Postoperative Issues in Transsexual Women



Posted: Thursday, February 04, 2010

by Susan Gamsky
SRS Transformations

The effects of SRS on libido, sexuality and orgasm in TS women.

Many TS women considering Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) are concerned about whether or not they will be able to experience sexual pleasure including orgasm after their sex transition surgery. Loosing these abilities would be a major loss as well as a threat to future meaningful relationships.

While the thought of a loss of sexuality is indeed frightening it is nave to believe that the loss of the external male genitalia with SRS surgery will have such a result. However this fear is powerfully planted in TS society and can cause many pre-op TS women to remain in a state of indecision about having SRS surgery. This indecision can be fueled even more by stories heard from TS transition failures, including the cases of intense cross-dressers, drag queens and cross-dressers who mistakenly underwent SRS for various sexual reasons and then found that their male libidos were greatly reduced and their male orgasmic capability eliminated.

Realistically speaking successful transition requires a strong inner diligence that may go beyond some patients. This inner diligence, fueled by a desire to be themselves includes lots of street smarts , common sense, an ability to learn new skills and a commitment to hard work.

You may have already come to a decision to go ahead with SRS surgery. In your case the uncertainty and discomfort of moving ahead far outweighs your current state of mind. It is at this point in the SRS decision-making process that an honest look, emotionally, at what you are willing to do, is needed. This inner state is your character and includes a hard look at your past responses, experiences and diligence in over-coming challenges of any sort.

This type of self-examination is almost impossible to do this on your own, and a willingness to seek help and the advice of others will be important for success. A good counselor can help you examine your options for transition and help you figure out whether you've got what it takes to "make it".

One of the most important requirements for success is the ability to shed all feelings of shame, embarrassment and guilt about one's transsexualism, If the transitioner cannot shed feelings of shame and embarrassment those feelings may grow rather than diminish as the TS woman goes further into her transition. Difficulties in handling shame and embarrassment can combine with a reaction that can result in the post-operative TS demonstrating some strong or socially inappropriate behaviors that she thinks express her femaleness where in fact, dignity is what is needed.

Seeing what others are doing and how it is working for them can provide invaluable insights into how well you yourself might do. Support groups and other groups of TG/TS friends can also help you a lot by providing a gauge to measure yourself against.

One of the benefits of having SRS surgery at our participating hospital in Thailand, money savings aside, is that SRS patients are with others who are going through the same transition issues. Often these SRS patients form a temporary community of sorts and then develop powerfully supportive relationships that can last a lifetime.

Careful financial planning, employment planning, budgeting, and contingency planning are also essential to success and will be covered in future articles.

Susan Gamsky heads the US team of patient coordinators at SRSTransformations.com located in Orlando, Florida USA.

This Article has been viewed 1,226 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.