So, I’ve had complications from surgery and will catch up as soon as I can get back online properly and not be on a ridiculous amount of pain killers.
My hysto went really well, it’s just minor things that are keeping me in hospital at the moment and I shall return in the next couple of days to finish this whole thing off
This is the best time for me to post this, as on the 12th I will be undergoing a full hysterectomy and have had to deal with the gynecology department and over coming the weird looks you get as someone who is male presenting turning up in a primarily women’s environment.
I have never liked how gynecology has been. It’s pink, its covered in flowers and it is assumptive of all the sex you have (if you have it, is entirely straight). Even if I wasn’t someone who presented as male, I would be really fucking patronised about the pink obsession that goes into that clinical space. OK I’m talking about Brighton’s Gyno centre, but I’ve heard the same story in so many others by vagina owners across the board that it screams sexism and floral undertones. As someone who has visited recently I can honestly say there is a huge reason why so many people feel uncomfortable getting their cervical screenings done and check ups and it’s the building itself. That and so many gynos never chose the correct speculum sizes and just assume the regular will fit everyone. No. There is a range of sizes for a reason and smears should not be painful to experience. Slight discomfort sure, but if its painful then it’s being done wrong.
Trans men and non binary people need smear tests done if they still have a cervix. This isn’t up for debate, specific cancer screening for vagina owners needs to be open and accessible to ALL vagina owners and making buildings and staff unaware of trans people endangers lives. A trans man doesn’t not want to be misgendered whilst having an examination that could bring him dysphoria, just the same as women want to be treated fairly and pain free. I’m honestly shitting myself over my hysto cause they originally fucked up on what ward I would be staying at, and I don’t think neither myself or the women they wanted to put me in would feel comfortable. I believe I’m going in a private room, but fuck knows at this point.
I am really nervous about how I am going to be treated in hospital and I know that there are some really good nurses but there are also some really shit ones too. I’m nervous because I’m having to expose a part of me that I am not comfortable with being defined with. I am scared that I am going to have so much bleeding it will bring me bad dysphoria and I’m scared that I’m going to be misgendered even though I’ve had top surgery and facial hair now. Trans people shouldn’t be worried about how they are treated in hospitals but this is stuff that constantly goes through our minds because it happens all the time. But we need to change this.
We need to start making cancer screening and specific genital services actually accessible for trans people and not allow poor behavior stop them from accessing things that could save their lives. There should be a care for all patience and not just some of them. It shouldn’t be assumed that everyone is straight and they shouldn’t assume the genital lay out of the partners you sleep with either.
I hope that Thursday goes well for myself and I am not in hospital for long, because the longer I stay, the more likely I am to be treated like shit because I am trans.
When I first came out as transgender the first thing I wanted more than anything was a binder. No I don’t mean the plastic folders that have rings inside them that hold paper, I mean the item of clothing that compresses your chest to flatten it. I wanted to hide the 42 G monsters I had been cursed with. I knew that I needed to get rid of the very things that were causing me the biggest stress of them all. Getting my first binder was the most magical experience ever. Whilst my chest was still too big for me to “pass” 100%, I had more of a freedom to go out and be the authentic me, and not the person I had pretended to be for 25 years of my life. I got my very first binder in 2012 and in 2017 I had surgery that meant that I would never have to wear a binder again.
The day I had top surgery
Now, I wished this was how my story ended and I wished I could tell you how I progressed to lower surgery and I live my life as a “passing cis male” but that’s not how my story ended. In fact it is where it started. It had turned out after all that time, the only thing that had been keeping my spine in place for several years was my binder.
When you wear a binder, as well as it compressing your chest, it can often compress other parts of your body, such as your rib cage and spine. For years I had been experiencing severe shortness of breath as well as a painful spine. I had chalked this down to wearing a binder, the size of my chest causing huge pressure and a horse riding accident I had when I was in my very early 20s, so I pushed forward for my top surgery and after lots of bullshit and funding drops I finally got it done. What we didn’t know until about a month after my surgery was that my spine was actually moving and the hypermobility I had in my knees, and arms had progressed to my back. During that year I also suffered a serious seizure due to one me being epileptic and two me drinking excessively because a friend had just died. I have had seizures for years but this was the first time it had really start to affect my nervous system. We don’t know if it was because of how much I drank, whether other illnesses had a factor into it, or whether my brain just gave up fighting so hard, but I became seriously unwell.
I’m now a wheelchair user. My transition had become a bittersweet pill, because now I was finally becoming the comfortable masculine person I had always wanted to be, but after years of torturing my body of drink, drugs and self hate, I had broken myself. It was the most drawn out joke but the punchline had just been so terrible no one laughed. I however do not pity myself for this though.
