This is an archive of Rafe's story and his diary documenting his top surgery and revisions between 1997 - 2001Here is a little personal information to get to know me better
Hello. I am a 29 year old female to male transgendered person (FTM). What that means, for those of you who are not familiar, is that my outside appearance is not 'in sync' with what I feel inside. Does this mean that I just want to be a man? No, this means that I already am but my body does not neccessarily reflect this.
I began the transformation of my outer body to fit my inner one in the fall of 1997. For some of us, this can be a long, and arduous path. This can include seeing a therapist for many months, waiting for what seems like forever for that letter from one's therapist to start hormones. I received my letter to start hormones in August 1997, and have been progressing at what seems like a lightening quick speed. (thanks to all those people who have gone before me and provided me with their stories and resources) For you see, many of us have known for many, many years that we do not necessarily fit our outside bodies or prescribed gender role.
So how does one come to this realization? Well, I started off as a 'tomboy', which many of us FTMs do. The only thing was, I never grew out of my 'phase'. My mother was a tomboy too, but she blossomed into a beautiful, happy woman. I have always felt like a boy/man well on into my adulthood. I believe that my friends saw me as embodying a male persona as well. Many of my friends to whom I've come out say that they were not a bit surprised. One of my friends exclaimed,"Well, it's about time." So much for trying to hide all of this.
Puberty was of course a very difficult time for me, as I could not 'pass' as a boy anymore. This is usually a very grueling time for a TG and my experience was no different. I suffered much depression and still do, but I never really understood why until I came to the realization that my body was betraying me. This was a long and rocky path, to say the least. During this time, I tried to do the 'normal' adolescent things like go to prom (twice if you can believe that) and have a boyfriend (as long as he didn't touch me or want to have sexual relations with me.). None of this felt good to me, of course, but I just wanted to fit in.
It wasn't until my senior year of high school that something finally gave. I fell into a deep dark hole of depression, gave up trying to fit in as a woman, and began dressing how I wanted to. It was also at this time that I stopped shaving all of my body hair (boy, if that doesn't make one popular fast!). I thought that all of my problems would be solved if I left the country to study for a while. So after I graduated, I left to go study in Europe for a year. Little did I know that all of my problems were to follow me wherever I went.
After barely surviving that year, I came home to go to college, while my depression continued. I behaved and dressed very masculine in college. FTMs can get away with crossdressing much more easily than MTFs because it is actually socially acceptable for women to dress more masculine. Many people thought I was a lesbian. I experimented with both women and men sexually, but I thought I was probably just asexual because I couldn't care less about either one. I just wanted to be left alone. I thought that my only problem was that I just didn't have enough positive, strong, feminist, female role models in my life. I spent nearly all my years of college as a raging feminist activist........you know, spray paint, flyers, marches, going out at night with droves of women stalking campus rapists with hammers......the usual. I hid out here for a while and it gave me some relief and a bit of an outlet for my rage. I loved my strong women friends and really wanted to identify with them, but alas, I did not. I thought that the reason why I 'wanted' to be a man was because society told me that it was better to be one and you got more privileges. I thought that I hated my body because of all of those fashion magazines showing scantily clad women, who look like emaciated stick figure barbies. I was ashamed of my NEED to become the man that I was always supposed to be. I thought that I was an internalized misogynist pig myself. This attitude really slowed down my progress. I felt like I was totally betraying my feminist buddies, because I was other. I felt like they would hate me if only they knew the truth. So I drove it deeper and deeper into myself and suffered even more depression.
One day I picked up a copy of Leslie Feinberg's, Stone Butch Blues. This is the story of how a butch lesbian transitions into a man by using hormones. She does this mostly because back in the fifties and sixties, it was not OK to be a butch woman (not that it really is now either) and she couldn't find a job because no one would hire such a woman. But they hired her as a man. I read this book........no, I became this book. I could not separate this book from reality, because I lived and breathed this book. Until then, I never really thought it possible to go from F to M. That was it for me. I closed the book and knew what I had to do. Ironically, two years earlier while I was in therapy, my therapist suggested that there might be some transgendered tendancies in me..........to this, I promptly replied, "I'm not one of those people on the talk shows"..........................
