I had many struggles throughout my life living in a male body with a female living within and somehow managed to never get suicidal or deeply depressed as something inside of me knew that I could breakout of the my male shell. Many who are or will travel down the same path will not be so fortunate in this regard. They will be  suicidal, depressed and ostracized by both family, friends and co-workers. They may meet an untimely death at the hands of others or themselves. There are others like me who no doubt share a similar story and for them and myself we are semi-fortunate.

If the above was not enough some will find it impossible to afford surgery out of pocket (which I did) while others will be denied the cost of surgery from insurance companies although in recent times a handful of insurance companies are flipping the majority of the cost.

The next hurdle is coupled with cost. One should expect to pay when all is said and done roughly 40,000 to $50,000 dollars for therapist, doctors, plastic surgeons and other cost. Some will take the affordable route which is overseas surgery where a 10,000 dollar procedure. If this is the road taken you may be putting your life in the hands of those medical personal that more likely than not don’t speak English nor do those where you are staying.

To the point, I just watched at the movie theater “The Danish Girl” where a female is inside a physical male body in 1926. She learns of gender reassignment surgery which has not be tried out and volunteers to be the first. The movie overall was about getting to surgery which was not known.

The surgeon indicated two surgeries were needed, first remove the penis then after weeks of recovery create a vagina.

Directly after the first surgery she was in so much pain they had to physically restrain her and sedate her. She is in a hurry for the second surgery where her wife says to wait but she can’t.

Sadly she did not last long after the second surgery before passing.

I left the theater in what seemed like myself but on the drive home I nearly burst into tears feeling sorry for her (not the actor) and could not shake the emotions running though me all the time wishing I could had leaned on someone for comfort.

Two years ago this would never had phased me but now the hormones are in full bloom and with that comes varying degrees of emotional responses.

Any ways, Lilly passed and was a pioneer in many ways. So much pain and she was never fully female in the physical. When I had gender reassignment surgery it was seven hours, stayed under for three hours more. When I woke there was zero pain and no need for a second surgery. Let’s call it one hundred years between her and my surgery and one might say it’s expected that progress was made yet I hear of some people having the same surgery even twenty years ago with immense pain after surgery.

One final thing to say is people like me (and I have said this before) have no choice in the need to physically correct the physical body and Lilly saw several doctors were some did radiation treatments, wanted to drill holes in her head and/or place her into a mental hospital. I bet there are still people in society that believe modern medicine can cure transgender people, if someone is truly transgender that will not happen.

Thanks for reading.