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

I think it's critical that this kind of discussion takes place. If perhaps the thread title said 'educate' instead of indulge me it might perhaps strike a different tone to others, although I think that's splitting hairs and the intent remains.

I think the more people, male and female that have a robust grasp of what a female body is and what it is not, the better. I'm sure some of us have read about the internal structure of the female clitoris and been gobsmacked that we have never been taught this and that it is deemed irrelevant by a male dominated medical establishment.
This week a transexual poster blithely announced that their body was now very similar to any woman's, and as a woman, I refute that claim since it involves a direct comparison to my own anatomy.

Let's air facts. The discussion will be civil and factual. Let's not shy away from specifics. This sort of discussion is badly needed.

Whilst the wording of the OP might be flippant, the subject matter is important, particularly in relation to the transing of children.

There was a YouTube film that was widely publicised in mainstream media showing the surgical creation of a neovagina.

I didn't, couldn't watch it. Particularly after reading the first few comments. As it was pretty grim.

In the same way I don't want to watch an appendectomy or brain surgery.

I don't think there is a woman here who would willingly, out of the blue, drill down into what genital surgery means, looks like and all it's implications, if it wasn't the end goal for a lot of people who transition. And even then, if it was only adults who were involved.

There is an inherent misogyny around the narrative to do with neovaginas. And like everything else to do with this ideology, women aren't generating this discourse, they are reacting to it.

Men informing youngsters on the Internet that women urinate from their vaginas and that a surgically created hole is indistinguishable from a vagina need to be challenged.

And the information being disseminated to schools never, ever includes a section on what the implications are of surgery.

Because that would interfere with the whole celebratory atmosphere of gender affirmation that is being disseminated. With cake parties and the immediate elevation in status recommended for children questioning their sex.

I truly, truly do not want to read about this, but if it pulls a child or parent up short and forces them to realise the potential implications of what they are doing, then I will bloody do it. And talk about it.

The 2000 children year who are questioning their sex absolutely need every bit of information available. Not just the grim bits about surgery, but about gender and it's hierarchical implications in general. All of it.

Given that males do not have a urethra

Yes they do?

APAB
Do you have a link to this conversation?

I agree with Lass. The thread title alone is horrible

It doesn't sound good, but I think the OP has probably spent too long reading the Twitter of TRA GFs, so it probably did not seem that bad at the time.

It is a good idea to think of what the important issues are and the expectations of young people compared to the reality of surgery are important.

The penis is in three sections with the glans at the end. They rearrange it so the glans forms the clitoris

Or rather the bit that resembles the visible part of the clitoris.

I agree with Lass. The thread title alone is horrible.

It is fair enough to draw attention to the fact that this is major surgery, with variable outcomes (and the outcomes for phalloplasty are even poorer) and campaign against it being pushed on children/teens as an easy/ desirable thing to have done. It is also fair enough to point out that the vagina is a complex organ, with certain unique sexual functions, and part of an incredibly complex set of reproductive organs and a complex endocrine system which work together to make gestating a foetus to term possible, and that a neo-vagina can at best be a fairly crude attempt at producing a simulacrum of this (and the attempt to produce a simulacrum comes with a whole set of male-centred beliefs about the role of vaginas in men's sexual pleasure, which is a feminist issue).

But it really isn't on to be so nastily dismissive of adults' attempts to modify their bodies to alleviate the symptoms of dysphoria, however misguided you think those attempts may be.

But how can you orgasm? Or is it that REAL women experience only vaginal orgasms?

This is something to do with re-fashioning the glans of the penis as a neo-clitoris.

Look. This is serious surgery that carries big risks and the possibility of some serious side effects. But it doesn't create a vagina. It is cosmetic surgery designed to deal with acute, desperate levels of body dysphoria.

I am also uncomfortable with the nuts and bolts of it being something to mock or denigrate. But, that said, objective, factual information is important. Cosmetic. Surgery. Does. Not. Change. Sex. Neither does vaginoplasty replicate, other than by superficial appearance, a woman's vagina and vulva.

