Caitlin: [00:00:09] Hey, everyone, welcome to The Down There, a monthly podcast where we have candid conversations about all types of bodies in order to destigmatize talking about what we keep down there. I'm your host, Caitlin, and today we have our first multi guest episode. K is back with us in conversation with Calvin. If you haven't already listened to K's story in Episode two, I highly recommend that you do. Well, it's not required for context in this episode. Isn't it nice to get the full story? I think so. This episode is a little longer than our others. We thought about splitting up the conversation into two parts, but we didn't want to sacrifice the momentum and connection between Calvin and K. So pause if you need to and enjoy this intimate conversation.

Caitlin: [00:00:52] Hey.

Calvin: [00:00:54] Hi

Caitlin: [00:00:55] How are you doing today?

K: [00:00:57] Hanging in.

Calvin: [00:00:58] Good.

Caitlin: [00:00:59] I wanted to just start off by addressing who each of you are and your pronouns and why you're gracing us with your virtual presence today on The Down There.

K: [00:01:11] So I am K. My pronouns are she, her and hers. I'm here to talk about my experience as a BRCA positive person, BRCA being a certain gene that gives you a greater risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. And then the surgeries related to that that I've had, which include mastectomy, full hysterectomy,  oophorectamy, et cetera. And so I'm here to talk with Calvin about those issues as they relate to us both.

Calvin: [00:01:44] Yeah. And I'm Calvin, I use he/him and they/them pronouns. And I'm here in this magical world to talk with K about my trans identity and having similar surgeries, but from very different points of view for maybe different reasons and also being somebody who had what I call top surgery or double bilateral mastectomy and then who recently had a hysterectomy that... it's a funny thing because it was actually four or five different surgeries. But I can't remember all the funny names. But I know that oophorectomy sounds good and I think that's the ovaries. And so I had a partial oophorectomy.

Caitlin: [00:02:36]  What does a partial oophorectomy mean?

Calvin: [00:02:40] So typically folks with oh, we're already getting into the semantics of language, aren't we? Folks born with "innies", which might be a vagina, it might not be a vagina, but folks who have a uterus and fallopian tubes and ovaries, we usually have one uterus two fallopian tubes, two ovaries. And so in my case, I only had one ovary removed, but I had both fallopian tubes removed. And the reason for this, at least, at least in my education and knowledge, within the trans masculine circles, it's become a more popular option because we're all hormone dependent people and it depends on hormones. But for me in my world, the only thing worse than going back to an estrogen based system would be to have no hormones whatsoever. And so with the current political climate, certainly with the current end of the world climate, if hormones are more difficult to get hands-on access to, it's better to have this apocalypse ovary that's still in my system that can start pumping out estrogen so that I am still an even balanced hormonal being.

K: [00:04:00] So question for you on that, since I had everything taken out, both ovaries and everything- is leaving the fallopian tubes in an option, or does it all have to go at the same time, do you think?

Calvin: [00:04:11] I'm really curious about that. I have no idea.

K: [00:04:14] I think because it's also attached, it's probably easier just to take it all out.

Calvin: [00:04:19] I would imagine it's easier to take it all out and you know, like we hear stories about uteruses going rogue and creating cancer cells and we hear stories about ovaries going rogue and creating cancer cells, but do fallopian tubes do anything like...

K: [00:04:35] Well, actually, that's one of the reasons I was actually just going to have the tubes out initially. They've done a lot of research recently that shows that a lot of ovarian cancers seem to start in the fallopian tubes. So for BRCA patients, they've started offering that as sort of a stopgap until you get your ovaries out. So when I went in for my last consult, I thought, oh, I'm just going to get my tubes out and be on my way. And then my doctor said, no, you should get the ovaries. You're almost 40, and let's just take the uterus out too you because of your fibroid- let's just do it all.

Calvin: [00:05:08] Its discount package at that point.

K: [00:05:10] Yeah, yeah.

Calvin: [00:05:13] That's really curious. Yeah. Because I didn't even consider leaving the fallopian tubes in and the geology of where everything lives gets a little confusing for me. So like for example, I didn't know until my surgeon told me that the left ovary is a lot harder to get out because your lower intestine wraps around it. And so they took the right one out. But they also said that there's a blood supply line that goes directly to the ovaries that they have to keep intact so the ovaries can thrive. That is separate from the fallopian tube, like the ovary doesn't get its livelihood from the fallopian tube.

K: [00:05:51] I didn't know that either.

Calvin: [00:05:51] Yeah. And so. Yeah, and I have this memory of, like, the fallopian tube, sort of like hanging out near the ovary, but it just sort of like it... It's like sucking the idea of an egg from the ovary- like it's a magical, magical place.

K: [00:06:07] Yeah, I have this concept of it as kind of like fingers. And then I got to see a photo of my whole uterus in the works after surgery. And it was really weird to see it all and how actually it looks very attached in that photo.

Calvin: [00:06:21] Yeah, I think maybe our sexual health education was maybe incomplete or lying to us.

K: [00:06:29] Yeah. I mean, I think we were relying a lot on those diagrams that are like these little cartoons when we're taught about our periods in fourth grade or something like that.

Calvin: [00:06:39] Yeah, like the egg just like magically hops out of the ovary into the fallopian tube.

K: [00:06:44] Like like a vacuum.

Calvin: [00:06:46] Oh, can I share a piece of fun, random factoid information.

K: [00:06:51] Yeah.

Calvin: [00:06:52] So I asked, I asked my surgeon like, OK, if we leave my ovary there and let's say I stopped taking testosterone, is the ovary going to start kicking eggs out again. And the surgeon was like, oh, yes, absolutely. And I was like, where where do they go? Do they just go into the abyss, like go into space? And she's like, oh, no, your body absorbs them for nutrients, your body... Just like into your abdominal cavity. And it just sucks the nutrients out of it and reabsorbs it into the body.

K: [00:07:24] Right. Because it can't come out anymore. And we talked about this. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago as a primer for this. And we kind of talked about how they sew up where your cervix once was. There's a cuff. Yeah. So you're actually completely closed up in a way that you weren't before. At least I am. So, yeah, there's nowhere for it to go.

