I don’t feel very good right now. I’m one year and some change on HRT. It’s been a wonderful experience so far and I love being a girl. I know that I’m trans, and I’m reminded by “why” every time I go home and I’m forced to boymode.
Unfortunately that’s little comfort to the complex feelings of starting to feel erectile dysfunction (ED). I just had sex with my trans girlfriend and she didn’t have much left. I can’t ignore this feeling I’m on that same path eventually.
I want some sort of function either male or female. Even though I still wish I was born with a vagina. It pains me to even think about going off HRT though. I love being a girl too much and I don’t think I could present fem without HRT. I still have most all of its function but it doesn’t stay up for as long.
It’s a completely irrational feeling that I hope will be solved eventually with SRS, but that’s probably 10 years away and I just learned how to be sexual 2 years ago.
to be honest I haven’t heard what the “consequences” are that you’re referring to (other than debunked lies from TERFs about a vagina remaining as a permanent, open-wound, etc. - but I’m not even sure how widely those lies are believed at this point).
What kinds of infections did you have in mind?
A vaginoplasty fully heals and absolutely is not a long term risk for infection; the only way I could think it might increase infection risk is by not managing your microbiome through douching or other means, which does leave potential for increased UTI risk (this can happen in cis women as well), but I can’t tell if that’s what you are talking about or not. Either way, I would just say that no, vaginoplasty does not result in long-term risks of infection.
Vaginoplasties are very safe with low rates of complications and extremely low rates of regret, but it is true you have to dilate the rest of your life if you want to retain the canal at a particular width.
Dilation may not be as big of a deal as it sounds, e.g. eventually (at least >1 year after surgery) you can dilate once a week, and it’s up to you how thick you want your canal or what to prioritize, lots of women stop dilating many years after their surgery and continue to have a canal and are able to enjoy penetrative sex. If you stop dilating much later in life, it can also be possible to regain some width by going back to dilating with larger and larger sizes - you can stretch the canal back open (but there are limits to this, and in the first years of healing there can be stenosis that you can’t overcome).
I see, thanks for the response! The problems/consequences I was referring to were based on a post, I think even in this exact community, about someone who had bottom surgery and was having lots of trouble with it, from the hospital staff during the initial recovery being absolutely unfamiliar with it, to having to concoct their own cleaning solution to avoid infections and bad smells. It made me pretty concerned.
lol, that was probably me?
The “concoting their own cleaning solution” might have been making a lactic acid douche instead of using a vinegar douche?
But for context, that’s so I can cultivate a microbiome that is friendly to lactobacillus - not to prevent infection. It did improve the smell, but tbh there was a stable microbiome (not lactobacillus dominant) that stabilized over time without my regimen which was maybe not as good-smelling as the lactobacilli, but was also not an overtly bad smell like it could get when there was something going wonky down there. Also, none of it is relevant if you just follow the doctor’s orders: douche every other day with vinegar solution during recovery (eventually I think you can reduce frequency to “as is”).
The hospital staff issues I had were particular to the hospital I had my surgery in, and because that wing was short-staffed and had to pull staff from other wings. I only had one truly bad nurse, and one mediocre nurse, but almost everyone I worked with was great even if they needed more training on dealing with vaginoplasty patients and the role that sitting can play in creating wound separation in that first week.
But those issues were in the end inconsequential and I recovered fully without issue. I don’t know how typical my experience was, and since my surgery that hospital no longer provides gender-affirming surgeries, so even that specific hospital’s problems aren’t relevant to future trans patients there.
Either way, none of this really bears on how safe and successful vaginoplasties are - I am very thankful I went through with mine despite the hardships I endured before and after the surgery.