But how can you orgasm?

The penis is in three sections with the glans at the end. They rearrange it so the glans forms the clitoris, and the two shafts go around where the vagina will be. The third section is where the urethra is and this it shortened and put between the new clitoris and where the vagina will be. The vagina is made from the skin of the penis and grafts from the scrotum skin and space made between the muscles and connective tissues. What skin is left is arranged to form folds for labia. Most of the blood vessels and nerves are kept in place, so they will be able to orgasm just the same. Long term rearrangement of hormones might not help though.

Or, more clearly, what Irk said.

A vagina is a muscular organ with a mucous membrane that self-lubricates and self-cleans.

A neovagina is a blindended amuscular tunnel lined with epidermis that neither lubricates nor cleans.

My worry about all this is that children are being sold a lie. I'm not too bothered about adults - they can look into it and make their own informed decisions.

But when you are telling a child, it's fine if you don't want to be a boy. You can easily be a girl that just isn't true. We need the true facts about these surgeries to come out. We don't need the problems suppressing. Why on earth would you take a perfectly healthy body with no medical problems and turn it into one that needs constant medication and surgery? How is that a good outcome?

These children need it explaining that if they think they will become a woman with a normal family life then they are very much mistaken. How will they find a man to love them? I'm sure most straight men wouldn't go for a man whether or not he still had his penis.

It is not being kind to these children to encourage them down this road. It should be a last resort when all counselling has failed.

But how can you orgasm? Or is it that REAL women experience only vaginal orgasms?

Faceicle - from what I understand, they put the urethral opening (meatus) in what appears to be the usual place.

Are the twitter TRAs just doing the usual biological-name-for-the-wrong-bit?

I think transsexual MTF get what they want, that does what they want, and if that fulfils their needs, it is all that matters really.

I am not sure about the results of FTM though.

And it is very concerning that very young people who are put on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones then more go on to have surgery than would have otherwise. When you are that age, things are more black and white and a year is forever. You are more likely to believe the results will give you what you want and less likely to believe how much your priorities can change. Even the best counselling in the world does not replace lived experience. What you want is sometimes what your parents want, what you have grown up to think you want, what your parents don't want - there is a lot to disentangle before you can be sure. And how can you understand what you are giving up when you haven't explored all the possibilities.

So with that particular piece of 'advanced biology', what happens with a newly constructed vagina?

Basically, they shorten the male urethra and reposition it so that the person can then urinate while sitting down. Possible side effects: fistula, urine stream direction, incontinence.

I find this thread pretty offensive, starting from the tone of the title.

Why do you care OP? You are never going to have a neo vagina. If any one you know does it will be up to them whether they tell you anything about it.

This forum goes to great lengths to inform that many/ the majority of trans women do not have surgery and makes the distinction often between "old school transexuals" who do and those who don't- the point being the former present no danger and the latter might.

This sort of thread does you no favours if you want serious consideration of the problems arising from trans issues given the mocking and faux pity tone adopted towards the trans women who on other threads are praised or at least accepted as being no threat.

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....

The disgust, contempt and hatred for all things trans on here really shocks me

Have a look at the trans campaign & how it deals with critics. At least no-one on MN threatens to burn people to death etc etc....

The disgust, contempt and hatred for all things trans on here really shocks me, even the CBB thread is full of snide digs.

I get the issues that people have, I even agree to a certain extent but ffs, the vitriol is a whole new level. It's akin to the hatred shown towards the likes child killers and rapists.

I do not know what to say about people so ignorant that they think babies come out of the woman's bladder.

It's generational, up to the 80's (maybe 90's) "vagina" was used as a catch all for everything.

How do you feel about people who say "stomach" when they mean "tummy"? It's the same thing - but as long as people understand what you mean it's not so important.

TBH, 99% of the time people use slang words anyway as the "medical" terms sound too pretentious or make them uncomfortable.

NoMudNoLotus Can you please say a bit more about this?