Hi Everybody From Overseas

[Guest Ceren]

Hi,

I suppose that I am the only one from an non-English speaking and even Muslim country. Although I am strictly not religious, but this the situation.

I would like to introduce myself and I hope that you accept me as I am. My situation is a bit weird.

BTW I am sorry that my English is not perfect as English is third language.

Anyway, I am 50 years old, genetic male, unfortunately!

Besides that I am a plastic surgeon. The reason for being a physician and for deciding to be a plastic surgeon even before attempting the medical college has been my desire, my curiosity and everything else to change the way I am and even to help the others.

Years has gone. Thoughts in me have never changed. I waited and waited. Even I married supposing that this may be change the way I think about myself. Of course without any success.

I don't see myself as male but unfortunately also not as a female too.

I perfomed GRS operation with success. I've seen my patients of being the most happy people in the world that I met. Inevitably these have brought to me to considerations about GRS. In the end I decided that a regular MtF GRS won't suit me.

I had always had the feeling that I need caring, support, affection, empathy and love of a lover. I have had always the feeling that without that special one all of these transformations will have no reason. Silly I know but it is the way I feel.

Recently I posted an email regarding my situation and my demand to almost all the known GRS surgeons in the world; being Mrs Dr. Marci Bowers the first. I had the feeling that Dr BOwers will understand me mostly, but unfortunately she is the one who did not answered my email. She even handed it over to another surgeon on Thailand. Actually I was very disappointed.

As I have written this email once and pasted it to the email addresses of the others, I missed the sentence where I had mentioned to Dr BOwers that she had also had GRS. Bucause of that all the other surgeons had to respond that they didn't

Anyway, I got very different reacitons from all of them. Some said "No", some said "Yes", some demanded the consultation fee right before hand etc.

I would like to paste this email here too and I would like to kindly ask your opinions. If you are interested I can only post the answers of the surgeons and we can discuss about it.

As I am a plastic surgeon and as I have been performing GRS I know what can be technically achieved and not.

As I have a social status and as I am throughly not clear about me I want to be disguised and that's why I didn't write with my legal name to the doctors too. I hope that you can understand me.

Anyway here is the email that I have sent to the surgeons:

Hi,

I am a Turkish plastic surgeon living in Istanbul. I was not a normal child since the time I can remember. Sorry for my English as it is not my native language. The personal history is much about the same as with other TG patients. I always wanted to be a physician and to be a plastic surgeon in order to get to know and to be able to perform GRS surgeries. I managed and I became a plastic surgeon, I performed GRS with success too, but couldn't manage what I mostly desired. I haven't had the courage to let my gender to change. In the meantime I got acknowledged with the pitfalls of MtF surgical outcomes which held me back for a time too.

Unfortunately I got married and have a daughter who is 13 years old now. I am 50 years old.

This is the first time that someone other than me gets this information. As I want to be in disguise I had to use this email and not my official email, and I am sure that as a colleague of mine you will keep my secret too.

I have a few questions regarding my situation. Before writing down my questions to you, I would like to share a tiny experience I had. Years ago I met a TS on the net. She demanded from me a genital operation where I had to keep her penis and build a vagina too. I said that it could be achieved technically but that I had to be sure about its ethical and legal side. I had written that to Harry Benjamin Institute. I was amazed when I read the reply from them. Shortly speaking they were telling me that I may operate if I am sure that I can achieve her goal technically and that she will be happy thereafter. Nevertheless I resigned from operating her because I was still not sure about its ethical and legal consequences.

Actually this patient was almost a reflection of me in the mirror. Actually this is what I am striving for. Up and then I searched the internet on this subject. Lastly I remarked that there appears a lot of informations regarding people who want to be a so called intersexed and that it is legal and can be done. Someone nicknamed hermaphrodite84 tells about her surgery . I emailed her but did not get an answer yet.

