by Gina Bennett

Created on: November 25, 2009

As a pre-operative transexual, I wake up every morning and it is quite a struggle for me to even get in the shower and go through my morning routine, as the first thing I have to do is get naked. I don't like looking at my naked body because at this point, there is one body part that still reminds me of the person I used to be, and I don't feel it fits in with how I see myself. I see myself as a girl. I know I'm a girl on the inside due to a few reasons.

1) Being called he really irritates me and ticks me off to no end, especially when people know better

2) There have been times where I have tried to self mutilate because I was uncomfortable with how my body was.

3) My body cannot handle the male hormone testosterone

I have been on testosterone blockers for almost one year and seven months at this point and the last almost two years have been a real growing experience. I have learned to love the way my body looks when not faced with the obvious flaws it has. I feel sexier than I have in years and I'm more comfortable with myself as a person. I never felt these things as a male-impersonator. It is a constant struggle every day not to mutilate myself in some way because of certain body parts I do not wish to have, nor do I need, and aim to have this corrected. For me, Gender Re-assignment Surgery (GRS), will fix one of the biggest flaws I see in myself. It will give me a better self-image, and I will finally be able to get on with the life I should be living now.

I pose a question to the reader: What if you went to bed one night as you are now, but you woke up the next morning and your brain remained the same, but your body was that of the opposite gender, what would you do?

I have asked this of several people ad have gotten the usual responses of "Play time" and "Exploring myself." and "Just get on with my life." I ask the reader to take a closer look at the question and actually give it some thought. What would you do if you felt you had body parts that didn't seem to fit who you were on the inside? Would you not do anything you could to try and correct this situation? I and others like myself face this situation every day until we can manage to save up enough money (usually for a good portion of our lives), to get this issue fixed. Most of us know it does not solve all of our life issues, but it does allow us to see ourselves in a better light than we previously may have. It allows a lot of use to focus on other underlying issues once we are comfortable with ourselves.

In order to get surgery, we are put through years of therapy, at least one year of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), and we must live life for at least one year in that of our preferred gender before they will even consider us for GRS. Sure, there are those who regret surgery afterwords, but it is the opinion of this writer that they either needed longer in the transition period, or should have weighed the options a little more carefully before going through with it. In more extreme cases, there are those who blame the fact that they went through surgery on their doctors instead of where the blame truly lies.

Surgery does not fix our problems, but it does fix -us-. It is a medically necessary procedure and is recognized by the AMA. It is the opinion of this writer that surgery is medically necessary for -some- people to become better and harder working members of society.

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