#gonadectomy

[thethcministry]

[theforesteldritch]

Reading about how intersex athletes have been treated is so fucking horrible. The countless lies and human rights violations. The discrimination and how it's ruined the lives of so many people is so awful. There has been no apologies from any athletics comptetions or organizations. They have blood on their hands. Just a tw for intersexism and mental health issues and suicide in the next paragraph because it can get pretty heavy.

Annet Negesa, who was a middle distance runner. She was suddenly barred from competing due to her hormones. No one told her why. She was then told she needed to take medication to lower her testosterone, then what she was told was switched. She was lied to about a surgery that she was told was like an injection and would let her compete again. She woke up with scars and had had a gonadectomy. That violation of basic human rights and medical ethics combined with inadequate postsurgical care basically ended her career. She deserves justice. She deserves apologies from the Olympics and everyone single doctor who was involved in it, and compensation and the promise that it should never have happened and will never happen again. She. Needs. Justice.

Pratima Gaonkar needs justice. She was a rising track and field star. After forced sex verificatiom she killed herself. The way media and news treated her after her death was disgusting. She deserves and needs justice. Her family deserves justice.

Santhi Soundarajan had her medals stripped and was treated as an outcast after forced sex verification showed she had androgen insensitivity syndrome. She was treated as an outcast, her gender was mocked. She's spoken out about how much discrimination she's faced, and how badly she's been treated. She now works as a coach, but was barred from competing. She deserves justice.

Caster Semenya deserves justice. Francine Niyonsaba deserves justice. Margaret Wambui deserves justice. Barbra Banda deserves justice. Beatrice Masilingi and Christine Mboma deserve justice.

The racism and intersexism and horrible human rights violations and medical abuse these women have faced for the supposed crime of being intersex and good at a sport is horrible. They deserve justice, but the organizations that perpetuate these atrocities don't seem to care. It's so fucking horrible.

[queerism1969]

Notable transgender people from history

Here's the list I put together for when people on non-trans subreddits claim we didn't exist until recently:

Ashurbanipal (669-631BCE) - King of the Neo-Assryian empire, who according to Diodorus Siculus is reported to have dressed, behaved, and socialized as a woman.

Elagabalus (204-222) - Roman Emperor who preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, presented as a woman, called herself her lover's queen and wife, and offered vast sums of money to any doctor able to make her anatomically female.

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (1286-1328) - French Jewish philosopher who wrote poetry about longing to be a woman.

Eleanor Rykener (14th century) - trans woman in London who was questioned under charges of sex work

[Thomas(ine) Hall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas(ine)_Hall) - (1603-unknown) - English servant in colonial Virginia who alternated between presenting as a woman and presenting as a man, before a court ruled that they were both a man and a woman simultaneously, and were required to wear both men's and women's clothing simultaneously.

Chevalier d'Eon (1728-1810) - French diplomat, spy, freemason, and soldier who fought in the Seven Years' War, who transitioned at the age of 49 and lived the remaining 33 years of her life as a woman.

Public Universal Friend (1752-1819) - Quaker religious leader in revolutionary era America who identified and lived as androgynous and genderless.

Surgeon James Barry (1789-1865) - Trans man and military surgeon in the British army.

Berel - a Jewish trans man who transitioned in a shtetel in Ukraine in the 1800's, and whose story was shared with the Jewish Daily Forward in a 1930 letter to the editor by Yeshaye Kotofsky, a Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn who knew Berel

Mary Jones (1803-unknown) - trans woman in New York whose 1836 trial for stealing a man's wallet received much public attention

Albert Cashier (1843-1915) - Trans man who served in the US Civil War.

Harry Allen (1882-1922) - Trans man who was the subject of sensationalistic newspaper coverage for his string of petty crimes.

Lucy Hicks Anderson (1886–1954) - socialite, chef and hostess in Oxnard California, whose family and doctors supported her transition at a young age.

Lili Elbe (1882-1931) - Trans woman who underwent surgery in 1930 with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who ran one of the first dedicated medical facilities for trans patients.

Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) - Trans man who underwent reconstructive surgery (the details of which are not known) in 1906, and was legally recognized as male in Germany in 1907.

