ comorbid mental health issues seem to be a major factor in this). I read a pdf - produced by a group of surgeons who perform phalloplasty, so not anti the whole idea by any stretch of the imagination) which detailed the complications and loss of sexual function at each stage in the process. Girls need to be told that they can't magically have a male penis grafted on to them, that what they will get is a tube of skin and considerable loss in orgasm (no uterine contractions, no vaginal contractions, possible complications in attaching the external part of the clitoris to the end of the tube of skin). Not to mention the risk of infection attendant on closing skin over the remains of the vaginal opening. Phalloplasty has a huge failure rate - in fact there was a recent tragic case of a young person in Belgium who chose assisted suicide because they could not live with the after-effects of a botched phalloplasty.

Yes I agree that while the OP may have seemed a bit flippant it is quite an important discussion.

This idea that a vagina is nothing more than a 'hole' is really quite misogynistic.