There’s a lot going on in my life right now so here’s a little update.

This week I’m headed down to San Francisco to do consults with 2 possible surgeons for vaginoplasty (bottom surgery). I’m seeing Dr. Heidi Wittenberg and Dr. Thomas Satterwhite, the two surgeons I know of who specialize in nonbinary surgical procedures. Ironically, now that the procedure I always thought I wanted, penile preservation vaginoplasty, is possible, I’ve realized that I most likely want a standard penile inversion technique. Especially now that I’ve been on estrogen, my desire to use my penis has disappeared and my dysphoria around it has increased. I’ve also realized that I enjoy using a harness a lot more than my own parts and having a vagina with full depth for penetration is more important. I still want to talk with these surgeons specifically because they are specialists in a variety of techniques and can talk to me about my options in a way that isn’t focused on a binary transition path or assumption. I’ll post an update about what I learned when I get back.

I’m doing the research now on how to change my name and gender marker on my identity documents. It’s a way more complicated process than it should be with a lot of dependencies and some required letters from physicians. I thought that changing my middle name would be sufficient but I’ve realized now that in a lot of medical settings I still have to use my old name and it’s getting old fast. Now I just need to settle on a new middle name…

I’ve started trying out she/her pronouns again to see how I feel about them. Last time I tried it just felt like a painful reminder of how far I was from that ideal but I’m starting to find now that I’m pretty obviously a transfeminine person, a lot of people are defaulting to that and I think it might be easier to get people to use my pronouns if I switched, especially my parents.

I also just finished my 4th laser hair removal session for my face and I feel so much better now! I no longer constantly have stubble and I only need to shave what little I have every other day which makes my skin a lot happier too. I think I will probably only do one or two more sessions before I switch back to electrolysis to get the really stubborn hairs under my nose and under my lip.

I continue to hate my braces with a burning passion and can’t stand how my smile looks in photos right now. But with any luck, my next surgery will be in December and then I can get the braces off in June next year. I’m planning my next surgery for July next summer hopefully so this time next year I should be nearing the end of my intense phase of transition.

My libido is still abysmally low so I’m going to talk to my doctor at the end of the month about adding progesterone to see if that makes a difference. For some people it helps and others it makes it worse. The added bonus is that it might give me a boost on breast growth.

Well that ended up being longer than I thought but that’s what’s going on right now.