As I am a plastic surgeon and familiar with genitourinary surgeries I know exactly what can be done, what must be done and how it has to be done. I know what kind of collateral surgeries I have to take previously. Once there was an article on Dr. Anne Lawrence's website about a TS dentist where the surgeon kept her testicles in order not to diminish her libido and resettled them in her abdomen ("Meet Tess -- A New Dance of Scalpel and Soul" by J. J. Allen). Unfortunately it is not available anymore. I don't want to take hormone treatment as I am a smoker and 50 years old. I suppose that the feminine outlook can be achieved with surgical treatments too. At least to some extend. Besides that I don't want to loose my libido that's why I want to keep my testicles.

I know that I am not normal, but this is me and this is a burning flame inside me that is not going to be extinguished until I die. As I am integrated well to my social and professional role I don't suppose that I can be called as a schizoid type or whatsoever.

Nevertheless I am fairly sure about the technical side of such a metamorphosis but I am not sure about its social and familial outcomes. I have to make my mind clear. Either I have to know that it is illegal and unethical at least with the international standards of today and then I have to give up and be ready to live and die as I am. On the contrary if it can be done then I have to wait until my familial and social environment can accept such a huge change of me. If it will be the latter case I will at least be able to calm my soul that it can be achieved and that I have to wait for that moment.

My questions are:

1. Is it over with being 50 years old? (I don't want to take hormone treatments as it will be too dangerous for a smoker with my age)

2. Is it really legal to have or to perform such an operation, as it is not a regular GRS?

3. I know that you've had GRS too and that's why I have chosen to ask you. You can be the only one who can understand me and have empathy with me at least to some extend. What would be your opinions regarding social, professional life?

Please take my apologies for taking so much of your time.

Thank you very much for reading my email.

Best regards

I hope that my first post was not too long and boring

My best wishes to all of you

Keep well

Ceren

[MaryEllen]

Hello Ceren,

Welcome to Laura's Playground. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Very interesting. I don't think there are many here who want to become intersexed via SRS but I could be wrong. Most want to be either all male or all female. Thanks again for sharing with us.

MaryEllen

[Guest Ceren]

Hi MaryEllen,

I am very well aware that I'm one of a few who wants to be intersexed. I don't know what can be the psychodynamics behind that. It doesn't interest me either. As there can't be a psychiatric treatment for it.

What I want to stress out is that there are many diversities in every aspect of life. I suppose that is the beauty of life. What would it be if there would be only a few kind of people like the inventory of a firm or factory with a few choices?

The problem is that there have been always minorities in the societies and that these minorities are handled almost always with prejudicies and discrimination and dealt as a threat for this society. Even inside these minorities there are again minorities within. This seems to me like the wave circles on the water. This is the same with my situation and with the responses of most of the surgeons. They have very strict rules and they don't even handle every patient as unique.

It may sound absurd or insane for them but what if it will make me happy? Who has the right to decide for it? Me, the surgeon or the majority of the society with which actually I am not agreed upon?

I don't even agree with the rules of transitioning acording to WPATH too. How can you live 24/7 as a woman if you don't possess the proper attitude, at least some of the physical characteristics of the opposite sex? Isn't it a much more discomfort for this particular individual?

Why do you have to have HRT? Isn't it for gaining the female characteristics? Can't it be achieved with other treatments like surgery and save the patient from mostly possible complications of HRT? Does the patient need HRT for psychological reasons which I suppose not. The patient decides for this, namely to change his or her gender before being under any influece of any kind of treatment or hormones.

What is the purpose of treatments for transitioning? Should it be like the genetic female as most of the patients are well behing of puberty? Or is it the goal of such a treatment to make the patient happy at the end?

Who owns that body? Patient or the society?

I suppose that even today the majority of the society tries to bias the minorities according to the rules of them. We and the decision-makers must be very open minded, must cross-question every case as a unique case and be free of orthodox thinking and judgement.

Peace and happiness to all

Ceren

[MaryEllen]

Hello Ceren,

One thing that you will find about our site is that we are nonjudgmental in our perception of the gender and sexuality of our members. Our members range from the occasional cross dresser to post-op men and women and everything in between. That includes intersexed people. Its how you perceive yourself that matters. If you wish to become intersexed, then that is what you should do and we will totally support you. It's your life and your body so you should follow on toward your goal. It doesn't matter what others think. You should do what's right for you.