Calvin: [00:07:45] There's no more exiting through that way. Yeah. So like it's not like I'm just going to start collecting eggs in my abdominal cavity for funsies so they'll just be reabsorbed. Don't have to worry about it. My own recycling center.

K: [00:07:59] One thing I hadn't thought to ask, but it just came to mind is do you know if there will be an experience of menopause for you and what that might be like in the future?

Calvin: [00:08:13] Yes. So in some ways, I when I first started taking testosterone, I experienced some aspects of menopause, certainly the stopping of menstruation and the growing of body hair that I think just naturally comes with decreased levels of estrogen. But yeah, at some point, my ovary that is currently being suppressed from its normal amount of estrogen, that's providing my body will sort of like jump down into a lower gear of how much it can send out. And so if I stop taking testosterone and hit menopause age, I would start to experience menopausal symptoms. But right now, the testosterone overcompensates for all of that.

K: [00:09:01] So if you keep taking the testosterone, you'll never know.

Calvin: [00:09:05] Correct.

K: [00:09:05] Then how long do you take that?

Calvin: [00:09:08] I take testosterone for the rest of my life.

K: [00:09:10] Ok, so there's not like you've turned 50. You should let it go kind of thing.

Calvin: [00:09:15] No. And it will be interesting to see, like, is this the same in your world where you have to go in for blood work every now and again to make sure your levels are good?

K: [00:09:26] No, not at all.

Calvin: [00:09:26] Really.

K: [00:09:28] Yeah.

Calvin: [00:09:29] Fascinating.

K: [00:09:29] No, I haven't been since my surgery.

Calvin: [00:09:34] So every, every like maybe twice a year I go in and get my hormone levels checked to make sure that, to make sure that all of those levels are right and balanced. And so I imagine once I hit menopause age and we start getting the bloodwork back, that things will start to look funnier and drop down. My T dosage with - T is short for testosterone- to compensate for the ovary not pushing out as much estrogen. Plus, OK, can you tell me what your process is like for do you call it hormone replacement therapy.

K: [00:10:09] Yeah. So that was one of the things I noticed when we talked last with some of the terminology obviously is a bit different. But yeah, I do call it hormone replacement or HRT and usually at least in my support groups, people tend to say the whole thing. So they don't say HRT, they don't say histo, they use the full words. And it's very clinical. And I think it was really interesting for me to hear, not just from you, but from other friends who've had top surgery and hysterectomy and everything. Hearing the shortening and the slang terms for things is it's really... It's a different kind of language.

Calvin: [00:10:49] Yeah, for me, there's something that...I think being trans is already such an other experience that then to go through the medical hoops to get closer to right for me... Is just another layer of othering. And so by taking away the clinical nature of it, it brings it closer to home and it's like a sort of reclaims some identities because words are just words. But so that it makes it feel less less othering, more like we have control over our own bodies in some way and more commonplace, more.

K: [00:11:37] That makes sense.

Calvin: [00:11:38] Yeah, and so with your experience of having a support network and having this this language that stays more clinicalalized...I'm making up words now.. But more clinically driven, do you feel it have an effect on how you relate to your body through that?

K: [00:11:59] Yeah, I guess in some ways I think of a lot of it very medically anyway. I've always been really curious about what is it physically that's happening and what is the surgery exactly? I Googled diagrams. I watch videos of surgeries. So that's always felt kind of natural to me to just go with the clinical terms. There is a big difference when you go from one of the Facebook support groups to a life support group. I've noticed the Facebook support groups and maybe it's because they're younger...They tend to use words, terms like PVM, which is preventative bilateral mastectomy, and they do the shorthand. But then when we all get together in person, we're very much more clinical about it. And maybe, I don't know, maybe that's just because we're not comfortable talking about our bodies in such a way. There is, I guess, one term that we have that we do use in person, which is foobs, which is your fake boobs. But that's really the only one that's the common like, oh, my foobs kind of feel funny, you know, use it in that way.

Calvin: [00:13:04] And so I wonder, like, if you're down for it, I would sort of love to maybe talk about the surgeries we had and the different names we have for them and like what that should.. I don't know, Caitlin, should we go through and also talk about what those surgeries exactly are.

Caitlin: [00:13:22] Yes! Let's say at all!

Calvin: [00:13:25] And so do you want to start with our chests?

K: [00:13:30] Yeah, let's let's start there. You want to go first?

Calvin: [00:13:32] Sure. So we've both had a double bilateral mastectomy. Right. And in my world, in the trans masculine world, we usually also refer to it as top surgery. And the surgeon that I saw, I had top surgery in 2004 and they did a typical double bilateral mastectomy with a nipple grafting. So they put the horizontal scar sort of naturally, where an air quotes "man's pecs" would fall. And they left some fatty tissue in to give that peck like look and then grafted nipples on top where it sort of... They cut some of the areola away from the nipple to make it more like a quote unquote "dude's nipples" and grafted them. I think like a little lower and further out from where Quote, unquote, "women's nipples" live. Yeah, and that was that was mine. How about yours?

K: [00:14:43] So mine was a bilateral mastectomy as well, but with reconstruction. So I had all of my breast tissue removed. Anything that looked like it might be involved in my breasts was gone just to get rid of the risk of cancer. So in my surgery, they cut through all the nerves. Hack and slash. It was just desperately let's get everything out. So that was the first step. And then there was in the first surgery, I had what were called expanders placed. I had reconstructive expanders put in, which are basically these temporary implants that get refilled every few weeks, not refilled, but filled more every few weeks with more and more saline. And we call those rock expanders sometimes because they ended up really hard and they hurt. It was not pleasant, but it was, I think, four or five different appointments that we call the inflations where they were just slowly expand them to be able to accept the breast implants at a second full surgery. So then the second surgery, I had implants placed and there were a variety of types I could choose from based on shape and texture and all of that. My doctor made a recommendation based on what she said most young people like to have. So I have silicone implants. And I had what's called a nipple sparing procedure, which is relatively new, I think they just developed it in the last 10 years. Previously, when you went through the surgery, you couldn't keep your nipples no matter what. Now they're able to do so for people who don't smoke. So I had to quit smoking to keep my nipples. Good sacrifice for that. And then my scars, similar to yours, they're placed at the bottom horizontally. They did what they did them in what's called the intra mammary folds. So it's just below the breasts. So that it kind of hides. You know, you can still see them and they're quite large, but they think they hide OK.

