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

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

Because lot of people on twitter appear to think that women piss out of their vaginas.

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

And er. maybe some will be disappointed with the plumbing?

@rachel40 come back and talk to us! It's nice to hear from someone on the other side so to speak

AvtarRamKaur - Puberty blockers/Cross sex hormones. - Cross-sex hormones under 18 - no way. That's the easy one for me to answer. Puberty Blockers - I honestly don't know. I can see both arguments. What I do know is that I'd rather leave it to medically qualified professional healthcare workers than the likes of Stone-sodding-Wall.

QuentinSummers - In a natal woman the urethra is between the clitoris and vagina - To be honest, I've never actually had a good "rummage" since having had surgery! I always assumed it was at the bottom, as that's where urine dribbles out when I pee (usually - unless I'm in a rush, then it can be all over the bloody place). However, even in my case, it's where it is in the pictures on the internet (I'm soooo not at work right now - Googling that).

FloraFox - I'm sure your female friends were keen to validate your feelings. Is it? Is that what you're sure of? Well - I'm of a Professional Scientific background and for me to have revealed my feelings first could well have put Confirmation Bias on others' replies. So I approached it from the other way - asked other women about their experiences before revealing mine. Could I be applying Self-Serving bias to what they were saying? Possibly, but I don't think so.

PricklyBall - part of the experience is uterine contractions, which of course are lost with hysterectomy - Yes. My vagina is very similar to that of a post-hysterectomy female. "A total hysterectomy is surgical removal of both the body of the uterus and the cervix. During a total hysterectomy, a surgeon cuts into the top of the vagina around the cervix, creating a hole in the top of the vagina. The gynecologist then pulls the edges of the remaining tissue together, and sutures the top of the vagina shut, making the vagina into a shortened, closed pocket." [Not a particularly good Ref Here ]

Datun - How can you have an orgasm in other parts of your body when you have had nothing added? - Erm - I have had Testosterone removed and Estrogen added. That makes lots things feel very different. One thing I did expect after surgery was to be able to "identify" which bits of skin belonged to "what" before. However, I can't. It just feels like my vagina/labia/whatever. I guess that's part of no longer having GID. That in itself is a new feeling for me!

Also the pelvic floor muscles makes the vagina contract. - Absolutely. Same for me! That's what used to hurt so damn much when I first started Dilating. I had to push a muscle aside that hadn't moved in years! I still do my Pelvic Floor exercises. Next time I dilate (probably tomorrow), I'll see if I can apply any "grip" to the dilator using my pelvic floor muscles (never tried this).

Please be careful to note that I tried to qualify "whole body" when speaking about post-op orgasm - I described "whole body" as about my chest to my knees - not my eyebrows to my toes (I bloody wish ). Compared to "before", that's pretty damn whole body to me. I'll try to note it down next time I get my vibraty-friend out! See?? See what sacrifices I'm prepared to make in the name of research??

Datun - An inverted penis isn't a clitoris. - Exactly. A Trans Neo-vagina isn't a Vagina (I may change that view only after I have a period or push a baby I've grown myself out of it - until then, don't hold your breath). It's the best approximation I'll be able to ever have. I can only describe how I experience things (orgasm or otherwise) and try to objectively compare it to others. But even that is for reference only. I'm pretty happy with my body (again - still a new feeling for me).

I'm saying that if you are a man who orgasms in a certain way, and you rearrange your genitals surgically, where are the extra bits to produce an orgasm that a woman would have? - That's a really good point. Things are certainly different. As mentioned before, male orgasms are based around the ejaculation of semen from the tip of the penis. I no longer have any of that. I think it must come from nerve layout combined with hormones. The "control group" here could be male eunuchs, who don't have estrogen, etc. Unfortunately, it's not likely to be possible to find some to ask. Awesome PhD thesis, though!

QuentinSummers - I agree. However, I'm not in a position to speak for/about Trans Men, although I do think their input would be interesting. Much tougher, surgically.

