When surgery goes wrong (again), and when trans life goes right

This may seem like a very odd subject for Easter Sunday, but it’s just that I have time to write and this is on my mind.

My aim in this post is to inform about negative consequences and encourage positive ones and general trans visibility. Those who have suffered are anonymous here and have their privacy preserved. Nevertheless I do feel that their experiences should be notified to the general community so that people can be well informed before making choices.

In summer 2013 I told you that a friend of mine had been to Charing Cross Hospital, Britain’s main centre for gender surgery, but things had not gone well - she had unravelled and got a serious infection: http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/when-surgery-goes-wrong.html

I recently saw another friend there who had just had her gender operation and within a few days of being sent home was back at the hospital being treated for a similar infection.

ALL of those I have seen at the hospital or with whom I have discussed gender surgery in detail have suffered serious fails: operations that went wrong, corrective surgery (which in one case also failed), abdominal infections and so forth. I don’t think this is coincidence. And I am sorry for those trans women and men who would like a physical relationship but can’t because of the inadequacies and failings of their surgery.

It is clear that more of this surgery goes wrong than is made public and I am concerned that this issue is played down by some trans advocates and support groups. I would say again to those contemplating surgery: this is not a simple procedure but major surgery involving serious physical trauma. The large majority of trans people don’t go for it and whilst this is likely to be mainly because the strength of their transness is not as great as that of those living as their preferred gender, there are some of us who are having real doubts that surgery is the best option. I’m not here to persuade or suggest, merely to inform you that surgery may cause you major problems, as witness my personal friends here.

Now to a positive note on transition and living a trans life. I must mention a few other friends who are doing wonderful things with their lives despite all the odds against them (and sorry if I embarrass you girls but I think you deserve praise):

- My friend Kimberley (no longer her name) who has featured a lot in my blog over the years and who will be living and working full time as female as of this week. A beautiful woman with great prospects. Good luck, honey.

- My friend Stella who again appears many times in my blog under her proper name and previous (experimental?) ones and who, from shy and nervous beginnings, is not only living and working full time and representing the trans community at employment fairs but is now a candidate in the forthcoming national election. It would be wonderful to have a transgender member of parliament in the UK as there has been in other places like Poland. Could that MP be Stella? I’d be thrilled if it was. You go, girl, and I’ll be listening to your result on election night. By the way, she also now has a smoochy boyfriend, which is a lovely thing. Here’s her campaign blog: http://greenstell.blogspot.co.uk/

- My friend Roz whom I mentioned last autumn http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/roz-white-transgender-writer.html who is now ‘out’ to her family who’ve taken it well and has recently launched a new edition of her transgender novel, The Sisterhood, and is offering editorial services. Roz writes so well and truthfully about the trans condition.

- Two bloggers, Lynn Jones and Hannah Gotta, who write such excellent blogs about the genuine realities of life as married TGirls http://yatgb.blogspot.co.uk/ and https://hannahgotta.wordpress.com/ . Both blogs contain such insightful truths expressed in very different ways. I think I’ll add my fun friend Bobby’s blog to this list as she’s just been highlighted on TCentral (and quite rightly, too) https://thebobbysoxblog.wordpress.com/. They’re on my blogroll to the right, of course. (By the way, these girls all look gorgeous, too.)

I’ll stop there or I’ll have to list all my friends because they all live amazing trans lives in one way or another.

You see, it was Transgender Day of Visibility on 31 March and it pained me not to be visible, but so many of my friends are, either because they are already living in the gender that’s right for them or because they are visible in public or online. The more of us who are out there in whatever small way we can be then the more we will be accepted as a regular part of society. I’m thrilled that trans people are standing for parliament but I will be even more thrilled when the fact that parliamentary candidates are transgender is less of a talking point than their policies. Little by little we’ll get there.

The is Sue Richmond reporting from Westminster...

Sue x