My gender-affirming surgery granted me a calmness and serenity that I’d never experienced before.
But while this was an important step for me – almost exactly 12 years ago – I can confidently say that my new genitals were not what made me a woman.
I have always been one deep down, and anyone suggesting otherwise is wrong. So trying to define a woman by their body parts alone is just another way to objectify us – trans women or not.
I was always very determined to have gender-affirming surgery. For a long time, I craved this sense of wholeness I felt that I was missing.
I’d imagine it over and over, long before I even came out as transgender at the age of 17.
In the following years, I was able to start my medical transition. At the time, gender-affirming surgeries had recently been something that people could undergo in Iceland, and by the time I was 20 years old, I begged to undergo the surgery after I learned that a group of trans women got the chance to do it in September 2011.
Unfortunately, I was informed that I hadn’t been transitioning for long enough, and that I ‘wasn’t ready’. By that stage I had known I was trans for as long as I can remember and had been living as myself openly for three years.
Having to justify myself to doctors about whether or not I was ‘ready’ was humiliating, and felt incredibly unfair. It felt like they were essentially gatekeeping for no reason.
I thought at the time: ‘Not ready? How on Earth could I not be ready for something I’d been waiting for since forever?’
But the wait did come to an end. In June 2012, I finally underwent the gender affirmation surgery I’d always wanted.
But even though I felt so strongly about it, I still knew that having it done didn’t mean I was any more valid in who I was than the person I was before. I’d always known who I am – and that existed both before and after this surgery.
After the operation, I immediately felt at peace. But I distinctly remember one of the first questions I was asked by a family member was whether I finally felt ‘whole’ as a woman.
The question took me by surprise because I wasn’t really sure how exactly to answer it. The thing is, I can’t really explain to anyone what exactly it is that makes me a woman or a trans feminine person – just like I can’t explain conclusively and without a doubt what makes women women in general.
I just know that I am.
Ever since my gender-affirming surgery, it became apparent to me that my body and especially my vagina was something people hyper-fixated on.
My new genitals weren’t only seen as the personification of my womanhood, but also something people found interesting, exciting and even ‘exotic’.
In fact, when the doctor at the hospital came to check on me during my stay, they usually had at least two or three medical students accompanying them. By the end of it, I think a whole year of junior doctors had seen my vagina.
Unfortunately, as a trans person, I’ve become very accustomed to my body being objectified, discussed, inspected, criticised, sexualised, and used as fuel for humiliation.
I’ve always known that women are not just their bodies – and throughout this experience it became more apparent than ever that we are something far, far greater.
Being a woman is complex, and probably best described as an innate sense of self that lies within each and every one of us – alongside a collection of experiences, our relationship with our bodies, and how we are treated in society.
Most women were simply assigned female at birth and assumed to be girls, and their experiences are coloured by that. Others, like myself, had a different journey to womanhood, where we were assigned male at birth and assumed to be boys – which later on turned out to be wrong.
We then took steps to become who we were by expressing who we were, and transitioning. So while our paths might be different, it doesn’t make trans women or trans people in general less valid, or worthy of respect.
We might have different bodies to varying degrees, but we all share collective experiences of systems of oppression. While – for example – I will never menstruate or be able to give birth, I know what it’s like to face misogyny and sexism in my everyday life.
As a survivor of sexual abuse, I also know all too well what it’s like to fear male violence – and how those who do it don’t stop to ask whether I was born with a uterus or not first.
I know the fear of walking by myself late at night in a large city, and the constant sexualisation of my body and appearance.
So while my body and experiences might differ in some ways, we will always end up excluding women if we focus on physical traits only – as many cisgender women cannot carry children, for example.
Women are diverse and come from all sorts of backgrounds. We all have a relationship with our bodies, our expression and our gender – like the colour of our skin, disabilities, socio-economic background, or culture.
To say women are just one thing because they have or don’t have a certain body part does us all a disservice. As the popular feminist slogan goes: Biology is not destiny.
So I couldn’t tell you what exactly it is that makes women women.
And quite frankly, I feel questions that demand you define that in clear and concise terms are just another way to objectify women, and demand that we continue justifying or explaining ourselves.
At the end of the day, I feel grateful and privileged to have had gender-affirming surgery 12 years ago. But that’s not the reason I’m a woman.
I’m a woman because I know I am and I always have been. No one, no matter who they are, has the right to tell me any differently.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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