Calvin: [00:16:51] And did you... Two two questions from that. Do you know if they removed any of the flesh from the mastectomy? Because like for me, I know they took a decent amount of flesh away to then make the scar.

K: [00:17:08] No, they didn't. They didn't remove any of my flesh. They were actually trying to keep as much as they could because I was trying to go to a larger size. Because I decided, hey, why not? Let's do this. Yeah. And you can within reason do whatever you want with reconstructive surgery. It's all covered, which is nice. So, no, they didn't they didn't take any of my flesh, thankfully.

Calvin: [00:17:31] That's great. And then the other the other question just came to me was as you were healing and now at this point in life, what's your relationship to your scars?

K: [00:17:46] I've never minded mine. I had friends in support groups who were very self-conscious of them, and they would do all these ointments and aloe and vitamin E and coconut butter and all of these crazy things all over them. And I've just let them be. And, you know, every so often they get weird and inflamed. My surgery was back in 2014. But every so often they'll act up and look funny, but I'm still not that self-conscious about it because they do hide pretty well, but yours are probably a little more pronounced, right?

Calvin: [00:18:22] They're definitely way more pronounced. And and similarly, in in my community of transmasculine folks there's a lot of talk about how to make the scarves as small as possible. And for me, I never really cared about that. And it's the sort of double edged sword of being proud of my scars in some way of like.. the, like, the lived experience that I've gone through, but also the the reality that it can make other folks weird or uncomfortable, which I don't want to... I don't want to be a byproduct of that experience for anybody. And I don't want to be the receiver of that from anybody either. My scars are now 16 years old, almost 20 years old, and they are not going to go away. And I'm fine with that. And it is. Yeah, it's like bearing witness to my transness and also bearing witness to my transness. So that is immediately a recognizer for folks who know what that scar looks like. But it can also be a thing that others people or freaks people out because we don't know how to talk about our bodies.

K: [00:19:44] There was a question I wanted to ask you last time, because we talked about what was it like to have someone see the scars for the first time and see our chests for the first time. And as someone who I assume prior in life, prior to your surgery, you probably didn't go topless anywhere or very many places. What was it like the first time going to the beach and being able to be free?

Calvin: [00:20:06] Terrifying.

K: [00:20:07] Really?

Calvin: [00:20:07] And exhilarating, it was terrifying and exhilarating. Like, for me, there's this there's this sensation that I equate with skinny dipping, which is also the sensation that I equate now with sort of the first swim of a season- of of a summer season, which is just the feeling of water, uncompromised over my shoulders and across my back. And that sensation never gets old and it never stops being magical every summer. You know, I think I've definitely gone topless or skinny dipped before top surgery. The first few years after surgery and going swimming, it was it felt even... I felt naked. I felt exposed and scared and super naked. And like I was about to get in trouble at any turn, at any moment. And not not all that different to the first time, like using men's restrooms or even still now in some ways using men's restrooms all these years later. Like I still have that feeling of like, oh, I'm going to get found out, I'm going to get caught and I'm going to get in trouble for existing. But I think over the years, it has... The the loudness of that dial is turned down. So, when you were feeling did you have any scar sensation or any sight feeling pain?

K: [00:21:35] Oh yeah, the incisions definitely hurt. But, you know, because so much of the nerve.. Nerves were cut through, my understanding at least is that my surgery was probably less painful than yours because I had lost a lot of sensation. So many things that I might have felt that could have been painful just weren't because I couldn't feel it. That said, underneath my breasts, I definitely felt something from the incisions. And it sounded like your recovery, too, was longer than mine was.

Calvin: [00:22:16] Yeah, my recovery was definitely a solid six weeks of no lifting, no doing anything. And the first two weeks were just sleeping, like all I remember was being woken up to take my next series of pain meds and then going back to sleep, being woken up to empty out the drains, going back to sleep. And also it was 2004 and so the relationship to opioids was real different than it is now. And I was just on opioids for two weeks and it... Are we allowed to swear?

Caitlin: [00:22:54] Yes, with abandon.

Calvin: [00:22:57] Right, it fucked me up and that was probably the hardest thing to come off of was coming off the opioids after two weeks of just sleeping and drooling on myself. And then it was definitely six weeks before I was back to work and still like not doing a full on physical labor, but doing like pointing at things. And the first time I had to try and climb on the ladder, being an electrician was definitely terrifying. Yeah.

K: [00:23:32] Yeah. Did you did you have sensation the whole time you were recovering in all of your skin or was there are loss of it temporarily?

Calvin: [00:23:39] There's there was a lot of temporary loss and and I'm just going to start feeling myself up to it. But yeah, definitely like the the spot between breast tissue... that like most concave spot took the longest... Like it was one of the longest areas to have sensation returned to. And then definitely pec tissue and nipples. The nipples took years for sensation to come back... Like over 10 years. But it's amazing that they, they did. And like after, after the nipples have been sleeping for ten years. When they woke up it was like, what was that?

K: [00:24:22] Was that all of a sudden?

Calvin: [00:24:24]  I remember there was like one day where I was like, what's against my t shirt? Why am I feeling my t shirt? And it was sort of like one day, like part of a light switch turned on or part of a switch turned on where I had more gentle sensation as opposed to like hard pressure or just like grabbing sensation. And they're not they're definitely not the way they were before surgery. But it's sort of like... I consider it a bonus when that I have any sensation at all because I was told to not plan for it.

K: [00:24:59] Did you feel your muscles in a different way against your skin after so much tissue was removed?