Terrylene - not quite right about the testosterone. Most of it comes from the ovaries. - Oooh - thanks you for that! Excellent! That explains why my Testosterone levels are right at the lowest end for a natal female. I don't have ovaries, nor do I have testicles either. I'm running on Adrenal Testosterone only, which is why it's so low. (Last thing i'm going to do is start taking testosterone suppliments - sod that). You are quite right - Testosterone is responsible for pretty much ALL drive - not just Sex Drive. That's why Trans need careful and professional management of hormone therapy to avoid slipping into depression and other mental health disorders. Damn - did I just piss all over TRA's "rights" to circumvent the medical process and self-medicate again. Bad Rachel!!

QuentinSummers - come back and talk to us! - Aww - thank you. I don't log in that much, but I'm around. Intelligent debate and maybe the possibility of working something out together to stop the worrying eradication of women and women's safety. I'm directly affected by women's safety, too!

Last word to Prickly:
just to get on quietly with their own life. - Yes. Thank you. And we were trying to quietly get on with our own lives until all this shit started kicking up from the TRAs. Fetishists wanting "women's rights". Blokes with erect penises being able to waltz around women's changing rooms (Baaarff). Transsexuals (generally) were trying to "blend in" as much as possible. Anything which accentuates the disparity between our Birth Sex and our Acquired Gender was absolutely horrific to us - that's what Gender Dysphoria IS! What we have now is unfathomable to me, yet very dangerous for so many.

Anyway - keep safe, everyone. Keep talking. xx

So I approached it from the other way - asked other women about their experiences before revealing mine. Could I be applying Self-Serving bias to what they were saying? Possibly, but I don't think so.

TBH that gives your statement less weight than if you had gone first. Given your nonsensical understanding of development of sexual organs, I'm not terribly impressed by your claim to have a "Professional Scientific background" (not a proper noun let me guess IT or engineering? )

Well you live and learn. Fascinating.

Sorry Rachel40s talking about you like you are a specimen! You are the third transwoman in the last couple of days. (The other two on chat). But this conversation is far, far more illuminating and candid.

I do swerve between wondering if there is a way of making a distinction between people like you and the fetishists and just wanting to eliminate all transwomen from female spaces.

I suppose its because it doesn't come down to individuals. It never has. It's not personal.

But it's all very informative. And that cannot be a bad thing.

Given your nonsensical understanding of development of sexual organs

I'm not a scientist, so when someone has conviction, I tend to go with it.

(But I did wonder over the continual use of the word prostrate.)

It is childbirth x2 that provided the experience to recognize the lie in what the doctors and trans advocates are saying.

FloraFox

I must have read similar accounts to you, because I have concluded the same.

Also

Puberty Blockers - I honestly don't know. I can see both arguments.

This worries me from a post op adult, who claims 'better than ever' sexual function.

As far as I know, the depth of the neovagina is dictated by the length of the penis being inverted?

So a kid on hormone blockers will have a tiny penis/no-depth vagina?

And if Jazz Jennings is an example, practically zero libido and sexual function.

How can an adult who advocates the joys of surgery from a fully formed set of genitalia, even think of supporting something leading to such a loss in children?

Rachel40s - thank you very much for contributing! Very decent of you. And glad to hear that physical transition alleviated the dysphoria.

Datun - An inverted penis isn't a clitoris.- Exactly. A Trans Neo-vagina isn't a Vagina (I may change that view only after I have a period or push a baby I've grown myself out of it - until then, don't hold your breath). It's the best approximation I'll be able to ever have. I can only describe how I experience things (orgasm or otherwise) and try to objectively compare it to others. But even that is for reference only. I'm pretty happy with my body (again - still a new feeling for me).

That is the most honest statement I've ever read from a transwoman.

It simply acknowledges that women exist, that we are anatomically very different from you and that it is not possible to become one, only a best approximation.

I'm astonished.
One of my hugest frustrations is when transwomen deny EVERYTHING of female biology that they don't wish to acknowledge. And when we reference facts about ourselves which differentiate us - often enormously crucial facts - from transwomen, we are told to hush up.

