“A pear is not an apple.”The surgeon’s response stunned her: “’If you were in a relationship that would be one thing. You just want to have sex for the sake of having sex.’ And all I could think was, ‘Excuse me, mommy?’ She should have no say in how I’m using this vagina.”
Simpson wanted a second opinion on getting a revision, but most surgeons she consulted at this point told her the same thing: let it heal, see if it improves on its own. It didn’t.
Ultimately, a surgeon in California did perform a revision in 2015, which Simpson said left her looking butchered, and feeling damaged beyond the point at which she worries if she ever experienced sensation during intercourse.
“A number of things are wrong: I do not have a clitoris, which makes it really hard to achieve stimulation leading to an orgasm. I do not have symmetric and complete labia on either side of my vagina,” Simpson said. “And I have tremendous scarring in the vaginal canal that needs to be addressed, shaved down, in order to have comfortable penetration.
I also have excess urethral tissue that was just left out. It’s an angry inch, just sticking out from the top of my vulva. And I lost the nerve endings that were attached to the tip of my penis, and those nerves are still leading toward where they were, but something needs to be attached to them to restore sensitivity. You can string power lines to a house but if you knock out all the light switches, what’s the point?”
Simpson is hoping she might find help as more doctors do more procedures to repair complications, and has appealed to Dr. Nikolavsky among others around the country and the world for help. “I cannot be the only one person this has happened to, let alone the last person.” She believes there might be a solution in the breakthrough work being done on male soldiers who survive bombings and require genital reconstruction. Simpson also actively supports the cause of women who have been tortured through genital mutilation, something with which she closely identifies. “I’m cognizant of the significant difference between my surgery and the experience of women worldwide who are subjected to this horror, but I can see in the aftermath a parallel, and I can’t help but identify with their plight.”
Friends, especially those who are pre-op transgender women, have tried to convince Simpson to move on, to concede that she’s lucky to at least have had access to surgery, even if it did not end well. Those appeals do not help, Simpson said.
“’It has to be better than not having a penis,’ they’ll say. And I’ll say, ‘No, actually there’s something worse than having a penis, and that’s a nonfunctional, not aesthetically accurate vagina.’”
Or they will tell her that somewhere out there is someone who will love her for who she is, not what she looks like below the belt.“They’ll say, ‘you’ll find a partner who understands.’ And my response is, the standard for surgery is, I did it for me, I didn’t do it for anyone else. It shouldn’t be about my partner when I’m uncomfortable with the result I have. And then they’ll say, ‘vaginas come in all shapes and sizes.’ But when you’re outside the natural range, that doesn’t work. Apples come in all shapes and sizes. A pear is not an apple.”
Some of the toughest conversations have been with her very supportive mother, who’s told Simpson, “I support you for being a woman. What more can I do?”
Continued...
When you complain, ur friends roll their eyes and ur enemies rejoice
"Because I SAY I am" is a todler's tantrum, not "science"
You cannot betray me - only yourself, to me.
Who cuts off your dick is not a friend
An opinion you won't defend is not your own
Humanity's Law of the Jungle: Survival NOT of the fittest, but of the tribe
When peeing in the pool, stand on the edge
If gender is not sex, why should a gender claim change what sex you shower with?