Calvin: [00:25:06] That's a great question. I don't think I felt the muscles differently. But I think I felt the skin differently, if that makes sense. So, you know, at the incision site, even now, if I like, lift my hands over my head, I can feel where like skin didn't used to touch skin, but is now the joining place. And definitely on the sides as well. In top surgery land and trans masculine land, there's this byproduct of top surgery called dog ears that can happen. Where the incision ends can sort of pop out and create a little triangle as opposed to just having like a straight flat skin that follows your ribs right there. Which is also near where the drains were. And I didn't have dog ears or anything like that, but it feels different.

 K: [00:26:07] Is that something that you can have corrected if you wanted?

Calvin: [00:26:10] Yeah, yeah. And so with your surgery, were they up front about you were going to lose sensation and it wasn't going to come back?

K: [00:26:19] Yeah, yeah, they're pretty up front about that, they tell you you're never going to feel your nipples again, you know, most of your breast area, you're not going to feel anymore. Some people get a little bit of sensation back. Yeah, they're pretty up front about that part of it.

Calvin: [00:26:36] How how has that been for you?

K: [00:26:39] First, it was really bizarre. You know, it's slowly through the years it's come back little by little, but I'm still, you know, really nothing under the sternum and I feel it all. And so at first, I was sad about it and it was difficult to deal with. And I was like knocking into things with my boobs and not realizing or people could knock into me and I wouldn't feel it, which is just bizarre. It's a very weird experience to get used to. And what I what I could feel, though, which is why I ask, is I could feel the muscles shifting under my implants. And I still do. Sometimes, depending on what movement I do, I can feel the muscles working in a way, but I can never feel before. And so that was one of the weirdest experiences for me and wanting to do things like climb a ladder and hang lights and work in the theater and do all these physical activities was more difficult, not because I had atrophied so much..  I could just feel like these striations. It's hard to describe just things moving against each other that never had moved against each other before, I guess. Yeah, but yeah. Other than that, the lack of sensation. I tell all my partners about that before they touched me and luckily I found men don't care. They're just happy to be with a set of boobs.

Calvin: [00:28:08] Oh.

K: [00:28:11] So it hasn't you know, it's, it's a bummer. But it hasn't been the biggest deal in the world for me at least.

Calvin: [00:28:17] Yeah. And and I wonder also if there's a difference in mine was quote unquote "elective surgery". And it seems like yours was definitely not. It was preventative.

K: [00:28:33] It's preventative. But I think that in the current classification of elective surgery, this probably would have been an elective surgery because it was not an emergency. You know, I don't know for sure, but my sense was that people's hysterectomies were being held up, you know, if they had fibroids and things like that, because that wasn't life threatening. And so I feel like this might be in the same category, but I could be wrong.

Calvin: [00:29:03] Yeah, because because I think definitely in my in my process of coming to terms with having the surgery and doing the the cost benefit analysis, I think any two person's cost benefit analysis of a surgery is going to be wildly different. But I wonder if the difference between yours and mine is in greater contrast because there was not an underlying physical health issue that was determining my surgery. There is almost, in the trans community, there's almost like a shopping for surgeries that happens of- do you want to be...like are you small enough to get a keyhole surgery? Which means that you you have a wildly different set of surgeries and scars and sensations afterwards. Or you can... Can you get away with X or can you sort of bargain one for the other of "keep my nipples the same size because I want all the sensation" or "give me the most masculinised chest humanly possible", like there's a lot of talking about which surgeons do what and which do them better and and the end result...And and so it does feel weird in this way that you're sort of like shopping for different things that are important to you around this life changing massive surgery.

K: [00:30:33] Yeah, I think there's a bit of shopping, you know, in the world that I'm coming from as well, in that, you know, you do have different reconstruction options and you can do what they call going flat in the community and just not have any reconstruction at all. So you can shop for, you know, the different types of shapes that you like. There was a whole day where I got to play with breast implants and see which ones felt right for me. You know, I could see examples of my plastic surgeons prior work. There's also reconstruction using your own tissue, which you can opt for if you have a certain body type or if it's physically somehow better for you. My doctor said that that wasn't really going to be an option for me. I think I just didn't have enough fatty tissue to pull from to make it look right. So there's a bit of shopping. But I think that maybe one of the big differences there is just the time line. So I'm curious. I know I chose to have my surgery as quickly as I could because every woman in my family had had breast cancer at the age of thirty eight. And I was told that by the time you find out you have breast cancer, you've likely had it for five to six years and not known. So I felt like I was looking down the barrel of a gun and I could not get my breasts out fast enough snow. But a lot of people in my community wait a very long time. Or they wait to a recommended age of around thirty five forty? So I'm curious, what made you pull the trigger and what what made you take the leap?

Calvin: [00:32:13] Yeah, in my trans experience and in my trans narrative, I had come out as trans two years before my top surgery sort of publicly and started publicly transitioning. And at that point I started wearing a binder every day, which is...for people who don't know what binders are, it's just sort of like the most compressing sports bra times two that you can wear to try and get as much of a flat chest as possible and so it has some long term significant effects of wearing such a compressing item of clothing every day. One of which is back pain, one of which is lung capacity issues, because your lungs can't expand enough to get the breath you want. So doing things like climbing ladders and being electricians and working in theatre, which demands a lot of physical activity, you get worn out quicker. You put yourself in a dangerous position because you just can't get the oxygen you need as fast as you need it. And so it and also like in the middle of summer and the heat wave like heck, no, no, no wearing binders. So for me, it you know, I had I lived for about two years wearing wearing a binder and I had had about as much as I could take of that. And so the other option is to go back to wearing sports bras or something that reveals more of a chest that also just didn't feel like an acceptable option for me. So I started shopping around for my surgeon maybe a year ahead of time and then planned to have the surgery when I could. But at that point also I had to pay for it out of pocket because it was elective surgery. So insurance didn't cover it in the early 2000s, but thank God for my amazing supportive father who paid for it for me and supported me through all of it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So I had about a year of planning for it. And and also, I think when I started transitioning, there was definitely a more binary story that this was the path you were on and these were the things that you did and you didn't... You didn't get as much of a choice in it. You definitely couldn't exist as a non binary person or somebody in between. It was just like the next step to do towards becoming a quote unquote "man", but that's a different conversation for a different day.

