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I have conflicted feelings about having cosmetic surgery (facial feminization in particular), and didn't think I'd want it when I started transitioning, but lately I find myself thinking about it every day.
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Passing A: strangers usually default to your preferred pronouns without being corrected. Passing B: people usually don't notice you're trans until it's pointed out to them. Passing C: people usually can't distinguish you from a cis person, even if they have an eye out for it.
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Passing A is available to most trans people with enough time, resources and effort. I consistently A-pass (sorry for made-up jargon). Passing B is something I want and don't have. Passing C is not available even as a lifetime goal to most of us, I think including me.
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My desire to B-Pass raises some uncomfortable questions. If strangers usually don't misgender me (and usually they don't)—why should I care whether or not they can tell I'm trans? Is it bad to be trans?
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This is particularly a worry since I'm a fairly public and visible trans person. Shouldn't I be proud to be trans? Shouldn't I be modeling trans-positive thinking and behavior?
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Beneath the cosmetic fussing is a philosophical question about what being trans means to me. When I'm being absolutely honest with myself, I have to ask: deep down, don't I in fact wish I were a cis woman? (an impossible wish)
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Trans people usually like to think that by transitioning we are expressing some inherent inner truth—not imitating cis people. But what is it I'm trying to accomplish by changing my voice, clothes, endocrinology? Am I expressing what's already there or am I changing what's there?
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If I could wave a magic wand and be transformed into a cis woman would I do it? Intellectually: hm interesting question I'd have to think about that Emotionally: yes, of course, god yes
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The worry is this: if what I'm doing is trying to approximate cis womanhood then isn't the trajectory of the whole project doomed, since the best case scenario is an ongoing asymptotic approach to an unreachable goal? For that reason I hope that's not what I'm doing.
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I have a deep fear that dysphoria is a spiral of doom that I can never outrun. I look back at myself six months ago and think "God, how did I even make it through one day looking like that, sounding like that." In fact, my dysphoria was no worse then than it is now.
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Has my dysphoria been alleviated? In some significant ways, yes. But it also has an insidious way of returning in more sophisticated form. It's like a devil speaking: "Fine, so your skin is softer and your voice is higher. Well done. Too bad about that facial structure though..."
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So the question is: will cosmetic surgery actually help with this? Or is it just the next stage of this terrible arms race I'm waging against my own mind?
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End of conversation
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the wild thing about the whole conversation is that, like if we were better at manipulating bodies, faces, top and bottom surgery that would literally help everyone? like no one would not want that, if it didn't kind of suck and kind of not go far enough?
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I imagine there would be a lot less people questioning whether they're trans because they're reluctant to transition.
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