It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s SuperGenderQueer!

A little after two years since I started this blog, I visited a nudist colony one weekend. Caused a bit of confusion among the folks there, as could perhaps be expected, but a friend snapped a photo while I was wearing a rainbow flag as a cape (as you do), and I thought, there it is. No catheter bag, body the way I finally want it– this is my victory pose.

Under the cut, and minimally censored just for safety’s sake, but here I am, past my own personal finish line. It’s so awesome here, y’all. Thank you for helping me along the way to getting here, and I hope you can join me soon, whatever your paths may be.

(and apology to any mobile users who don’t get a choice in seeing my pasty self splayed across their screen, haha)

My superpower is making everybody who sees me a little more queer. And I love it.

You have a blog called ” My Phalloplasty Experience” and all you have are photos of your skin graft?! WTF. No one cares about your arm. Where is the phallos, the bottom surgery results????????

gendercube:

phalloexperience:

I’m under no obligation to share anything from my surgery experience. Only what I want and feel comfortable sharing, which is what I have done.

Don’t like that then don’t look. It’s that simple.

Also, you might want to work on your manners, tone and friendliness if you want people to help you out. Instead I just laughed at your ridiculous message.

Here’s a great example of how dehumanizing and degrading people are towards guys who’ve had lower surgery. I’m shocked but not at all surprised by how entitled people feel to our bodies and by how many people think it’s okay to say this.

Ffffff.

Folks, I know I may wag my dong photos all over the place here, but there’s no quicker way to piss me off than seeing people send stuff like THIS to anyone who wants to keep their private parts private.

Quick request, to all my followers? See the original message up above? Don’t ever be That Person. Don’t try to make someone feel bad for not showing off what’s ultimately their choice to show or not.

I mean, I’ll happily dump a barrel of dick pics onto anyone who shows interest. But a lot of folks running phalloplasty blogs– I’d say the majority of them– are not like this blog. And that’s perfectly okay. No matter how well-meaning you might be, nobody owes you a free trip into their pants just because you’re curious.

Angry Gerbil out.

My First Year of Phalloplasty: A Handy Timeline.

[cracks knuckles] Cool. I’m back at it! Let’s do this.

Before I get into specifics about last week’s urethroplasty, I figure I should lay out a timeline. This blog’s gotten a bunch of new followers lately, and it’d be keen for everyone here to be able to follow along on the same page. :3

February 12, 2005: I take the leap to living full-time as a man at age 25. As I had only recently moved to the city I now live in, and had scarcely left my apartment before this, introducing myself as someone new raised no eyebrows.

Late 2005: I enroll in counseling with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sexual Health. My counsellor agrees that I qualify as someone who would benefit from gender conversion therapy. I am educated about the possibilities and outcomes of hormonal treatment, as well as various surgeries I can work towards.

Due to warnings that my depression might get worse while taking T, I decide not to opt for HRT treatment. I also decide to keep binding for the time being, as the only sexually reactive parts of my body are my nipples, and though the risk is low, I’d rather not take the chance of losing that feeling if I was to get top surgery.

Phalloplasty is mentioned as an option for sex reassignment surgery when one can’t undergo HRT.

Though I function more naturally as a man in general society, I identify most strongly with being an androgyne, and feel neutral towards the parts I was born with. I ask if there’s a possibility I can keep any of them. “I’m not sure,” is the response I get. “Nobody’s ever asked that before.”

2007: I start saving my money.

2008: I begin building connections with psychiatrists and therapists who I’ll need letters of recommendation from before anyone will consider me for phalloplasty. Some agree. Some don’t. Enough do.

2013: With a significant amount of money saved up, I set my sights on Mr. Christopher’s surgery team of London, England. His phalloplasty results are, in my opinion, the most organic-looking currently out there. I make plans to see him in London for a consultation.

September 2013: Mr. Christopher tells me that he won’t allow me to undergo surgery unless I first agree to a full hysterectomy and vaginectomy. “Why else would you want to have this done?” he asks. “It would make no sense.”

I also learn the hard way that, currently, my psychiatrist and therapist letters are considered to have expired after over a year’s time.

I leave for the USA without scheduling a surgery date.

When I report to my counsellor at the Center for Sexual Health, she gives me the name of an up-and-coming surgeon I might want to check out, one Dr. Curtis Crane.

