Welcome back! I missed seeing you around here. I hope you’re doing well despite all the insanity.

aw, thank you - it’s nice to see you around too 🫶 I’m definitely doing well all things considered, just a time of high stress, but I’m mostly on the other side of a lot of the worst parts.

You mentioned penetrative sex in some of your other comments in this thread. Was that something you knew you would be interested in before the surgery?

yes, I almost went with a vulvoplasty, but what convinced me to get the full canal was a repeated pattern going back to childhood of a desire to be penetrated in sex, so - it was just something I realized was important to me, and would be a part of my desired sexual function, and since that was true I didn’t want to take that off the table with a vulvoplasty (despite the fact that a vulvoplasty has lower risks, easier recovery, and doesn’t involve dilation). It was watching a youtube video in which a sexologist weighed in on advising going with a vaginoplasty over a vulvoplasty because as a sexologist they believed it was important to preserve sexual function - and even if at the time I wasn’t sure if I were asexual (and certainly believed my desire to be penetrated in sex was a small, unimportant desire compared to the concrete and real pragmatic benefits of a vulvoplasty), I ultimately heeded that concern as a kind of compassion to a future self whose life I could not predict.

I’m quite glad I chose a vaginoplasty, and would suggest anyone who is sexually active and wants a vagina to opt for the full canal, as there are many cases of women who opt for a vulvoplasty and then require a second surgery later to get the canal when they realize (too late) that penetration is important to them. If you’re entirely asexual (and it’s not just dysphoria), that’s a case where I see a safer argument for a vulvoplasty, and I do know an asexual trans woman IRL who had a vulvoplasty and years later is happy with it.

The same day I had my vaginoplasty, a friend of mine in the community also was getting a vulvoplasty, and she was scheduled for a vaginoplasty at first and changed her mind last second with the thought that she would come back later for the full vaginoplasty. I believe the surgeon ended up leaving the hospital before she was able to get the full vaginoplasty, and of course she had lost the option for using a scrotal graft in that future vaginoplasty. (I assume she would have to opt for a peritoneal pull-through, which was the other technique that surgeon specialized in.)

Are there other benefits to having a vagina over a vulva alone that I should be aware of when considering a potential future surgery? Thanks!

personally, I think I might have felt like a less “normal” woman for not having a canal, but not everyone is going to feel that way. I wish I had been born a cis woman, and having a full vagina helps me feel closer to that in unexpected ways. There is a kind of safety and security in feeling closer to “normal” in my genitals, and my dysphoria makes that hard enough.

That said, the pragmatic benefits of a vulvoplasty are pretty great - they have become quite popular; I believe my surgeon said that he performs more vulvoplasties than vaginoplasties now. I completely understand the motivations there, and I almost went that way myself.