MaryEllen

[Guest Ceren]

Hi MaryEllen,

Thanks a lot for everything, for letting me join you, for your replies, for everything.

I know how you (all members) think, act and feel.

This is actually the only place on the planet where I am who I am

On my previous post I wanted to express only my thoughts about gender reassignment treatments etc. and that they are biased after the orthodox reasoning of the general society which I believe shouldn't. May be I should post to other topics on that.

Thanks again

Keep well

Cheers

Ceren

[MaryEllen]

Hi Ceran,

I'm glad that you feel comfortable here. We try to keep the site as friendly as possible so members can feel free to express their hopes and desires.

Once people learn that you are an SRS surgeon, you'll probably get a lot of questions. We hope you decide to stay with us. You're most welcome to be here.

MaryEllen

[Guest Julie T]

Ceren

Hello and again, welcome to Laura's Playground. Mary Ellen said it best I think, we are non-judgmental and try to help all who come into our forums. I think I recall you said English was your third language, is that right? If so we know sometimes times you probably reach into your mind for the right words, and they usually come out right. I hope you are patient with us, if we do not get your meanings correct and ask you questions? I do hope you continue to write and let us know more about you.

Julie

[Carolyn Marie]

Welcome to the Playground, Ceren! I am very glad that you found this site and feel comfortable posting here.

It seems that you feel somewhat of an outsider even among transgender folks because of your unorthodox goals, but I do want to reassure you that you won't be judged here. There may be a lot of questions about why you feel as you do,

but we will make sure they are asked respectfully.

There are many here who will agree with your assessment of the WPATH Standards of Care; they certainly need updating and modifications. But I think they provide a good place for people to start planning for transition, and as guidelines have enough flexibility to allow for differences in approach by treating professionals.

I haven't decided for certain about surgery myself, but am leaning towards it. I do feel that for me, there is a need to feel complete as a woman, or as complete as medicine will allow. We have cross dressers who would like some but not all secondary sexual characteristics, many TS who don't want surgery at all, and some TS who want to be able to maintain some male sexual activity, libido as you said. There is no single desire, no single need that defines all of us, a fact that is lost on non-trans society I'm afraid.

I think it will be interesting to read more of your ideas and comments, and look forward to helping you and you helping all of us.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Ceren]

Hi MaryEllen,

Hi Julie,

Hi Carolyn Marie,

Hi to all my Sisters-in-Arms (I hope I may call you like that),

May I call today as the most happiest day of my life?

Right now it is 10am and I'm sitting behind the desk at my office. The ride from home to here was the most delightful ride in my life. It was as if I'm not driving but floating on the clouds with the sounds of Zorba the Greek on air. I was always thinking about your replies and how friendly, warmhearted they are. Now I know that I'm not the only and lonely freak in this alien world; I have friends!!!!

Thank you all for welcoming me.

Everyday I wake up at 8.30, go to the kitchen, take my coffee, light a cigarette, sit down and check my emails on my iphone. Today when I saw the three replies from you, "Oh my Lord!" and even after reading them I should have checked my heartbeat.

It's unbelievable for me, really. I say to myself, "Could it be a lucid dreaming?"

I may write too much and it can be boring to you. Please accept my apologizes but this is such a tremendous time for me that I cannot simply put it down to words.

In the beginning when I was sending my first post here, I was a bit skeptic, because I know that my feelings about me and my desires about my body can be disgusting to some people. I am well aware that even between the transgender or intersexed people there are some who can call me a freak. A freak of one of a kind as being a plastic surgeon too. These were my feelings actually. I don't know the other members of this forum but I must say that you, namely the administrators and moderators that replied to my post are really marvelous, free of prejudices, analytically thinking persons. Thank you!

I want to respond to your posts in the same order.