Dr. Alan Hart (1890-1962) - Groundbreaking radiologist who pioneered the use of x-ray photography in tuberculosis detection, and in 1917 he became one of the first trans men to undergo hysterectomy and gonadectomy in the US.

[Louise Lawrence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Lawrence_(activist)) (1912–1976) - trans activist, artist, writer and lecturer, who transitioned in the early 1940's. She struck up a correspondence with the groundbreaking sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey as he worked to understand sex and gender in a more expansive way. She wrote up life histories of her acquaintances for Kinsey, encouraged peers to do interviews with him, and sent him a collection of newspaper clippings, photographs, personal correspondences, etc.

Dr. Michael Dillon (1915-1962) - British physician who updated his birth certificate to Male in the early 1940's, and in 1946 became the first trans man to undergo phalloplasty.

Reed Erickson (1917-1992) - trans man whose philanthropic work contributed millions of dollars to the early LGBTQ rights movement

Willmer "Little Ax" Broadnax (1916-1992) - early 20th century gospel quartet singer.

Peter Alexander (unknown, interview 1937) - trans man from New Zealand, discusses his transition in this interview from 1937

Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) - The first widely known trans woman in the US in 1952, after her surgery attracted media attention.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (1940-present) - Feminist, trans rights and gay rights activist who came out and started transition in the late 1950's. She was at Stonewall, was injured and taken into custody, and had her jaw broken by police while in custody. She was the first Executive Director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, which works to end human rights abuses against trans/intersex/GNC people in the prison system.

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer and community worker in NYC; co-founded STAR, a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women

Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer; co-founded STAR with Sylvia Rivera

[genderkoolaid]

Is there anywhere I can read more about nonbinary medical transitions? I’ve never heard about it before, but as a cis woman, I am trying to educate myself about the issues others face and make sure that I don’t perpetuate myths / falsehoods.

Anything else that you think could help me understand about being non binary too would be appreciated. Again, I’m learning as I go.

Thank you.

Phallo.net and metoidioplasty.net both have sections on nonbinary bottom surgery; I don't know if they have sister sites for vulval/vaginal-making surgeries. transfemscience.org has an article on nonbinary estrogen HRT options.

Some basics on nonbinary* medical transitions:

Nonbinary people can want any or all of the same things a binary trans person can want out of medical transition. We should be allowed to get any or all of the same treatments a binary person can get without having to lie about who we are.

(Also its just generally important to remember that abinary people (those who do not identify as men or women) are only part of "nonbinary" which can include a wide variety of men, women, menwomen, womenmen, others and etc.)

Hormones: Some people will go on HRT for a certain period of time to get some effects, and then go off it (or switch to a different kind, if they've had a gonadectomy) to get other effects. Some people will go on a lower dose of hormones to get effects slower or to a lesser extent. Some people will use certain hormones to counteract certain effects (for example, DHT blockers inhibit androgenic hair loss & growth, SERMS inhibit breast growth)

Surgery: Some people will transition by getting sterilized a way cis people typically do (hysterectomy, vasectomy, gonadectomies). Some people will get breast reduction but not removal. Some people will get breast implants. Some trans people will only get "part" of bottom surgery (vaginectomy, orchiectomy). Some people will get both a penis and a vagina (through phallo/meta or peritoneal pull through vaginoplasty). Some people will get a large clitoris or a small penis. Some people will get "nulloplasty" and remove external genitals entirely.

*nonbinary here not so much referring to gender identity as much as medical processes that are used to actively creating an outside-the-binary body.

[intersex-support]

hi! i have known i am intersex for a while now but it wasn't until recently that i learned i possibly had surgery done on me as an infant, as i had to stay in the hospital for a few extra days for supposed lung issues when i cried just fine, and did find out later i am intersex. that being said, i know one tell tale way of knowing is looking for scarring or anything else off. i tried really hard to look online for any indication of what exactly to look for or what scarring might look like 25 years after the fact, but found nothing. i had my partner look and she really couldn't tell since she didn't know what she was looking for. on someone who has a vagina, what would be some defining features to look for? i already know my enlarged clitoris and inner labia are related to me being intersex, i am just looking for signs of surgery having been done!