I had no clue about the internal structure of the clitoris until a year ago because a male led scientific community had dismissed the importance of female anatomy. And it's more galling that transwomen are being dismissive of our female anatomy because society isn't challenging their misogyny at all.

Classic example is the trans-speak 'front hole' to replace the word vagina for the sake of not offending transmen.

Except the front hole is in fact the urethra. Only a monumental disregard for female anatomy could produce the concept that hey, it's a hole for a penis, let's call it front hole despite it being the middle one because who can be bothered to care about actual female bodies, amirite?

Rachel, I’ve said recently on another thread that it is Transwomen like you, as well as women, that have been thrown under the bus with all this TRA bullshit.

Im beyond happy for you that your transition has successfully eased your dysphoria and that it’s all been worth it. It must have been a very hard road, and I imagine it’s very galling to see the likes of Lily Madigan and Danielle Muscato claiming they are trans and co-opting your genuine struggle.

Also, you (not literally you!) are the person I suspect a lot of trans allies are thinking of when they blindly state that all transwomen are women. I know I did before finding out that the vast majority now are not taking hormones, considering surgery or doing anything else other than wear heels and makeup. It makes a mockery of womanhood, whereas in my opinion what you have done is emulate it (and respectfully so, just going by your posts here).

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting, thanks for ‘getting it’ and I wish you a long and happy life.

I think your testimony about your experiences, beliefs and physical feelings is very open and honest, Rachel40, and I am glad it has helped your GID.

It somehow makes me sad, though, and it has stuck in my mind since reading it yesterday.

It’s the bit about the labia being fused together in a man and the clitoris being the tip of the penis which is getting me. I am not a reproductive scientist, but it sounds like the eighteenth century view that women were inverted men (biologically speaking). And the eighteenth century view came within a patriarchal society where women belonged to men, literally.

It somehow feels to me like not existing anymore as something distinct - a woman - if a woman can be created out of a man. It’s like Eve being made out of Adam’s ribs.

I know Rachel40 you were very careful to make distinctions between your genital area now and born female genitals, but even then, what you say is imbued with the idea that it is simply correcting natural development. That men could be women aside from bodies developing in a different way. I do not begrudge you the solution to your dysphoria at all, to be clear.

Where it gets problematic is when this moves beyond an individual medical condition to a political movement - that men could be women aside from bodies/brains developing a different way - within a context of historical and existing inequalities based on sexual difference. Because it erases women as a distinct group with specific needs.

My labia are not an opened up scrotum. Don’t you see - that women’s biological funtions (menstruation, miscarriage childbirth) have long been hidden away from society - menstrual blood has been seen as dirty - that to say a man’s vulva is closed up neatly (not dirty) is offensive? I know, I know, I know that you did not mean this, but there is a long history of women’s organs being seen as seeping, dirty, unclean.

Combine that with the historical belief that women’s reproductive organs were inverted, underdeveloped compared to men’s in a patriarchal context and I am struck by how much this buys into historical tropes that have underpinned women’s inequality over centuries.

I am honestly, truly not wanting to come across as attacking you Rachel I appreciate your honesty and openness. But what you say has unsettled me, because it brings me, as a woman, face to face with a past I thought we had moved on from.

You don’t know how women orgasm, you know that you orgasm differently to how you did before. Maybe I am a prude (I was called this by my sexually abusive ex-H), but I have never explained to anyone how my orgasms feel, and would feel very uncomfortable doing so. Maybe that is just me, but I would hate someone to ask me.

Opening line - I meant, I am glad surgery has helped your GID.

I am not sure my post makes much sense. I just want to say I am a woman, I cannot be made, imitated, copied. That is not to invalidate anyone else, just state how I feel.

Great post Iced. It’s not something I’d really thought about but you’re right, it all does sound very much as though women are just half formed men.

Combined with it being more difficult to make a man, genitally speaking, out of a woman, genitally speaking, yes, that is how it seems.

Brilliant post, Iced.

It's as if as if men think we are merely a playdough version of a man. You know, pull off the penis, poke a hole in, that's about as much as there is to a woman, right?