K: [00:35:12] Even in the last 20 years, you feel like there's been a larger a large shift in that thinking? Do you think that just in urban areas or do you think that's everywhere?

Calvin: [00:35:24]  I think that it is better everywhere, but certainly the urban areas are going to see more change more quickly. And when I had surgery, I was in Pittsburgh, which I have an amazing queer and trans community out in Pittsburgh and still to this day. And so it was just go to see this one surgeon who would do the surgery or go see this one doctor who would be the doctor to give you hormones. And so in that in that way, the community, just like we we took care of each other and passed the information along. Even though Pittsburgh is a big city and has a lot of progressive and liberal pockets and certainly a lot of conservative pockets as well...it felt it felt like that that was the one the one place, the one option, one surgery.

K: [00:36:16] Do you remember how much your top surgery cost?

Calvin: [00:36:19] Seven thousand dollars.

K: [00:36:21] I'm shocked it's actually that low. It's a major surgery. It's a major surgery. I mean, it's a lot for a person to afford out of pocket for sure, but.

Calvin: [00:36:29] Yeah. It's both like a huge amount of money and a super amazing discount, right, because I think nowadays they're like 12 to 15 thousand.

K: [00:36:46] Yeah. Which is, again, horrible for one person to have to shoulder. Um, yeah.

Calvin: [00:36:53] Literally.

K: [00:36:57] I wonder if there's a you know, what the difference might be between rural areas and urban areas, but my two surgeries and the bilateral mastectomy and the reconstruction came up to three hundred thousand.

Calvin: [00:37:14] Wow.

K: [00:37:15] Which I only paid about, I want to say two or three thousand of them because I was insured and it was covered, but I was blown away when I saw the bills.

Calvin: [00:37:27] Yeah.

K: [00:37:28] That's that's why seven thousand, I was like, oh, my God.

Caitlin: [00:37:32] I'm wondering what both of you were worried about going into your various top surgery and mastectomy.

Calvin: [00:37:40] I think that with any major surgery, there's always the worry that you're not going to come out of it. There's you know, there's just the general worry of death.

K: [00:37:48] But, yeah, I was definitely worried about dying, definitely said a lot of goodbyes, hugged everyone and said I love you... Like you don't know. Some people don't come out of anesthesia. And then my other big and irrational worry that actually did come true was that I was going to feel the breathing tube come out and I asked them about it before the surgery. I said, hey, that can't happen to me, that's not OK, I'm not OK with that. Please make sure that doesn't happen. And they're like, oh, it's so, so rare. Doesn't happen to anybody. And oh, my God, I was so awake and I so felt it. And I can still feel it. And it's still like makes my skin crawl cool. Not cool.

Calvin: [00:38:32] I mean to not answer your question but to answer something related to that, like something I didn't know that was going to happen that freaked my shit out. After my first two weeks out of surgery where I still had a compressor on and all of my drains and all of this stuff. When I went to the doctor to get the drains removed and to see my chest for the first time. I had an immediate... An immediate feeling of just complete horror about what I had done. Because I had not seen... I had not seen my chest at all, and it was a pretty drastic thing to go from a C Cup down to flat chest with these big dark scars and still like because I couldn't bathe the area, still like the iodine or whatever the antiseptic is. And I had this like, holy shit, what did I just do? Who's going to love this body? And I don't think I've ever shared that with anyone or told anyone that I had that reaction, but my my guess is it's not that alien. Your body just went through a major change super quickly. Did you have anything like that?

K: [00:40:01] Yeah, I mean, I definitely felt like a trauma of sorts, just not having any of what I knew before there. And I guess similarly to the the comment about who's going to love this new body? I definitely had some fears as well about what I was going to look like and what my new shape would be. And I had seen horror stories and there was a woman who was in my recovery room watching the show "Botched" which is about the plastic surgeries. And so she was this horrible woman next to me who who had been in for some kind of biopsy or not a biopsy... What is it when they remove a little chunk of tissue?It was a lumpectomy and I had gone in for the whole shebang. So I was like angry at her to begin that she was next to me. She was watching Botched and it was about botched boob jobs. And I was just like, how dare you? And I was just so afraid that that was going to be me. And I would be on that show one day and be like, fix me! Help! I don't think I talked about this on the other episode, but when you have implant reconstruction, you can have what's called rippling. You can get this with a normal boob jobs as well, or I should say breast implants or augmentation, which is where the skin looks ripply over the implant because there's no tissue between your skin and the implant. And I do have some of that and almost everyone does. And it looks weird and it looks very scary the first few times you see it. But now I'm kind of used to it and explain that to people as well before they see it. Like they don't quite look real. And so I definitely had a fear that that was going to be really devastatingly bad. But it's not so bad. It's only in righty, I call them lefty and righty. So righty is the problem child. And I have options where I could get fat grafting to deal with that. If it gets really bad. It has gotten worse over time. But I was worried it was going to be so much worse than it is.

Calvin: [00:42:15] I've got a completely inappropriate question for you.

K: [00:42:19] Nothing is inappropriate.

Calvin: [00:42:21] So as I was just thinking, like with rippling, you know, at some point as we continue to age, like wrinkles will help maybe. But with the aging process, your breasts aren't going to age in quite the same way. Because the fat isn't going to redistribute like this, this silicon is just going to stay put, right?

K: [00:42:44] Right. So I can have perky boobs for as long as I want, which is kind of great, but it's also might be kind of weird. I do have to get the implants replaced every 10 years is the recommendation. So I could get a different type of reconstruction as I get older, get a different shape, something that fits more biologically with what I would have looked like. So that's an option in the future.

Calvin: [00:43:11] Wow. I'm amazed. Yeah, so you don't have to stay perky as an old lady if you don't want to be.

K: [00:43:21] I don't but I feel like I'm gonna up. Fuck it.

Calvin: [00:43:30]  Rock it out with the perkiness.

K: [00:43:31] Why not?

Calvin: [00:43:35] So should we move down south?