Hi anon 💜

Unfortunately, I have a really hard time answering asks about how to tell exactly what scarring looks like, and I wish I had better resources and answers to share. Part of this is because scars look different on everyone depending on what type of surgery you potentially received, how long it's been, and also just depending on your body. I don't feel comfortable linking to medical journals with surgery or scarring photos, because most of those are all children and I have serious doubts about whether doctors actually received consent for that kind of medical photography, and I don't want to continue to perpetuate that exploitation. I'm familiar with what some types of scars look like, but I have a very hard time trying to figure out how to put it into words in a way that makes sense.

This recent ask from someone else trying to figure out answers about surgery talks a little bit more about the types of intersex surgeries, if you are interested in researching more in depth in the medical literature about those surgeries. It can also be easier to find results of some of those surgeries (such as vaginoplasty) that were performed on consenting trans adults in places like reddit, transbucket, etc. I'll also say that gonadectomy scars are usually more visible and higher up on your pelvis or abdomen, rather than on your genitalia.

Even if you're not really able to visibly determine if you have scarring, sometimes we can figure out that we have scar tissue--either external or internal--based on the sensory experience, sensation, pain, factors like that.

If you've had frequent UTIs, that can be another piece of the puzzle.

Researching your medical records can also be another way to try to get more information, but I know how difficult that process can be.

I wish I had better resources or answers to share with you, but I'm sending so, so much love and solidarity. I know that for many people exploring the possibility of surgery can be an emotional and overwhelming process, and we're always here if you need to vent, need support, advice, anything. Truly wishing you the best, anon, and I hope you're able to find the answers you're looking for.

💜💜💜

[ashekirk]

Tomorrow I get to find out whether my gonadectomy is going to be a simple or complex surgery. Yay?

Either way I have never had surgery before and that makes me nervous.

[ect0-writes]

Writing Stantzler fanfiction will have you reading a medical article from the 60s about the process of a gonadectomy in transsexual males.

[myragewillendworlds]

98% of adolescents who started puberty suppression and subsequently hormone treatment, continued with gender-affirming medical treatment at follow-up around age 20.

In the Netherlands, treatment with puberty suppression is available to transgender adolescents younger than age 18 years. When gender dysphoria persists, testosterone or oestradiol can be added as gender-affirming hormones in young people who go on to transition. We investigated the proportion of people who continued gender-affirming hormone treatment at follow-up (approx. 3-6 years) after having started puberty suppression and gender-affirming hormone treatment in adolescence.

720 people were included in the study. 704 (98%) people who had started gender-affirming medical treatment in adolescence continued to use gender-affirming hormones at follow-up.

Age at first visit, year of first visit, age and puberty stage at start of GnRHa treatment, age at start of gender-affirming hormone treatment, year of start of gender-affirming hormone treatment, and gonadectomy were not associated with discontinuing gender-affirming hormones.

[theforesteldritch]

having to get a bone density scan because you’re at high risk for it while not being an old lady over the age of 60 is so funny to me because one of the questions on the form they gave me was something about how long I’d been in menopause. Buddy the period hasn’t and never will start to begin with, forget it stopping. Even for like the physiological symptoms of menopause I’d probably only get them if I had to get my gonads removed and then didn’t go on HRT (which I’m not planning to do. Because not going on HRT after gonadectomy would be Bad and I also want to avoid gonadectomy in the first place if possible). Some of us who are at a higher risk for osteoporosis aren’t little old ladies dammit! (admittedly not the majority given that I think the majority of those referred for bone density scans are little old ladies. But I’m 18. And was 17 when this happened. So)

[intersex-support]

Hi, thank you sm for running this blog

I wanted to ask if you maybe had any resources to figure out if like, natal surgeries to "fix" intersex traits were done to someone?

I don't have acess to a doctor atm and I'm worried I might have genital scarring. Ik it's a legally mandatory practice here if the kid is intersex, but I can't find any resources on my own

Thank you so much again, sorry if my language isn't appropriate, I'm still new to this

Content note: discussion of genitalia and surgery

Hi anon,

Hope you're doing well. Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of resources out there, but I can try to share what I have. A lot of this will depend on what kind of variation you have and what kind of surgery might have happened.