July 2014: I have a consultation with Dr. Crane in San Francisco, California. He’s cheerful, personable, and assures me that having phalloplasty without taking hormones or removing my original parts is indeed something he can do for me. “Who am I to tell you what body parts you should feel natural having?”, as he puts it. He is, to my knowledge, the first surgeon to be willing to perform such an operation.

I sign up for his next possible phalloplasty date that very day… which turns out to be in June of next year. Dr. Crane is a busy fellow, to put it lightly.

June 17th, 2015: The words “radial forearm phalloplasty with urethral lengthening, glansplasty, and no scrotoplasty” cannot convey the joy and sense of contented wholeness the procedure brings me today. I spend the next week in the CPMC hospital, where I’m discharged on Day 6.

June 23rd – July 17th, 2015: I spend the next month by myself in a live-in hotel in Corte Madera, with three weekly follow-up visits to Dr. Crane. Uber and Taskrabbit become my best friends, when it comes to getting places and making sure I stay fed.

I develop 3 fistulas under my phallus head (healed over by regular use of Medihoney gel) and accidentally open a groin stitch that leaks serous fluid constantly. The latter ends up giving the area an infection that takes a week longer than anticipated to heal. I’m grateful I took off the full 4 weeks from work instead of the 3 I initially planned for.

A small section of skin at the top of my glans dies, discoloring the area with a dark purple blotch. In doing so, the new dong gets its nickname: “Spot.”

July – October 2015: Abnormally thick scar tissue limits my ability to move my donor arm’s hand and wrist. I enroll in weekly hand therapy sessions, which successfully give me back a full range of motion.

September 2015: I develop a stricture that gets more painful by the day.

October 2015: I arrive back in San Francisco for two days to have Spot examined, by now barely able to urinate without pain so bad I’m almost passing out hunched over there at the toilet.

The results point to a stricture far thicker than anyone had anticipated, and I end up staying an extra week to have a cystoscopy done, revealing a solid wall of scar tissue in my urethra, right at the join where the original urethra ended and the new lengthened one began. I’m given a suprapubic catheter, to remain in until the next possible surgery date Dr. Crane has available.

December 2015: Back in San Francisco, this time under the care of Dr. Chen, Dr. Crane’s new surgeon.

Dr. Chen cuts out three centimeters of scar tissue from my urethra, then sews the ends together where the scarring ends. I stay in San Francisco for two more weeks, returning home right on Christmas Eve.

Due to dwindling funds left available, I start looking for a closer urologist for the future, and finally am pointed (through word of mouth) to Dr. Elliott of the University of Minnesota’s Urology department.

March 2016: My first visit to Dr. Elliott comes just as pain and urine stream thinning start happening, just like they did in September, though thankfully without the pain this time. Dr. Elliott schedules the soonest X-ray and cystoscopy available.

April 2016: Yup, the stricture’s grown back, and looking just as thick as before.

May 2016: Dr. Elliott decides that a two-stage urethroplasty is the best way to treat my stricture problem. I’m put back on a suprapubic catheter until a urethroplasty with buccal tissue harvest can be done.

June 15th, 2016: First stage is completed.

June 20th, 2016: Follow-up appointment. My initial genital sutures are removed. Everything looks good so far, according to the doctor.

Three months from now, I’ll have another cystoscopy to see how the scarring is going (or, hopefully, not going). Six months from now, the second stage of urethroplasty *should* be scheduled, where they’ll sew the hole in my urethra shut, I’ll be able to pee standing up again, and that *should* be the end of it all.

Fingers remain crossed like hell.

[looks up at all that] Huh. Guess I did more this past year than I ever realized I did, didn’t I?

Spot is officially 1 year old!!

You know what this means.

This means birthday cake.

For real, though– I can’t believe it’s been a whole year already! Spot may’ve proved to be more of a problem pup in these first 365 days than most phalloplasties, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, all of you followers, for joining Spot and me on this adventure!

NOTE: Spot was thoroughly showered with soap and warm water after filming this. Sugar and genitalia do not go well together.

VIDEO: Spot is officially 1 year old!!

Phalloplasty for Kids, 101

gerbilfluff:

Little kid’s standing in front of me in the returns line today. His eyes go huge, all of a sudden. “What *happened?!*” he whispers to me, pointing at my arm in horror.

“Oh, that was actually a good thing!” I say, lapsing into my standard answer. “They took the skin from there to fix another part that hadn’t worked right since I was a kid.”

