MNHQ: I'd like to start a thread about the reality of phalloplasty without it being deleted

[BarrackerBarmer]

MNHQ has already deleted one thread "not in the spirit".

Fair enough.

Please lay out exactly how I can start a thread about phalloplasty, with images (of arms, not of penises).
This is important. Thousands of girls are identifying as boys, and the medical pathway for those girls includes breastbinding, double mastectomies, hysterectomies and phalloplasties.

Guidance from many institutions is unquestioning affirmation.

I want to discuss this. Truthfully.

Tell me how I can do this without MNHQ deleting my thread and I will follow your rules to the letter.

Or tell the thousands of women on this site that we are forbidden from discussing the outcome of SRS for girls entirely.

What are your rules please?

This is one of those things where a description of the surgery and aftermath doesn't have the same impact as a photo. Sandy's drawing is a decent compromise, but a lot of people will tell themselves that it isn't as bad as she's making it look. It is.

On the left it says I'm so glad my parents supported me to be my authentic self.

On the right it says in a few months I'll even be old enough to get tattoos to help cover the scarring.

I want people to know that the picture is not sensational, nor dramatic. It's accurate.

Ok, i guess, the pics are really crucial, then. For what Dr. Crane shows in the Theroux documentary really looks like what you‘d expect in a male locker room. It is quite problematic, when Crane‘s best of pics are widely circulated on national tv, while other real life outcomes are censored. 🤬

It's the "donor site" that bothers me more than the "penis", which looks a bit like a sausage roll gone wrong.

Curious Crane didn‘t show the donor side, then. Though I guess, even without seeing the donor site, I can say what bothers me most are the potential complications that the 8 people who are suing Crane now experienced.

Considering this It is utterly enraging how 5-10 year old kids are bamboozled into believing, they can just ‚get‘ the ‚fitting body‘ when they are old enough and want to. It is nothing short of cruel.

Did you see Sadie's drawing? That's a pretty accurate representation, though seeing it on an actual arm is much, much more upsetting.

It is so hard. I work on post surgical and transplant wards. I find it infuriating the way surgery and transplants are bandied around by some people as if they are just things that should happen, that anyone should consider if they are available - that SHOULD be available. The 'laryngeal shave' and vocal cord shortening procedures that people talk about have potential complications involving never being able to have a voice again, never being able to swallow orally again. I work with people who have procedures like this because they will choke to death from cancer if they don't (and the plastic surgeons are a vital part of that team). Surgery can be lifesaving, even life enhancing but it certainly shouldn't be left to surgeons behind closed doors to talk about.

Sorry - bandied around by people who are pro medical transition.

I saw it only on a small device. I won‘t deny for a minute that it is shocking. I just believe that necrotic genitalia, messed up and dysfunctional or leaking uretha and bowel Systems Seem even more scary (the arm is a certainty while necrosis&co are not, though. Acknowledged). Anyway, all of this is not something they tell kids in their grand ‚you can be whatever you want‘ show.

Fistulas aren't something to just brush off either, and they seem to be extremely common to the point where additional surgeries to address them are almost assumed.

This whole thing is so profoundly disturbing.

I went and had a good look on the internet at all the pics and videos, even as an ex nurse I was quite horrified by the procedure. I can't imagine you would get much sensation out of that even if it worked. It must be just cosmetic. There are plenty of trans people who just never bother because it's just too much including one very butch porn star.
Such as Buck Angel, don't google unless you are quite robust.

I don’t know if this has already been mentioned on the thread, but I’ve just started watching the Louis Theroux trans kids thing, and the surgeon who’s featured on it is the infamous Curtis crane.

add in scars for the actual phalloplasty, hysterectomy and the breast removal

If you google search for topless transmen, it would appear that about 90% have tattoos on their chest (all in the same place) to cover over the scars

How fucked up is it that a non-essential surgical procedure then requires permanent skin colouring in order to try to hide it

You know what people say about the overrepresentation of certain personality types amongst surgeons? Does make you wonder.

(NASALT, obvs.)

There’s one transman online who’s had 31 surgeries in 3 years to try to correct a phalloplasty. He has an ileostomy which will probably never be removed.

Very early in my transition I was shown various photos relating to vaginoplasty. Some which are far worse and more graphic than those you can find on a google.

Be under no doubts, we are presented with every gory detail up front to ensure an informed decision.

Bronners78

At what age, though?

11?

A well-understood aspect of cultic control is that people are asked to do demeaning or painful or awful things. Or they are simply bullied and humiliated. You’d think that this would make them wake up and leave the cult or situation but in fact if you can make someone really suffer for a set of beliefs, or do something terrible for them, the person will generally double down on those beliefs.

This is partly sunk cost fallacy: if you’ve suffered terribly and/or done something awful for an ideology, you don’t want to admit you were duped or wrong and you have to find a way of making meaning from the suffering (this transman I mentioned, after 31 surgeries, is saying he believes everything happens for a reason and it’ll all be ok one day, and continues to give advice to other people about transition, including phalloplasty despite saying he regrets his).

But even being asked to choose something so painful and risky as SRS can be seen as exciting before it happens, it’s like an initiation, a test of how brave and committed you are to the ideology. It’s a challenge. That’s the only explanation I can give as to why people are posting stuff to this trans man saying things like, I’ve read your page and I’m going ahead with phalloplasty, you inspire me to see that even if it’s difficult I’ll get through it...

Showing people gruesome pictures and telling them about possible complications before SRS might in fact have the effect of spurring them on to do it, to ‘prove’ how brave and committed they are.

Ban all cosmetic and medically unnecessary surgery, I say.

Drafted a few posts.

Don't know what to say. I'm heartbroken for those who've had this surgery.

Look up #Phalloplasty on instagram

Surgery doesn’t happen in the UK until you are 18, you need two psychiatric reports to get permission to go down the surgical route.

As part of the assessment, you need to be clear on why you want the surgery, what the surgery involves, the potential complications and demonstrate post operative care for physical and mental issues.

If there is any doubt then we would be stopped from getting those letters and not be able to access lower surgery.

I recall seeing the Chaz Bono documentary series and trans people at a convention saying how dodgy phalloplasty was.

I know that Bronners78. But puberty blockers start any time from 8, 9, 10.

Social transitioning, at the moment, can be preschool age.

Are the parents shown these photographs so they know what is the logical conclusion to social transitioning their child?

At what point does the social contagion, the ROGD get given a dose of reality?