One thing that can sometimes be a sign that you've had intersex surgery is if you had to see a urologist a lot as a kid, or if your medical records show that you went to a urologist as a baby. If you ever remember having any unexplained surgeries that might have been explained as for removing a cancer risk, or for fixing urinary function, or things like that, sometimes intersex surgeries are put in the medical record under those terms instead.

This article has a photo of an intersex adults scars from a surgery they had as a kid. This study has diagrams of clitoroplasty (tw for cissexist language, medical talk, and genital surgery diagrams). The intersex reddit has some people sharing photos or discussing scars in a way that might be helpful. If you have genital scar tissue, another way to notice it might be if you have a lot of unexplained pain down there or issues with urination such as frequent UTIs. In general, if you want to search to do your own research, the most common types of intersex surgery are gonadectomy, clitoroplasty, clitoral recession, vaginoplasty, hypospadias repair, and sometimes phalloplasty.

Sending all the good wishes your way, anon, and please feel free to come back if you have any other questions we can help answer.

💜💜💜

[paynomindtomyidiocy]

Goddamnit I’m so fucking hungry

Ugh going into surgeryyyy in like a few hours so won’t be active for probably the rest of today dhfjfjdhsjf idk

[purplewitchi-v]

Because I wanted to just add this. The first mtf surgery was performed in 1922, by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlins institute for sexual research on Dora Richter. She was a member of the German Parliament and a press officer for the Communist Party of Germany.

Gillies first ftm surgery was in 1946 and he started plastic surgery treatment in 1917. The first known trans surgery happened in the US in 1917, Alan L. Hart, an American tuberculosis specialist, became one of the first trans men to undergo hysterectomy and gonadectomy as treatment of what is now called gender dysphoria.[26]

It makes me so, so angry when I see those posts that are like "HORRIFYING EARLY PLASTIC SURGERY RESULTS FROM WW2," because all of those lists are full of images that aren't the final result and are used for pure shock value. Harold Gillies, who performed most of those surgeries, was an incredibly talented surgeon. Here are some images of the full results of his surgeries.

I need to emphasize that I can't post the "before" pictures that go with these because the men did not have faces. The injuries were so extensive that these men were missing nearly all of their facial features, and through cutting-edge techniques that "looked scary" at the time (e.g. extensive skin grafts), Gillies saved these men from a medical nightmare.

Gillies performed the world's first ftm bottom surgery for trans man Michael Dillon and pioneered mtf bottom surgery! Respect his legacy.

[epochryphal]

just saw someone crediting me for coining xenogenital and clicked through to a post where i indeed mark it as i coined it, and

i completely fucking forgot that i did

doubly hilarious given i was just thinking “i bet all these definitions focusing on Imagination are just same phenomenon as quoi and originally it was more nuanced and could indeed fit Transition” (answer: yes)

apparently i originally described it as Conceptualizing and linked it to alien… whereas now i would emphasize it as a Relationship To Body and that it should be understood as agnostic about physical transition/modification, but certainly not understood as Unaltered or as Just Fun Fiction Narrative (nor about “always a dream, alas, definitely physically impossible, mustn’t get hopes up, let’s preempt any innovation and always specify it is hopeless wish”)

which of course is the whole. issue. and probably requires more intentional careful pushback (but also, is simplification and flattening just inevitable)

how do we open up the cognitive space to think about “hey, some people have genital setups that don’t occur naturally”

(without activating dysphoria and anti-trans cooptation along the lines of “-plasty surgery results are never ~real~ genitals”)

and this is where eunuchs and nullos are obvious but often forgotten examples. assumed archaic, or always only coercive. no thought about changes in healthcare experience or needs (eg risk of osteoporosis after gonadectomy unless on a hormone therapy; i wonder what preventative care some folks may still need and get denied because it’s tied into assumptions about organ inventories; how much does disgust reaction activate and prevent life-saving care)

but even then, how do we avoid the sort of “male / female / neuter” trinary?