MY CHEST SURGERY EXPERIENCES:
My chest surgery in healing very well. I underwent chest surgery on December 1, 1997. I had the procedure done in San Francisco by Dr. Brownstein, my hero......hehe. I was pretty well-endowed before surgery, (38C+) so I had what some people refer to as a double incision procedure. That is where they make two longish incisions along the lower edge of the pec muscles and remove the breast tissue. It does leave some scarring, but it contours very nice and works out well for people who were pretty big before. My scars have faded considerably, even for having had surgery recently. Scarring depends so much on your own personal factors, like your age, skin type, how big you were, whether or not you smoke, etc. Fair-skinned people tend not to scar as badly. The following excerps are taken from my journal. They explain a lot of thoughts and emotions that I experienced around my chest surgery.
Sunday, November 30, 1997:
It is one day until I have my chest surgery. It is scheduled for 7:30AM. I have to be there at 6:30AM. Right now, I am feeling very alone. I am staying at a friend's house in San Francisco. I am surrounded by people, but still I feel alone. I feel like I am the only person in the world who would go to these extremes to be the person I truly am. I have often been asked, "Why do you always have to swim upstream?" Sometimes, I wonder this about myself. This is one of those times. But, dammit, I am who I am, and I have struggled hard to get to this very place in my life. And damn everybody who doesn't have to question such basic things as gender, and who just take it for granted. Yes, I am having a very alone moment. I am scared. I wish I had another FTM to talk to who has gone through all of this. Nobody told me that I would be thinking these thoughts before the long awaited chest surgery. They only talk about what a relief it is, and how excited they were. I don't even hate my tits that much, they just seem foreign to me. Maybe, I just didn't try hard enough to like them. What if this is all just a bad mistake. How come no one ever talks about that? Well, enough, I've got to try and get some sleep before this surgery tomorrow morning...........
Monday, December 1, 1997, Day of Surgery:
I went into the hospital at 6:30AM, who's idea was it to start that early anyway? Anyway, I filled out piles of paperwork and soon a nurse took me into a room to change into a hospital gown. "All the better to get at you", she said with a smile. I was wondering if they found her on the show 'Tales from The Crypt'. They came and wheeled me away to another room and I talked to the anesthesiologist for a while. I must have asked him two hundred questions. He was talking about sticking some big tube down my throat, so my throat doesn't close. But, by this time the good stuff was pumping into my veins at a very rapid rate, and all I could say was, "That's nice". I really don't remember much else that day..................
Wednesday, December, 3, 1997:
I feel like a cyborg. I've got these gnarly drain tubes coming out my sides, and they are taped to my chest with big bulbs hanging down, filled with fluid. EEEEK! Gross!!! Too bad I'm not grossed out by this at all. It's neat. I'm so flat. The week before this, I had the flu and I was MUCH more uncomfortable then, then I am now. I am surprised it doesn't hurt any worse than this. It felt like a very dull ache the first day and a half, but now, I can barely feel it at all. Doc Brownstein says I can have my drains out Friday, if I'm a good boy. I can't wait to get them out. They actually hurt more at the openings, than the actual surgery did. The pain I felt the most from my surgery was that my back was really sore for lying in the same place on the operating table for about four hours. That is about how long the surgery took. I never even felt nauseated after I came out. The anesthesiologist said that it was because they have a new kind of anesthesia that they keep having to reapply while you are out, and they stop it about 20 minutes before you come out of surgery. He said that this makes 'coming to' a lot easier.
