Sex Reassignment Surgery (or Gender Reassignment Surgery, or Gender Confirmation Surgery) is not the inevitable end result of transsexualism. Thousands of my my peers — both transmen and transwomen — cannot have surgery for financial reasons; thousands more cannot for political reasons (i.e., they live in a culture in which transsexualism is punishable by death); thousands more have medical conditions that prevent them from having surgery; still more thousands fear to do so for social reasons (i.e., family or friends will disown them).
Even when there are no external impediments, SRS may not be the best course for a specific transsexual person. Choosing to have one’s genitals physically altered has spiritual, emotional, and rational components. After discussing the alternatives with my partner, I chose to go ahead with SRS for these reasons:
Well, those were the three reasons that clinched the decision for me. Living full time as Kathleen had already removed the depression which plagued me for so much of my life. I had already come to accept my body as it was, and to love it. I had already come to love myself as a transgendered person. Had there been a medical impediment to SRS, I don’t believe I would have gone into depression, because I loved myself as I was.
So for those three reasons, I chose — and my partner concurred — that SRS was the course of action for me. Those might be good reasons for you, too, or they might not. SRS is just not the right course for every transgendered person. But, you know, that’s part of the excitement! Yet another advantage to being transgendered is that your choice of paths isn’t obvious. You don’t have the luxury of doing what everyone else does; your challenge is to discover the right path for you.