i’ve been about removal (literally, blockers-and-ectomies) of sexed organs and tissue and traits, and it’s led me to yearn for transmutation into something visibly notably unrecognizable

and i don’t know what “not penis, not vagina, not a smooth doll crotch either; not scrotum, not labia, not smooth skin either” looks like, still — even as i literally have it, lmao.

like… how does this visually, conceptually (there’s the original word i used again) register? and how do we create the possibility to register something new? something possible. literally able to be noted/noticed.

i think a lot of xenobio designs focus on the physically humanly impossible for the foreseeable future - prehensile, especially.

probably all of this is very directly tied to phallocentrism. and it generates a binary yes/no, where further details are irrelevant (beyond coercive intervention to reinforce and reify that binary).

and anyway for all discussion there’s this looming spectre of “it’s sexual harrassment to discuss your own genitals, tmi inappropriate predatory creepy, can’t hide behind the veneer of fictional and have to be explicit (anything less gets misunderstood and elided back into penis/vagina/neuter) so that makes it real life sexual boundary crossing” - when uh how does one “get consent” to arguing with a paradigm of what can/does exist

mm. i threw this in my drafts for two weeks trying to think further and/or encourage myself to Formalize this into a bigger Plea For Paradigm Shift Around Genital Reality, and i hope i’ll be able to articulate that better in the near future but i’m gonna share this now as is

[ceescedasticity]

I don't generally go looking for omegaverse fic so for all I know there's a thriving subgenre, but you know what I've never run into? Gonadectomy. Bam, true heats and ruts gone forever.

I first thought of this in relation to that post about short lifespans in alphas due to rut stress — well, here's a way to lengthen that lifespan. Have the kids you want, then bow out and live as a beta.

It might not be safe until development of modern surgical methods for… whoever has internal gonads. (Five minutes of internet research suggests spaying for pets became available in the 1930s.) It might not be legal for omegas, that would fit with some common worldbuilding. But it's there.

(And my mind went to voluntary gonadectomy first, but… I suspect any non-utopian society is going to at least have a history of involuntary gonadectomy. Vulnerable populations have been involuntarily sterilized in the real world where there is considerably less concrete advantage in it.)

[theforesteldritch]

I was thinking about like. Medical stuff I’ve been through relating to being intersex. And I thought oh it’s not been that bad but looking back so far a lot of it has actually been pretty traumatic and messed up and I just didn’t have the capacity to deal with it at the time. Like how even though it was consensual and the doctor wasn’t bad and was quick and relatively respectful the genital exam I had was horrible, lying there in a hospital gown while a doctor looks at your genitals quickly sucks at the best of times but I’d just gotten the official diagnosis and she told me at the end that my vagina was shorter than usual and asked if I wanted to try dialating. That was horrible to experience. And then the thing that fucks me the most up is while I was having a biopsy done of my gonads apparently the doctor did a genital exam again and I didn’t find out until after, I never said yes to that and my mom asked about it and the doctor said she’d just forgot to tell me and I tried to brush it off at the time because of all the shit I was going through with accepting myself as intersex but again looking back that was a horrible violation of privacy but honestly even if I knew how I don’t think I’d want to do anything about that specific instance because it’s not worth what I’d have to go through to try to figure it out. And then the time the X-ray tech when I was having a bone mineral density scan done repeatedly asked me if I was on hormone blockers when I told her what I was in for even after I told her no I’m just like that. And how I had to fight to even keep my gonads at all and do a biopsy instead because my doctor was recommending a gonadectomy hard and I’m so fucking glad I found the intersex subreddit when I did because they helped me realize that that wasn’t the only option. And how my mom wanted me to get them out too at first (she’s always respected that it’s my descision and is more on board with my plan now but I still. It sucked). And while I was going through all that I was just trying to get through and figure my shit out and didn’t want to deal with the mental side of things and now it’s just all crashing down on me. Holy shit that was fucked up. And the care I’ve gotten could be considered fucking exemplary care compared to what other intersex people face. It’s just. A lot to deal with Just. Never forget that when intersex activists in 1996 protested how the American academy of pediatrics was treating us they were ignored and ridiculed. And today despite all advances in the fight for our rights there’s still so much change that must happen.

