2024-09-01 Update: I wrote a followup on my year of post-orchi life: The Jewel Heist Part 2
I’m sitting on my living room couch today with a blanket over my legs and a cat keeping my feet warm. After several months of planning and effort, I had my testicles surgically removed this week in an operation called a simple bilateral orchiectomy. I spent the past few days with an ice pack on my crotch and tight fitting underwear holding gauze in place over an incision. I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now: relief, accomplishment, and also loneliness. Overall it’s been a positive experience, but I don’t want to downplay how difficult it’s been as well.
I’ve been trying to write about my orchi for over a month, but until now my attempts have focused on the logistics. Navigating the lead-up wasn’t easy - I had to first find a provider that could operate in a reasonable timeframe, then collect letters from therapists, and deal with insurance shenanigans. I joined a group of trans women and nonbinary people, the “Ball-Free Bitches,” who all scheduled our orchis at similar times and are now sharing tips and supplies for recovery. Now that my day has come and gone I realize that I was struggling to get my thoughts down because what I wanted most was to capture the emotional experience surrounding the surgery. There are some really great descriptions of orchiectomies online, but I wanted this to be first and foremost about my feelings.
Despite knowing for a long time - longer than I knew I was trans - that I despised my testicles and wanted them gone, I found myself getting cold feet as my surgery date approached. The idea of removing body parts scared me, and especially undertaking surgery that would be irreversible, making me dependent on an external source of hormones for the rest of my life. I was also afraid of developing something like phantom limb syndrome, painful ghost balls. I laid in bed at night during the lead-up to my surgery and performed many times the classic trans ritual of imagining different parts below, the radar ping of nerve endings returning in a different form. A friend who had gone through a similar gender-affirming surgery suggested having a conversation with my unwanted guests to find some closure, an agreement with the boys on how we got here and what parting ways would look like, so that maybe there would be no hard feelings. Late one night I checked in, and I found them to be stubbornly silent. I got the impression that they resented me for what I was going to do.
The procedure was easy. Sign the papers, put on a gown, pop the IV in, roll me back. Wake up an hour later. Make sure I can pee, and homeward bound. I napped on and off over the day, and a friend stayed with me in the evening while Lindsey taught her class. I peeked into my gauze jockstrap at the results. Not pretty, but could be much worse - one friend developed a hematoma, a dangerous condition (and what a word, google at your own risk). I had some minor bleeding from the incision for a few days but that was to be expected.
Proprioception turned out to be pretty great, actually. There is a new flatness to my labia/scrotum, but otherwise everything still feels in place. I’m calling it my labia/scrotum because the skin’s appearance and texture has changed significantly over the past year of HRT. I learned that my sensation in the area comes almost entirely from the skin and muscle, so no phantom balls to worry about. I still experience the regular scrotal undulations that were there before, now uselessly regulating temperature.
The surgery left me feeling more emotionally muted than I had hoped. A number of friends who have had orchiectomies described tears of relief upon waking from their anesthesia. I initially just felt glad it was over, a formality. After a rough first night (no side sleeping) I spent the next day throwing myself into distractions - admin work on Discord, an early outline of subjects for the Gender Transition Strategy Guide. I’ve been reading Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis by Grace Lavery, which is a hilarious romp of a transition memoir with a fun soundtrack. At some point that afternoon though the dam finally broke, and I found myself ugly crying and needing to be held (Lindsey took care of me). I realized that the surgery had been a real personal accomplishment months in the making, but there’s so much about having one’s testicles removed that’s just really hard to share. I was proud of myself for making a decision from which there was no turning back, and at the same time I had to accept that most of the people in my life could never really know or understand what this meant to me. I felt very alone suddenly in how far I had come.
I’m proud of being trans, and I also know it’s normal to be trans. Transgender people are part of the human experience. It can still feel lonely because the path forward can seem utterly bizarre at times, and so many steps are predicated on a leap of faith. How do you explain to someone what it’s like to experience a gradually encroaching, deep-seated need to remove part of your anatomy in order to feel more embodied in your gender? The stresses can get to be very individualized. And on top of that there are so many forces in the world that want to amplify that loneliness in order to destroy us. I’m privileged to be in a place where I can skirt much of that hatred, and my network of trans friends sustains me in so many ways, but the personal experience can still be a lot to bear sometimes.
Transition is not about rectification though, or reaching a destination, it’s ultimately about the pursuit of joy. Milestones help us recognize incremental progress on a journey, but the path itself is continuous. The experience of surgery doesn’t end when you wake up from the anesthesia, there’s time spent healing and adjusting as well. I may feel lonely passing this milestone, but I have further to go. The heist isn't over yet.