K: [00:43:37] Yeah. You know, let's go down south. What I did and why I did it. Because of my BRCA status, I had a 50 percent chance of ovarian cancer in my lifetime. No one in my family ever had ovarian cancer, luckily. But I felt like, you know, at the age of 40, I was going to get my fallopian tubes out. And that's because they think that maybe ovarian cancer starts there. And I wasn't really willing to give up the ovaries just yet because I was really nervous about what that would do to me hormonally. And I wasn't ready for menopause, yadda, yadda, yadda. Back in, it was only last year, 2019. That feels like forever ago. I went to my gynecologist because I was having really, really painful periods and I was waking up in a pool of my own blood every month. And I didn't know what was happening, I thought maybe I was just getting older and this is what happens to women when they get older. But no, turns out that's very abnormal. So I went to my gynecologist and she discovered a fibroid on my uterus. And so I thought, OK, why don't I get the fallopian tubes out now that will stop my periods. My periods are what's painful. So then my doctor says, no, we should really just probably do the ovaries, too. And I was like, oh, really? I don't want wanna. Man, ok. Ok, so we decided that my first appointment to do both of those things. And then I went in for a follow up and she said, you know what, we should really take the uterus too. Because if you take out the uterus, you will not have to take progesterone. Progesterone is something that I would have had to keep taking to, I guess, keep the lining of my uterus happy or something like that. And she said, if you want to reduce the medications you're taking for decades, this would be the way to go. So got all that done. Had my cervix closed up, had a cuff created, and here we are.

Calvin: [00:45:44] Yeah. So I've always been curious, do you think the cuff is actually I sort of imagine is like a what scrunchies, like with a ponytail... like I imagine it as this scrunchie on the back of my cervix.

K: [00:46:04] I kind of imagine it as like a crumpled up potato chip bag? I just like I don't know, I needed it. But yeah, I do have, like, an imagination and a visual of some kind of in my head of what that is.

Calvin: [00:46:21] Yeah. Because I think really, like from the pictures I've looked at and seeing my own cuff, it's really just the point of incision where the cervix was and then they just like close it up like a pillowcase. And so there's not a scrunchie up there. There's not anything back there. But having a cuff makes it sound like there's something keeping it locked in.

K: [00:46:50] What do you mean you've seen your cuff?

Calvin: [00:46:53] Well, I saw the incision site from the inside of my vaginal opening. Wait, no, I saw from the top. I have pictures. So, yeah, so I've got pictures of both my uterus when it was in there and like the little fallopian tubes and like the wee little wee little bubs that it was because it was six inches total. And then so there's a picture of the the uterus from like a top down view. And then there's another picture after the uterus was taken out of just like the line at the back of my vaginal opening where the cuff is and like where the stitches were. Oh, yeah.

K: [00:47:44] So they did that. We should talk about your surgery and what you had done.

Calvin: [00:47:48] I was just going to pull a picture if you wanted to see my uterus.

K: [00:47:53] I was just going to say, was that from the camera that went into your belly button? And I realized I discussed the laparoscopic nature of the surgery, which you also had.

Calvin: [00:48:03] Yes. Yes. So, yes, I had a laparoscopic. Hysterectomy, but it wasn't a full hysterectomy because we left my apocalypse ovary. But I got the uterus taken out, both fallopian tubes, one ovary and I have a cuff where my cervix was. And so I guess the cervix is out, too. And I just had my surgery in December of 2019. So about six months ago. And for me, the back story with that, with, with choosing to get a histo at this point is... When I first started transitioning, it was just sort of common folklore that trans dudes didn't go longer than five or 10 years before getting a histo, because essentially if you think about like a summer cabin and when you leave for the winter, you have to winterize the pipes and make sure all the water is out and so that the pipes don't freeze and crack or anything goes wrong because you're not using the pipes. Similarly, my uterus, my fallopian tubes and my ovaries just sort of like got winterised and shut down. And so there is a greater chance, I think the science is still out on this, but there is an understanding that there's a greater chance of when you leave the house in the woods for too long, the bears are going to sneak in. Shits going to go wrong. So there's a couple of things happening. The vaginal tissue and the lining got supremely thin over the years. I started experiencing more abdominal cramping for no reason. And then also being somebody who likes penetrative sex. Usually the penetration would result in a lot of bleeding, which would then usually kick start a period which was like all of the no fun things in my list. But then sort of what really turned the corner for me was a few years ago, I started experiencing this thing where just at the height of climax and sex and coming, I would get major abdominal cramps, sort of like getting tazed in the junk. As you have an orgasm and that stopped being fun.

K: [00:50:37] It sounds horrible. And that's all due to the hormones and that's all due to the testosterone?

Calvin: [00:50:44] So, the testosterone thinned out my my uterine lining, it shrunk my cervix and my cervix and my uterus then started to atrophy, which I'm not quite sure how that works because I thought only muscles atrophied. And so what was happening was as I was coming, those muscles were trying to stretch and they couldn't and so they would just grab instead. Yeah, so I opted out of that game and the the doc said .. the surgeon said that we could also just put me on an IUD to basically reintroduce estrogen into that specific area without introducing estrogen to the rest of my body. But mixed with my age and everything else, I was like I'm not going to have a baby. Just take it all, but keep the apocalypse ovary. And so. The surgery was just about six months ago, and I feel like I have only finally healed maybe like two months ago because there was a lot. I had a lot of back pain afterwards. And I think your body just takes it takes however long it's going to take to get used to... You know, organs fighting for the space and muscles and certainly core muscles like healing from the surgery sites.

K: [00:52:21] You mentioned not wanting to have kids, and I know that when I was going through all of my pre surgical appointments for the hysterectomy, I was constantly asked over and over and over. You going to want to have kids? Do you want kids? Do you have kids yet? Are you sure? Did you have a similar experience?

Calvin: [00:52:43] I think I got asked once, and it's like at some point in my life I did want to have kids, but living this theater lifestyle that we live in is not conducive to small beings for me. Yeah. And so yeah, I, I spent a fair amount of time in therapy beforehand, really, really realizing there was a chunk of grief that I had to go through in making this absolute decision. But I think I am pretty glad that nobody really pushed the issue on me once, once I started talking to doctors because that would have been a pain in the butt. Did you want kids? Was that is was that a thing that you had to go through?