[capybarad]

Excellent twitter thread re: the UK government’s conversion therapy bill from @AlisonTunley:

Twitter does not lend itself to nuance or subtlety, but legislative proposals and clinical best practice are ill-served by simplistic sloganeering. So, let me optimistically use Twitter to try to unpack the conflicting views on the govt's conversion therapy bill.

Apologies in advance for another epic thread, but hopefully this will underscore that differences of opinion on the wisdom of the proposed conversion therapy legislation are not a case of "pure, cold-eyed evil" (thanks Philip Pullman) versus enlightened progressives.

Those questioning the bill have immersed themselves in the detail: consultation documents, multiple reference studies, a range of responses pro & contra, the interim Cass Review. Before you dismiss them, do them the honour of a similar breadth of research.

The first thing to understand is that people with qualms about the transgender aspect of the bill are not "in favour of conversion therapy". (Sigh - this should be obvious, but Twitter loves a cheap insult, so it needs saying.)

A vital question to ask is whether the term "conversion therapy" is even applicable in this context, but to answer that we need to address a more fundamental problem: what did the original proposals mean by "being transgender".

The lack of definitional clarity over what is meant by "being transgender" is the crux of the problem with the entire bill. The question for legislators is how to define "being transgender" so they could outlaw attempts to convert someone to or from this state.

There are a couple of options. One is to tie a definition to "having gender dysphoria", but this is not popular with trans lobby groups who seek to de-medicalise trans (while simultaneously demanding easier access to "trans healthcare").

Any definition of "being transgender" that links to gender dysphoria quickly reveals the risk of the bill impinging on holistic therapeutic support for people in distress. This is unlikely to wash, especially as Cass acknowledges the multiple causes of gender incongruence.

The second option for defining "being transgender" is to link it to having a "gender" (i.e. a "gender identity") that does not match the individual's sex. The belief/lack of belief in an internal "gender identity" cuts to the heart of the current sex/gender debate.

Legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in the statute a belief-based system (that we all have an internal "gender identity") & requiring everyone to subscribe to that belief. "Gender identity" currently has no status in UK law: introducing it is a serious step.

Crucially, protecting trans people against discrimination does not require "gender identity": the protected characteristic "gender reassignment" in the Equality Act offers protection without this concept. The Gender Recognition Act does not refer to "gender identity".

Nor does explaining and treating gender dysphoria require a belief that everyone has an internal gender that can be misaligned from our sex. This is important: not all trans or gender dysphoric people subscribe to gender identity theory or find it helpful.

Still, you might say that no-one should be pressurised in or out of their personal identity, whether that's a belief in an internal gender or anything else. But there is a major caveat for "gender identity": namely medicalisation. This particular identity has consequences.

No other aspect of individual identity is tied to lifelong medicalisation and irrevocable surgical interventions, with gender identity advocates declaring that children can be so sure of their inner gender that age should be no barrier to such decisions.

Slogans about being your "authentic self" or trans being "a sacred journey of becoming whole" (looking at you, senior church leaders) skip conveniently over the paltry clinical evidence for cross-sex hormone treatments & double mastectomies or the risks of gonadectomy.

The NHS NICE surveys of GnRH analogues and cross-sex hormones are not a pithy read, and the conclusion that the available evidence is very weak does not make for a catchy tweet to garner likes or a clickable newspaper headline.

The medical consequences of a trans declaration mean the utmost caution is required to legislate here. I'm no fan of the current government, but at least they have realised that bad legislation, no matter how well-meaning, comes with reputational damage and can cause harm.

Mounting evidence from desisters/detransitioners undermines claims that "being transgender" is just something you are & not subject to external influence or likely to change. We ignore their accounts at our peril.

Cass describes how "parents and carers play a huge role and are instrumental in helping young people to keep open their developmental opportunities." As originally proposed, the bill risked making such interventions prosecutable as "attempts at conversion".

Criminalising parents who reject the idea that their child's distress is caused by a misaligned internal gender identity would have had the potential for immense harm. It's not catchy, but complexity rarely is.