The Phalloplasty Philes- You tuber documents trans surgery realities

I'm glad to have had a chance to watch some of her videos but they're so distressing. It's horrific. One of the young women talks about doing tests to see if she can urinate through her newly formed penis and having the urine coming out of her 'scrotum'. The whole issue of having a permanent catheter as a result....yeah, that's potentially going to kill someone in the longer term as they get repeated uti's which is really bad for you. These are healthy bodies which are being butchered.

My instinct watching was to say at least not that many women get phalloplasties. Because getting my head around it all was so hard. I mean, I think I'm actually wrong and in any case, every single person who does get one matters even if it's only a small number of women. But even when people don't go that far, many transmen take testosterone and she says in another video that that changes the cartilage in your voice box but also in your heart and blood vessels (I think?). So all these young women who take T and don't ever go further are still at significant risk of complications in years to come. Who wants to mess around with their heart? You're physically healthy and you want to change that? It's a gross act of self-harm. This is an absolute catastrophe and it's the medical profession doing this damage. Not backstreet drug dealers. Shame on them.

I just watched that episode wee

I am absolutely stunned that these surgeries can be allegedly carried out ethically whilst the patients are so unaware of their own biology/body make up.

Why are they so surprised at the complications. Even paracetamol has a long list of side effects on the leaflet. Such is the importance of ensuring Pele make informed choices and are aware of the consequences

This lady is so interesting I couldn't stop watching...

Piecing together her background it seems she is a speech and language pathologist. She is a lesbian who experienced gender dysphoria (and talk therapy for it) during childhood. She has a native (American?) heritage. She says that "two spirit" is an "English language term thought up by modern trans activists to condense 2 continents and 15,000 years into a politically expedient soundbite".

I honestly believe that the festering heart of the trans rights movement is the American medical industrial complex.

I've just watched that one too Donkey, she was right to point out the length of time that the patient waited to seek emergency treatment, was embarrassed to ask family in the house for help, potentially considered the extreme blood loss to be delayed periods (?!) and then made a mistake of going to see the surgeon an hour away only to be sent to the hospital.

I too was stuck by Exulansic's questions of whether the patient was honest about the length of time the bleed has been occurring and also how she made a point that the patient was complaining about the wait at the hospital and appeared to be frustrated. It seems like misdirected blame to me. I'm sure the hospital staff were doing their best and they are ultimately relied on to fix, heal and keep people alive following botched, elective surgeries for trans identifying people.

How much have subsequent surgery for a phalloplasty been raised by this issue of haemorrhage from this surgery?

Such a drastic approach for what is, I think, correctly labelled in the video, as a psychiatric condition.

I just watched an episode today of a young person who had life threatening complications from hysterectomy which makes me question what informed consent really means, because this person didn't have the first clue of the gravity of their situation and still doesn't realise how lucky they are to be alive.

Also this experience has not given them one second of consideration of outside of the financial implications what the effects of their planned phalloplasty will be.

I watched most of it with my chin on the floor, just truly shocking.

I feel a bit ill.

"Im not sure tattoos even cover it, the actual flesh is removed so there's a difference in the diameter of the forearm where the tissue has been taken in comparison to the other forearm"

You've not seen the one get where they layer pigskin underneath a skin grafted from the thigh to increase diameter then....

That exact forearm surgery is used (or, at least, used to be, when I was in that bit of healthcare) to repair the hole after cutting out some cancers. So I've been involved in caring for patients who have had exactly that.

It is, uhhh, not for the faint hearted. Which is a polite way of saying deeply unpleasant, painful, disfiguring, and potentially disabling. The graft from the thigh basically leaves you with an A4 sized deep graze, which is exactly as painful as it sounds.

Now, if you have to have it as the least awful way to plug the holes after cancer surgery then so be it. If it's to create a barely functional, leaky, infected penis where there was no physical deficit before? In kids? No. Buy a shewee if peeing standing up is that important to you.

These are really interesting and I think the format of putting the story of these kids all together is useful. She has some really interesting commentary and I found the stuff about heart effects really interesting.

That being said, I don't know that these would be useful to show someone who was not already predisposed to skepticism about these procedures. I quite enjoyed some of her sarcasm, but I suspect it could make someone who wanted to remain sympathetic dismiss her thoughts.

It does beg the other question about why so many TRAs are quite prudish about sex. Hearts not parts and all that jazz.

If a person has a vaginectomy and phalloplasty, or if someone has a penectomy and then a vaginoplasty then logically that is the end of their sex life, or at least vastly limits their sex life and you don't want to hear others talking about their sex life and sexuality when you have destroyed your own sexual function. So another way to not face what is actually going on in your life is to shame others for what is going on in their life.