K: [00:53:33] No, but nobody would believe me. You know, it's this thing where people assume that, you know, everyone with a uterus must want to be pregnant at some point. Right. Which I don't find to be true at all. I've never wanted kids. I never felt bad about it. But for some reason, the taking of my uterus was a lot to deal with mentally for no apparent reason, like I didn't want kids, I didn't want to be able to carry a child. I just felt like, wow, that's a whole less organ. Do I have to? Yeah. You know, people with my condition also tend to turn more often to be infertile, which also might be true of me. I've never even had a scare.

Calvin: [00:54:19] Yeah, it's it's so curious talking about pregnancy scares, because even with being on testosterone and being somebody who sleeps with people who could get me pregnant and always having safer sex around it, even with all of the choices that went into all my actions, knowing that the chance for pregnancy was really low, it still was a terrifying thing to live with. That feels oddly liberating to have a hysterectomy like on this side of it. Which is weird.

K: [00:55:01] Yeah, yeah, it's not something I think about a lot, because I never really had any scares or anything, but to know now that I just can't get pregnant is sort of amazing, that I just don't have to have that as a fear ever again.

Calvin: [00:55:14] Yeah, I don't think I clocked the the fear turned responsibility turned into changed behavior until it was gone. Something I remember we were talking about the healing process. And you asked a really smart question about if I felt my organs fighting for space because you you did feel that.

K: [00:55:41] Yeah, I felt for I think a couple of weeks, if I remember right. Um, I couldn't tell what exactly it was, but it felt like intestines were moving around and things were just trying to fill the space. And I, I felt a very obvious void. I called it the pit for a while where my uterus was. I could just feel this weird emptiness. But then around that, I could just feel things moving in different ways. And then there was I had all these eating issues for months after where I could only eat what I called my bird snacks for a while. I could eat things that were like little two hundred calorie packs and yogurt or something like that. And if I ate a sandwich, I would just get these horrible stomach cramps for like half an hour to an hour afterwards. But you said you hadn't really experienced quite that. But there is something that you thought about after I said that, right?

Calvin: [00:56:36] I didn't experience the sensation of organs fighting for space. But I think also, if I remember correctly, we had very different sized uteri.

K: [00:56:44] Yeah, mine's a giant.

Calvin: [00:56:45] Yours was a big girl. Mine was just a little a little sweet baby.

K: [00:56:51] Yeah.

Calvin: [00:56:52] And so I didn't. Yeah...The healing process and the fighting for space, I didn't feel at all. But I did feel my intestines as they were sitting on top of my cuff. So like. Before I would have to poop, I could sort of like feel them moving along, like feeling the poop, moving along over the cuff, which it wasn't like one of those sharp menstrual cramps, but more just like one of those rumbly menstrual cramps, which was still weird. I was like I thought we got rid of everybody so I could get rid of cramps! But there was there was a relationship happening also, like during this time where I realized that dairy was part of part of a different problem for me. And so now that my uterus is out, if ever I have cramps, I'm like, I know it has to be food! It has really limited the options down on like what can be happening. Right?

K: [00:57:57] That's that's true. I know now that it's something in my stomach or my intestines that hurts. It's definitely not my uterus.

Calvin: [00:58:04] Yeah. And that's also like a huge relief, which is weird.

K: [00:58:10] Yeah. Can I ask you this? Was the first time you pooped after the surgery just super terrifying?

Calvin: [00:58:19] Terrifying. The worst the worst thing in the world.

K: [00:58:23] So fucking scary.

Calvin: [00:58:25] Yeah. And it was it was days after. So my best friend and my dad came up to help take care of me. And we put we put like... I love checkmarks more than anything in the world. And I would do anything for a checkmark. We put like chores list for me. And so, like, I would have to do a loop, do a lap around the house. And pooping was always on the list. But the first time I went to poop, I remember being like, don't bear down. How else does the poop get out? Maybe just like bear down a tiny bit. And even in that tiny bit, I felt something pop internally and I was like, either that's a stitch or it's my back. Either way, I'm never pushing ever again. I'm never going. I don't want my intestines coming out my vagina. Thank you so much.

K: [00:59:13] Yeah.

Calvin: [00:59:17] My surgeon put the fear of God into me of like you don't want your you don't want to prolapsed intestinal issue.

K: [00:59:25] Ah so the mentioned prolapsed intestines to you?

Calvin: [00:59:27] That that like if you if you have sex too soon, if you irritate the cuff, if you push too hard when you're pooping, you could pop stitch and your intestines will just fall through your cuff and come out of your vagina. Thank you.

K: [00:59:47] I'm sorry to laugh, but that's so crazy.

Calvin: [00:59:49] And of course, like I've got a super visual imagination, so like just like there's a scrunchie at the back of my cuff, I'm like, I can see that's not..no...

K: [01:00:01] So my doctor never mentioned any of that to me. But in my online support groups, I was seeing all these women talk about vaginal prolapse, which is apparently like your vagina turning inside out, essentially. And I was terrified of this. I was unreasonably terrified. This happens in very few cases, but I went to my doctor and she acted surprised that I had even brought it up. It's so rare in her experience. And she said, have you ever been pregnant? Have you ever had kids? Have you ever had a prolapse? If you haven't checked those boxes, don't worry about this. It's really not going to be a thing for you. But even so, that first time pooping and probably for weeks after, I was just terrified that everything was going to turn inside out. And because I could feel my intestines, too, I had a fear of something happening to those, even though my doctor never mentioned... I'm so glad they didn't mention that idea, I would have been just terrified.

Calvin: [01:00:57] Yeah. And like, what do you do when you get there, too? Just like. Yeah. Pop them back in. No, no.

K: [01:01:05] Yeah. What what does one do.

Calvin: [01:01:07] I have no idea.

K: [01:01:09] Wow. Yeah. I don't know. You just hang out and wait for someone to show up.

Calvin: [01:01:16]  Maybe take the pants off. I don't know. But related to that, it's something that I think is also worth chatting about that I know we chatted about last time, is do you have any difference in the depth of or like the depth or the sensation or the pleasure of sex?