Wrong.

Males and females develop differently in utero, yes, but our diverging paths are irreversible. You can't turn this clock back.

It may be convenient for men to reduce us to external appearance - and a hole.
They disregard the complexity of ovaries, fallopian tubes, pelvic shape, uterus, cervix, internal clitoris, musculature and cell lining of the vagina and so much else as irrelevant. Women are pretty much summed up as a penis sock and not much more. It's a clanging endorsement of the arrogance of men in dismissing women, ignoring who we are.

When I hear a transwoman declaring their neovagina is like any woman's vagina, post hysterectomy or otherwise, I cringe. Of course it bears no real resemblance. It's a hole, yes. But a vagina is a functional female organ. It DOES stuff!

One day I'll find the right words to express my frustration with being repeatedly told that my body can be reduced to whatever a surgeon can cosmetically approximate from a penis and scrotum, or perhaps a bit of bowel.

The problem with the transgender movement is that almost every transwoman relentlessly defines themselves, not just as individuals in their own right, but in constant reference to me, and to all females. BUT, and this is a huge but, without us being allowed to refute that reference to us.

The trans movement insists both on a claim about themselves, but worse, a denial of ME.

There is an insidious narrative running through the whole ideology. It implies women are mere playdough, less than men, easily recreated with some modifications and manipulations of flesh.

We're not. And we get to say so as loud as we want, until we are heard.

I think part of why I found Rachel’s post so refreshing is the fact she acknowledges that what she has is a facsimile.

There’s a real tendency with some trans and their allies of thinking of a vagina as purely a fuck hole. It’s complete and utter misogyny.

That’s not to say much of the rest of what she posted is basically bobbins, but that’s not her fault. And it just goes to show the lie that is being sold.

It is bobbins, is what I meant

I agree. But since women aren't taught about their own bodies, it's unsurprising that men are even more ignorant about us. I don't blame people for ignorance. Just for perpetuating it.

Totally agree, iced.

You make an important point, Iced.
There is a popular myth that we are all female in the womb/uterus in spite of the fact that every cell is either xx or xy. Trans advocates have found this myth very useful as they evangelize.
There is a sad belief among some trans identified males that if they have the male organs removed they will be left with female organs.
It is easy to believe myths when they are exactly what you want to hear about yourself.

Rachel can I be really nosy and ask, would you like to actually be female? Is it enough for you to look at your body and see something resembling a vagina? Would you willingly embrace something like, I don't know, endometriosis and heavy periods in exchange for having a real vagina? I'd imagine that's a hard one to know but I'm just interested whether you just wanted rid of your penis or if it went further than that.

I am fascinated with transsexuals with genuine GID if it's about sexual functioning and your physical body alone or whether it also encompasses wanting to be treated as female in every way possible (i.e is it even obvious to men how women live and what they have to put up with as they develop and age)

Ok, as an HCA i have cared for a (sadly dying & unconscious) transwoman.
She'd had the op 20 years prior, & this was 10 years ago I looked after her.

I washed her & I can honestly say that from outside appearance down below she looked female.

No- one seeing her would guess she was not originally female.

Obviously for dignity reasons I did not look at her down below area anymore than I had to in order to wash the lady. Same as with any patient.

I actually felt extremely sad for her as her sons had disowned her, and she was dying of a condition that mainly men die of.

She was being nursed in a side room on her own both because she was trans & because she was dying.

So I have no idea, other than from reading this thread, about the problems with neo vaginas are that trans women have to cope with, in fact I've never actually thought about it before.

FWIW I believe that once a transwoman is post op she can be considered female but not when she is pre op. Everyone I know that I've spoken to about it agrees.

Btw I say 'down below' even though I'm a carer, I know its a bad habit and technically I should use the words vulva, vagina, penis etc but at work I find euphemisms save everyone from embarrassment & I know I'm definitely not the only HCA / nurse who doesn't use the correct terms!

‘Look’ is one thing. What about smell, taste, response to tongue/finger/penis?