Thursday, December 4, 1997:
Today, I am a little uncomfortable. I think my vest is too tight because at first it felt like my arm was asleep, now it just aches and aches. It is my left arm and it is also painful to touch. I noticed a little black and blueness around the inside of my arm. I called Doc Brownstein, and he said that it could be a little blood clot, which I am pretty prone to anyway. He said I could come in tonight (it was eleven o'clock), or I could just wait until the morning when I would have my drains out anyway. I waited until Friday.
Friday, December 5, 1997:
He took my compression vest off today, in order to take my drains out. I got a first look at my chest. I was surprised it didn't look that bad. I expected it to be very bruised and cut up, afterall, they made two ~ 7 inch incisions under my pec lines, cut out a whole flap of skin, and took my nipples off and grafted them on higher up, and smaller. There wasn't a bruise anywhere. It just looked flat........and stitched together. I was still thinking about how wonderful it looked, when, out came the right drain. OUCHHHH!!!! It was a sharp pain that lasted about five seconds. Damn, that hurt!! Nobody told me about the drains. Then, the left one, the sore one came out. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! OUCHHHHHHH!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEE! WWWWOOOWWWW!!!!! That was a big hurt. It actually hurt so much, that I was giggling out of nervousness. "Well, what do you expect when you pull something this big (he showed me the part of the drain that was inside me), out of something this small (I looked down at the pinholes at my sides)." I laughed. It was over.
Sunday, December 7, 1997:
It was stitches out day.......yeah! I don't have to be Frankenstein anymore. My arm is still a little sore from the compression vest being too tight, but the pain is going away. Getting the stitches out was easy compared to the drains, and pretty uneventful. But, it was the first time I got to see my new grafted nipples. They looked OK, not as scary as I had heard. I went to look at myself in the mirror, without bandages or stitches. Just me. It was wonderful. I was so flat. Now this is what I'd pictured I'd look like when I grew up. I could finally start owning my body, living inside my body as well as my brain. It was a trip!!
Saturday, April 3, 1999:
I cannot tell you how having my chest surgery has improved the quality of my life........It has been about sixteen months since I had surgery. I have been using this scar cream called MEDERMA to try and heal the scars, and my scars have faded to almost nothing. They are thin, skin-colored lines. Now I can feel the hot sun on my chest while I lie out on a sunny beach in summer. I can feel the cool wind blowing on my chest, making my little hairs tickle. I am more confident than I have ever been. I feel like I no longer have to hide this terrible secret. I do not have to try to prove who I am, people just see me that way. I enjoy the way my clothes fit me now. I feel a lot less shy, while being intimate with people.......now they are allowed to touch my chest. And don't forget some of the less obvious advantages that you would never think of: I can see my belly button now, I don't have to hold my chest down when I run, or go up and down stairs, no more sweat underneath your breasts in the summer, running doesn't hurt, and I can reach over my body and turn out my bedside lamp without having to rotate my whole body or push my breasts out of the way.
Tuesday, October 3, 2000:
My scars are barely visible. Now my chest hair growth has helped to cover them further. I will be going back to do a few little revisions on the sides under my arms. There is a little nip and tuck to be done. I now take my chest for granted. It is a permanent part of me and I forget that breasts were ever there in the first place.
November 2001:
I went back down to S.F. for a chest surgery revision. Apparently, I have quite a bit of breast tissue under my arms and around my body that was hard to get rid of. I had been almost completely satisfied with my results, but there were a couple places that still bothered me, so about 4 years after the original surgery, I went back. I am extremely happy with the final results.
He opened the scars up under my arms on either side and took out more tissue. He also took off a little bit of tissue from under the front pecs. This was done under local anesthesia, and it was a bit difficult to sit still. I was kind of chatty because I was nervous. So I kept asking Brownstein annoying questions about what he was doing. I couldn't see of course, because they had the curtain up. Recovery from that was great. It seemed uneventful, although this time, my skin had a harder time with the anti scar creme. It seemed to irritate my skin. Now I'm done revising. It's perfect enough for me.