They are going to look back on that period of their lives and realise it was a waste of time because they still don't have a functioning penis and are still having medical interventions resulting from that surgery. They will never be happy

It also seems that every step of the way every outcome just sends them further into isolation from peers. Be it watching all your friends grow up/ go thru puberty while u don't. Be it being stuck indoors while all your friends play sports because your binder stops you from breathing properly. Having to change or sleep on your own on trips because the other kids are uncomfortable with members of the opposite sex sharing with them. Or being unable to see anyone fir 48 hours after your Lupton injection because the substance is so toxic. To be constantly recovering from surgeries and repairs etc

It basically ensures that all you do is talk to others on line.

David Lammy needs to be forced to watch all these videos, right after he’s had his Introduction to Female Biology lesson.

They are going to look back on that period of their lives and realise it was a waste of time because they still don't have a functioning penis and are still having medical interventions resulting from that surgery. They will never be happy.

What strikes me about these young people I see online who want to embark on that path is how bloody boring being in their company must be. I imagine every conversation turns back to them and their 'journey' and their 'struggle'. I think they believe that struggling with their identity is some sort of substitute for having an actual personality.

I've fallen down the rabbit hole now and all of these people just look so unwell. When they answer the question about functionality I just think "what have you done to yourself" .

For me the parallel between this and with opiates is that drugs like oxycontin and fentanyl were first developed as pain management for end of life patients, but because obviously they have a limited need for these drugs the drug industry created Pain Management so then teenagers with sports injuries are put on a pain management pathway rather than rehabilitation. A healthy 19yo is going to be a more profitable cash cow than someone who will be dead in a few days. The drugs firms fund the doctors to keep pushing this and lobbyists push politicians to make this not only legal, but patients liable for any harm caused.

Its the same thing, its like a wheel that keeps turning and its vulnerable people who get hurt every time.

I had a post deleted on another thread for suggesting trans people have mental health issues, so the current terms of the debate damage them in the first place. If somebody wanted their arms chopped off as they thought they'd be happier without, would they be humoured in the same way? And the people who urge caution slated as armless-phobes?

Those videos are horrific. When she asks "when will this be banned?" I do wonder if it will ever be banned.

As she says, they are taking physically healthy girls with a psychological disorder and turning them into lifelong medical patients.

And what about friends.

I mean at 18/19 - 24 ish going to college then I was working then going out and seeing friends crashing on sofas etc

Its supposed to be a time when commitments are at a low amd freedom to live is high. Before rent and mortgages and children etc

How many friends are going to wait to spend their time on and off long term , having to sit around at a mates house while they recover from yet another surgery, and are restricted witg where they go and what they do .

Its gotta take a toll on friendships/relationships. Where are they at the end of it all?

Yes I'm sure the clitoral nerves are somewhere in the base of the neopenis, and as you say the rest of it is arm or leg, and I can't see how having my forearm stroked would get me off. Presumably it must work for at least some of them.

Metoidoplasty seems less invasive but results in a micropenis. And in phalloplasties it seems really difficult to lengthen the urethra, so the urinary incontinence and peeing from behind the neopenis seems pretty standard.

It's interesting that standing to pee is such an important thing.

Presumably the next stage, having completed a 'successful' phalloplasty is insertion of a device used as a last resort for erectile dysfunction which, as it is an implant of a surgical device, will probably come with a whole host of other problems

I really worry about the drs who would do this. I mean at least in ED patients there will likely have been a few other steps taken first. Therapy/health work up/ diet/exercise/medication etc bit to go straight to this in , well in one of these videos the person was what? 19?

At least in men its would go where its supoosed to go and hope with full sensation. But these young adults dint have any sensation beyond having an.ark stroked because that's effectively what it is. So it's purely cosmetic int that sense and I wonder if they weren't being paid privately if it would would get past an ethics board.

I watched a few of these last night.

I remember a Whittle talk where the inadequacy of phalloplasty was mentioned (along with a suprisingly large number for loss of sexual function for penile inversion surgery).

Presumably the next stage, having completed a 'successful' phalloplasty is insertion of a device used as a last resort for erectile dysfunction which, as it is an implant of a surgical device, will probably come with a whole host of other problems.

It was also worrying that she confirmed that there is a lack of structural attachment.

There was an interesting discussion in the comments below one of her videos. Commentators were musing on whether or not the forearm scars would one day become widely-known as a 'transman giveaway'. As more transmen opt to have tattoos in that area to cover the scars, eventually men will stop getting forearm tattoos.

I suspect we're a long way off that happening, but it was an interesting thought.

Also saw a couple if her videos on JJ.
I had previously already thought it a bit odd that the conversations were so, well personal yet conducted so publicalky.

But to see all the clips together like that, it realky showed just how devoid of boundaries they all are.

I too recoild in horror at the clip of a minor alone in room with a closed door whilst an unchaperoned adult male conducted an intimate examination