Yes MaryEllen, I will stay with you till the end of my life. You are (may I call it this way) my new family, my only true friends. You are the only ones that know me exactly as I am without the veil that I have to have when I'm on the street or even with my wife and daughter.

You can ask me, post me anything you want, personally, professionally, anything. I swear that I am going to respond to them wholeheartedly. If these are going to be professional questions, please take into consideration that these will be my thoughts, my interpretation of the subject supervised by my knowledge, feelings, empathy, and experiences. It can be anything, even you can, may and have to judge me too.

Yes Julie, English is my third language; Turkish is my native language, then I've learned German and English. I hope that I can take the right words for what I mean out of my dictionary. Otherwise, sure you may ask anytime, anything.

Dear Carolyn Marie, I am so glad that I have this playground. Previously I have posted a few times to the forum "etransgendered" on the same subject of intersex. Both have been published for a few days and then they were deleted. I asked the moderator about the reasoning of deleting my post, but no reply. I know that this forum doesn't exist anymore.

Yes I felt as an outsider until I've read your posts. I know that even in this community there can be people who think very straight (in the sense of not being empathic to other thoughts and feelings). It seems understandable to me to some extent as we all began to live and still living in such a society, it cannot be denied that we are not influenced by its strict rules of this inquisition etc.

Actually I also really don't know why I feel that way, but as I wrote earlier it doesn't interest me too. Because I know that they cannot be changed, may be disguised, and not publicized, but they are there, in me, and they will be with me. The only trouble was not being able to share my thoughts, feelings with some that they can understand me. Now I have you, even you are far away from me, I feel all of you right in my heart.

Regarding the WPATH Standards of Care, I suppose that they dictate to the whole community and to the care givers how they should act and react. I don't know, but I wonder if there are any TG member in this committee? I suppose there must be a poll asking the TG community of how they want to be treated, what are their ultimate goals etc. WPATH Standards of Care seems to be as a kind of constitutional law dictated by the non TGs to TGs which seems unfair to me. We must take actively part on deciding about us. The committee should be reminded that there are cases not illnesses or whatever. Every case is unique and the treatment of and for every case must be accommodated to its particular needs.

I assume that all of you have read the article on the side of Dr. Lawrence with a title like "Dancing with the scalpel: Tess". This was about a US dentist. Her surgeon has decided to keep her testes (relocating them in the lower abdomen) as her phenotype was perfectly in accordance with female features and didn't want to lower her libido.* I think that this is a ample of adjusting the treatment to the needs of the patient. Years ago I have written to Dr. Lawrence asking about this case. No reply. I tried to reach this doctor but I couldn't. Then I find the address of this TG dentist and have written to her. Again no reply. Now if you search in Google with "Dancing with the scalpel" you will get a few links of this article, but they are not there. I wonder what happens with this kind of informations. Who wants them to be deleted? Why they don't reply to a professional who is asking a question about their performance?

I believe that everybody should decide for her- or himself. My belief is that as we are genetically males (XY) (unfortunately we have one short legged chromosome then the genetically females) and as we cannot change our genotypes there is only one possibility to adapt, adjust or to change as female, namely our phenotypes. Actually this is what we do. Please take a moment and think of why a preop TG wants to have HRT? I suppose to make her appearance more feminine. But what if the physical appearance is already feminine or if it can be changed with a few, let say operations or treatments and saving the complications of HRT? My belief is that the hormones influence a lot of what we think and how we think. These hormones doesn't need to be male or female hormones in order to think like a male or female. Testosterone influence someone else to think that way but it influences me to think this way. What if we change hormonal balance of our body, will it affect also the way we are thinking and feeling. I suppose yes, it will. Is it what we want from a HRT treatment? My answer is no. I may be wrong but I believe that libido is one of the most precious treasures Mother Nature has been giving us (BTW I believe in evolution and not genesis, I am not religious). What if we lose it? What we are talking about is gender and sex. Libido is strictly bounded with this subject. If we don't have the drive of it then there wouldn't be a need for gender or sex or for both of them. There would be an agenderous and asexual world. It wouldn't matter for us if we are male or female or what else. That is why I believe that the doctor who treats the TGs must be very aware of keeping the libido of the patient as much as he can.