He shakes his head. “Maaaan. I wish I had a scar like yours. Nobody’d ever try messing with me ever again!” >:U

Random food for thought: Both.

And suddenly, as I showed him the phone photo of my junk, the guy at the anime convention who’d been hitting on me for the past half hour paused.

“That’s… *that’s* your dick?” he asked, looking confusedly at the screen.

I nodded. “And my vagina.”

He snickered. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but… you’re too freaky for me.”

“Tch. Your loss,” I sneered back at him.

We went our own ways into the night.

It’s interesting. I haven’t had many self-proclaimed drag queens show interest in me until this last weekend’s convention, but if the question ever comes up, I find cis and trans folks tend to react along the same lines if they hear I’ve got both parts.

The trans people tend to raise an eyebrow. I get a lot of “Why would you DO that?” Why would I go as far as most trans guys’ hopes and dreams could take them, and then stop halfway, keeping my factory original parts? It’s the same question I got from every phalloplasty surgeon I saw before I met with Dr. Crane. It’s expected that everyone will want the same thing. A surgery, then B surgery, then C, then D. As far from the side of the fence I was plunked onto as humanly possible.

(Heck, one trans guy I talked to once was upset with me for not transitioning to be a “full” man. Called me a traitor. [shrug] To each their own.)

The cis folks who hear I’m packing double have a different, but no less predictable, response. From young dudebro guys to little old ladies, anyone so far who’s had it come up in conversation has had the same reaction: “Have you thought about doing porn? You could make *so much money!”*

I don’t doubt it. I’d need to get clearance from my partner first, but I’d be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind.

Still, I met with a lot of folks at Anime Detour’s Trans Alliance and It Gets Better panels, and the response was undeniable: for some folks, A+B+C+D just isn’t going to work for their peace of mind. And though there may be only two surgeons I know of who’ll currently allow you to get, say, just B and C, not the whole package, it’s my hope that more and more doctors will acknowledge the changing tides and start looking into piecemeal physical gender reassignment.

I know what I am. And though I may check the M box every time I have to choose, my heart’s not set in only a M or F box.

My gratitude for living in a time where I could change my body to reflect exactly that is constant and ever-joyful. :3

9 months.

So I’ve got some friends who are going through surgery at the moment, and one of the things I keep hearing from at least a couple of them is “What if it doesn’t turn out to look any good?”

I counter: Spot is *anything* but Photoshop-perfect. He’s chubby. He’s floppy. He’s still covered in scars. His head has deflated a bit by now. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing about him, because that’s SPOT, as I know him, and I’ve grown to love him so, so much.

Could do without the random uncontrollable urination bombs Spot drops on me every once in a while, but thankfully I’m seeing a Dr. Elliot at the University of Minnesota who can hopefully put those to rest, or at least explain them, on the 21st of this month.

Holy smokes! Did I seriously forget Spot’s 8-month anniversary by a couple days? Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?

While I’m still open to Asks, I’m not sure what else I can post to here lately that would be all that interesting. Spot’s peeing just fine; I can still come (albeit with any fluids coming directly from the factory plumbing, not the phallus); all’s right with the world.

I’ll have a 1-year retrospective in photos, to be sure, but otherwise, Spot’s been behaving himself, not counting the occasional accidental wetting.

Steady as he goes, I guess? Though feel free to drop me any messages. :3

In other news, this was my follow-up appointment with Dr. Chen today in a nutshell:

DR: We’re going to need you to stay here in San Francisco a while yet. No going home early, sorry.

GERBIL: Haroo. 😦

DR: But you’re healing from your urethral reconstruction like a champ!

GERBIL: Hooray! 😀

DR: You need to keep your catheter in another week, though. Need to give that surgery site some time to recover.

GERBIL: Haroo. 😦

DR: But we can cap the end off and have you start re-teaching your bladder how to hold onto urine again! Just unplug the cap and hold it over the toilet when you need to go. Then you can gradually switch over to using your phallus!

GERBIL: Hooray! 😀

DR: That about covers it for now. Any questions for me?

GERBIL: Hoor– oh. wait. naw, I’m good.

Day 7 of being stricture-free.

Who needs more dogshaming photos? Bring on the dickshaming!

Spot’s been a naughty one these past couple days. Even with a catheter in, this dong is so ready to be used again, I’ve had a full urine flow three times now, at random!

…Only once in an actual toilet.

The hotel housekeeping here’s starting to know me on a first-name basis, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.