Whilst things have been shit, it gave me a second chance in life where this time I actually didn’t give a fuck anymore. I was able to finally start realising that I needed to look after myself and that I needed to focus myself on life and being happy. Being forced to recognise that I am actually broken and disabled was the greatest thing that could have happened and if I never recover or if I even die tomorrow I would have no regrets in my life because I had actually lived.
Not many people can say they have lived many different lives in one body and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
So I finally hit my surgery anniversary and there is no balloons nor candles , nor do I feel even in the mood to celebrate getting rid of the one thing in my life that was causing me the most distress. Honestly it has just felt like every other period of my life throughout the past 12 months.
I mean yes, I’m fucking happy that they are banished from my life, but it has been the hardest pill to swallow. If you are new here (hi) it’s also the marking point where I was last physically well. This point is the pivotal moment when my body gave up on me and I spend a lot of my time going out in an electric chair. I am trying to look at the positives but I can tell you now it doesn’t end up all sunshine and rainbows for me at the end of the tunnel.
Believe me, I’m fucking happy with my results of surgery and I’m looking forward to my hysto next month but I am just so fucking tired all the time. I at least wanted a couple of good years with my body before it packed up on me. I just wanted to be a real boy â„¢ for at least a moment before I needed mobility aids.
I know you were kind of expecting something a little more positive, but I am just so tired of being trans and barely human anymore
Today I got my letter to say I’m getting my hysto and I’m really fucking hyped about this.
🎼say goodbye to babies
Seriously though I have been waiting for this letter for a solid couple of months now and I finally have a finishing point (?) to my transition. It’s been long over due but nearly at 31 years old I am nearly finished with all this bullshit.
Plus I’m moving on from shots to gel soon so that is going to make my life a million times easier now. So I’m quite excited about that.
I will post more news when I have a confirmed date, but womb has been given it’s final eviction notice, it is now time to leave
CN – Very frank discussions about drug addiction and feelings towards being sober
It has been over 10 years now since I have touched heroin and coming up to 8 years since I last smoked crack cocaine. I wanted to do this whole beautiful post about how being a recovered drug addict has improved my life and how wonderful being recovered actually is, but this isn’t some fucking fantasy and i will never be recovered, just in recovery.
I mean I dragged this post out for almost a good year or so because I was hoping that I could give you all some inspirational bullshit about how bright and shiney it all actually is but I think from this post I am beyond sugar coating it all for everyone.
Recovery has been really fucking hard. It’s like having this continued itch in the back of your mind that needs to be scratched. You don’t think I still do not want the sweet release for just a day? Fuck yes but it would ruin both my life and bank account to feel that warm blanket that feels like a kiss from god. You ever felt like you can take on the world? That’s what crack feels like but I am beyond broken to deal with the withdrawal it would just bring me.
It’s a day to day battle. And it’s not just the whole “delete numbers, cut contact, 12 step” battle you find written down, but AN ACTUAL STRUGGLE.
It’s having to maintain my pain levels based on whether medication will give me side affects that cause me to feel withdrawn again. It’s constantly looking in medication ingredients lists, and the panic knowing that you are going to have surgery and the automatic that they give you morphine to manage your pain, and just that small taste can bring it all fucking back to you. It is days when you are feeling depressed and you just need a pick me up or just something that will make you just feel OK to survive the day.
There are literally days where I beg being an addict at times again because life was easier. I didn’t need to care or worry, or even concern myself about trivial bollocks. I could just take heroin and crack, forget the world and go about my daily business. I joked to Kai that I had been a smack head and in recovery at clearly the wrong point in my life, because now, I wake up some days just needing it.
When I wake up and my joints ache like they did when I first went cold turkey is the utter worst part of this. The difference being is that it is because my body is now broken and I’m wise in myself not to touch anything opiate based unless it is an emergency. I hurt almost constantly and having addiction issues to the one thing that in times might actually help me, is the actual worst.
Would I take it back though? Would I fuck
My life is worth living and being a part of and being sober from all of this made me more human than I could ever imagine. I found myself, my love, my passions. I mean sure, I have shit days and REALLY SHIT DAYS but isn’t that what both life and recovery is honestly about?
So this year, at the beginning of August marked 5 years of me officially coming out as trans.
5 fucking years this has been going on for and whilst I have found this a wonderful journey, it is something that I would not wish upon anyone. Yes I am happy, yes this is what I have always wanted but the confusion, the physical endurance, the surgery panic and a loss of friends has taken it’s toll on me.
I still have my hysterectomy to be booked and sorted but that’s officially it for me. Having top surgery and a wonderful consultation with the amazing Dr Lorrimer also managed to clear my head in regards to my own gender identity and I came out as Agender earlier in the year. I also came out as gay also, as I realised that me being bisexual just didn’t fit anymore. I’m attracted to masculine folk and I’m masc/andro presenting and masc/andro gender identified so gay is in all honestly how I see myself.