I suppose that TG must be informed that they have to look, feel and believe as a female. Otherwise it doesn't matter if you have taken HRT or not. The important think is how are you, how do you feel, how the society accepts you. It doesn't matter for the society or even for the patient herself if there is a citation about her HRT treatments in her resume or not. Years later nobody will ask about it or even you won't remember it. As there isn't any %100 male or female, we don't have to strive us to be %100 male or female too. We don't have to turn back to our puberty hormonally in order to switch ourselves to the opposite. We can change the line before turning back to the beginning of the road.

I had patients who had lost their libido and they told me that it doesn't matter anymore if they have a sex life or not. They were looking very depressive, but unfortunately they had to take these HRTs in order to be eligible to GRS. I mean this not fair. Patient has to have the right to choose which treatment to have. Besides that I did my qualification as plastic surgeon in a European country. I know well that patients with an ethnic origin of Northern European countries (most Caucasians) can be adjusted to the opposite sex easily but this cannot be the case with patients from other ethnic origins. As the committee of WPATH are mainly built of Caucasians, I suppose they don't take into consideration these facts. For example in my country there are few TG patients (MtF) which cannot live full time as a woman with that physical characteristics without the interruption of any kind of physical treatment even if had HRT or not. In that case it is not fair to force that individual to live full time as a woman. This will bring much trouble, regression from social life and depression to that patient. First you have to adjust her appearance a bit than you may demand from her to live full time.

I suppose this is enough for right now. I feel that your eyelids are getting heavier.

Thanks again for accepting me, it is marvelous to be with you.

Take care!

Hugs, hugs, hugs!!!

My best wishes to all of you.

Ceren

*Relocating the testes in the abdomen there can rise the question, if it will be dangerous or if they can be cancerous as the testes are designed to be on the outside of the body. I had conversations with my urologist friends and they stated that undescended testes during the puberty and adolescent years may cause problems and can be a source of cancer, but after the puberty there isn't such a threat and there isn't any adult testes type of cancer.

[Guest Ceren]

Hi again,

I suppose Microsoft Hotmail administration was not in agreement with my email address. It's been hours and I cannot reach my emails. That's why I have changed my email address to Gmail. Let's see if they will agree with my preferred email address.

Cheers

Ceren

[MaryEllen]

Hi Ceran,

I must say that I throughly enjoy reading your posts. You've already answered many questions that I've had and many of your thoughts are similar to mine. Thank you so much for sharing with us. It is appreciated.

MaryEllen

[Guest Angelica-S]

hun ur not the only one. i speak tagalog and spanish and english. i am originaly from the philippines. but as most cases on here i cant speak my language. cause the prohibit me from doing it. but as i am wandering your xxy or xy? i have all that information in my profile so yeah i did research. which my doctour told me to do and found out that stuff. but any who. ill catch up with you soon. and we will talk than. i hope you have a wanderful day. and good luck.

Angelica Nicole Himalaya

[Guest Maria_B]

Hi Ceran! I hope you're still with us

I read through your posts, and I must say, you are very smart.

I've heard before someone who surgically wanted to become intersex, so the idea is not foreign to me. I think you are very brave for speaking up for yourself I know there is many people in the transgender umbrella who are not nice about it, but I'm glad you are open, because you have educated me and probably many other people!

I hope one day you can resolve this, and be happy in your body

[Guest Ceren]

Hi,

It's been a long time since my last visit.

Life seems to be on the same horizon for me. The sun neither goes down nor rises up It's good though, I think.

I am XY, Dear Angelica-S Neither X nor Y has been able to win the war of tug I am still in the middle.

Thanks for your encouraging comments and good wishes, Dear Maria_B.

I have the feeling of being resolved of my issues by my death. At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. (I mean my natural death, not suicide

Anyhow my only wish is: LET EVERYBODY LIVE AS THEY WANT TO BE!

Kisses and Hugs to all of you

Ceren