Hormones have been still the burden of my life, I still do find them a bit of a drain but I’m doing much better than I was. On a scale, I’m about 4/5 of the way through puberty and my skin has cleared up at least, but losing my hair has been quite upsetting.
Top surgery was this year though, and that was good. I decided not to bother with getting my nipples tattooed in the end, but it means I don’t have to worry so much about getting my chest tattooed. I will be probably having a revision as one side is slightly wonky, but the results past that have been AMAZING. I couldn’t have asked for more to be honest.
I look forward to the final changes that I do have in myself, and that I hope that one day I can grow a reasonable beard.
Till then I’ve just got these facepubes to contend with. At least it’s something though.
As the years progress I hope I finally find peace with my ever changing, constant breaking body, and next year I hope that my medical transition is complete.
Now I know that cishet people probably get a little fucked off by the amount I go on and on about their frustrations. If you are cisgender and heterosexual, relax this gripe isn’t with you for once. You can sit back with a coffee and a snack and read how a trans persons mad at trans people.
Yes! Shock! Horror! A trans person is actually mad about their own kind. What sweet fuckery is this? Well I will tell you. My nipples, or lack off. That’s what’s wrong.
You see, there is this bullshit idealistic view that many binary trans men have when it comes to top surgery. Nipples should always be attached, regardless of why you should choose not no have them grafted on to your own body.
When I got given my top surgery options I flat out said from the start that I was planning not to keep my nipples. This was for several reasons, one was due to my personal view on how the results are and another was that my body is terrible and an aesthetic skin graft would more likely end up with a serious infection and most likely rejection, so I would need to get them tattooed on regardless. My surgeon fully agreed with me on this.
Before I had top surgery I was getting pressured by trans guys to keep my nipples because:
* It would look too weird and gross
* It would ruin my sex life
* I would regret it
*Tattooed nipples don’t look realistic
* It doesn’t look natural
I was actually quite surprised that trans guys were shaming other trans and non binary people for not wanting or physically being unable to have nipple grafts. Regardless of what people thought though, I binned the nips.
A couple of weeks have passed and I have already started getting pressure on me getting them tattooed. Can’t my body fucking heal first? I have just been cut open. My lack of nipples have suddenly been brought to light because it’s not the norm. No it’s not.
What’s not been acceptable is that I have been pressured to get them put back on. That my body should suddenly be dictated and that a tattoo for aesthetic reasons must be done immediately so I don’t make the community look like freaks. They are not an importance to me, but they are to everyone else. I’m sick of people saying that it’s weird, gross and unnatural to not have nipples. I’m more upset that it’s coming from my own goddamn community and this pressure has to stop.
Top surgery is entirely different for everyone, and the results vary from person to person. Today I got shamed because my scar lines are far too uneven and I must have had some serious complications. Again I must stress that I’m only just two weeks in, and I’m seriously swollen on one side, but that’s normal.
I had to educate trans people that top surgery isn’t always a straight line across, and that the chances are really slim for someone to get the perfect cut across unless they started off as perfectly even chested to begin with. Being able to hide scaring is an actual privilege and a lot of trans guys shouldn’t be shamed because their bodies do not look perfect or fit a certain criteria.
There is some serious toxic masculinity bullshit going on in binary trans masculine spaces and it does damage young trans people with unrealistic body expectations. I post my pictures unedited in groups because they look like what they are and myself (and other trans people) will get moaned at because it looks painful and sore. Of course its sore. It’s fucking surgery. No one is trying to put people off it, we are just showing you what the reality is, and not filtered edited bullshit stories with unrealistic body types.
Surgery hurts, treatment hurts. But would I do it all over again and do the same things, fuck yeah!
So here I am 4 days post op surgery. I finally got the shits removed from my chest.
The surgery itself was a success. There was no complications going under or even during recovery. So much so, I was able to leave 5 hours after I had been put under. I am honestly so happy about everything. Well kind of… The fucking hospital was fucking disgusting and treated Kai and myself like shit because I’m trans. They also put my notes down as miss, even though they were corrected many MANY times. It was that bad that my surgeon was grossed out by the teams behaviour and a serious complaint will be put in.
However, my tits are finally gone, the weight has vanished off my chest and I feel so much better already. I can’t wait till I’m fully recovered. My nipple tattoos should be put on in a couple of months which is exciting too.
Overall I’m just so happy about it all.
Today is about asking me what is the one thing I want in life. This also follows on from my news that I received this morning.
What I really want, the one thing, is to have my top surgery being done this year. Today I got closer to that as I got sent the provisional date for my surgery. Honestly I’m so fucking hyped for it, and I couldn’t have wanted anything else.
Tyler Charles Austen 