K: [01:01:42] I was worried that I was going to and my doctor mentioned that because of the lack of certain hormones, I might experience vaginal dryness. You know, she basically said there are things you can do for that. I can give you certain supplements and you can take medications or whatever. But none of them are very good because we don't research the vagina very well in our medical community in the way that we researched penises. So she said none of them are great options, but let me know if it becomes an issue for you. Use lots of lube, et cetera. But no, I didn't notice anything really physically different other than that I was terrified of tearing out stitches the first few times I had sex, definitely had to go really slowly and had some spotting first couple of times after, which was kind of nerve wracking. But other than that, I think sex is probably a little bit more enjoyable for me than it was because I am not I don't have my period like 20 days a month anymore. So in the before times, before covid, I could have sex as much as I wanted. And, you know, given a willing partner, of course. But when I still had my period, I was very limited in what I could do. And, you know, it was sometimes even painful, I think, because of the fibroids and so I think it's better now. How about you?

Calvin: [01:03:18] I was terrified that the hysterectomy was going to change my sex life in a way, in detrimental ways. I was really nervous about the amount of wetness that I'd still be able to produce, and that seems unchanged. And my surgeon said that shouldn't change. But I have noticed a difference in the depth of my opening or my front hole. That it doesn't seem that it's as deep as it was before in a way that doesn't feel good anymore. Like I don't know that I ever enjoyed somebody slamming up against my cervix. But in the absence of that, it just feels like running into a wall at the end of a hallway. So it's just it doesn't feel as forgiving or like shock absorber in a way.

K: [01:04:16] Do you experience that in a way where you know, the wall is getting hit more like your your cervix is being hit more than it used to be.

Calvin: [01:04:27] Yeah, like we shorten the hallway a little bit. Yeah. I'm going to just stick to all housing analogies for my for my junk, apparently.

K: [01:04:35] Yeah, it's great. I approve. Yeah.

Caitlin: [01:04:41] Would you mind talking a little bit about how you characterize your junk?

Calvin: [01:04:45] Oh, sure. She's sassy, fun and a hoot at parties. Is that what you meant?

Caitlin: [01:04:57] It is.

Calvin: [01:04:59] Can't believe I just said that out loud.

K: [01:05:01] Oh, that's amazing.

Calvin: [01:05:03] In that way that we were talking about earlier about clinical language stops being sexy and stops being .. it others in a way... For me and my relationship to gender...How I talk about my bits falls into that category. So, you know, like I remember saying earlier, like all folks with innies, because I don't want to make assumptions that all women have innies and all men have outies. And I know that for less for myself, but definitely for for people who I love and care about - using like vagina or vaginal opening or clit in relationship to the junk that I have or to the bits that I have is really othering and really not helpful in helping people feel aligned with their body and their gender. And so for me, I am I'm pretty flexible. I'm pretty chill about language concerning my junk, but I definitely prefer things like front hole and back hole to refer to vaginal opening and ass hole and that yeah, it just feels it feels a lot more in line. And I feel like even being on a podcast and talking about enjoying penetrative sex is like a masculine of center, trans bodies are taboo to begin with. And I hope maybe it's not there's not a lot of talking explicitly about trans bodies and sexual pleasure. It's explicitly that I've heard of. So it feels like new and exciting.

K: [01:06:53]  Related to the hysterectomy and sex. We talked a little bit about telling our partners prior or I told my partners about my top surgery mastectomy prior to sex. Of yours, it's probably a little more obvious when they see you. What do you tell people about the hysterectomy prior to sex?

Calvin: [01:07:16] That's a great question. I don't know, and I haven't, you know, like it's been six months and I've only really been a sexual being for three of those months, because I didn't want my intestines to fall out and we've been in sort of isolation for three months.

K: [01:07:35] Yeah,

Calvin: [01:07:36] So so so this is all theoretical. If it was a casual encounter situation, I don't know if I would like I don't because the scars are way different. Right. Like to to the scars, just like little looked like little bumps on my belly and the other scar on my belly button like nobody can ever see that.

K: [01:08:01] You have three?

Calvin: [01:08:01] I've got one on my left and right that are asymmetrical, which is a whole different thing. And then one in my bellybutton where the camera was.

K: [01:08:10] Oh I have five.

Calvin: [01:08:11] Wow.

K: [01:08:11] Oh interesting.

Calvin: [01:08:14] Where are yours?

K: [01:08:16] Same thing. Two on either side. And then one in the bellybutton.

Calvin: [01:08:20] Wow. Are your symmetrical?

K: [01:08:25]  No, god, no.

Calvin: [01:08:27] That's the thing that I'm, like...

K: [01:08:28] Really annoying.

Calvin: [01:08:30] We couldn't just line this up, y'all?

K: [01:08:32] Yeah right...Funny, I thought ovaries were generally in the same spot, relatively.

Calvin: [01:08:37] There's absolutely good reason for it. I'm sure they don't just, like, throw a dart at you while you're sleeping and like there!

K: [01:08:45] They told me for placing the implants that they were going to literally sit me up several times during surgery and see how they were sitting.

Calvin: [01:08:54] My doctor told me for the histo that they inverted me.

K: [01:08:58] What does that mean?

Calvin: [01:08:59] That means that my head was below my ass and this was like they did this so that all of your organs naturally fall out of the way so that they can just get to your uterus. So mind blown away.

K: [01:09:14] So like you were on an incline and your head was lower?

Calvin: [01:09:18] I was on a decline. So my head was lower than my legs and my ass.

K: [01:09:26] You're still on your back.

Calvin: [01:09:27] I was still in my back. I was like, that's genius. Because as we've talked about, like, the organs are going to try and fill in the space, but if they're all running towards your head, gravity is going to kick them out of the way.

K: [01:09:40] I'm really curious now about the scars though- I have to look that up after this. I'm wondering why you've got three and I've got five.

Calvin: [01:09:48] Can I ask where in the belly are they? Are they at the bottom?

K: [01:09:51] I can show them to you?

Calvin: [01:09:52] Yeah!

K: [01:09:53] I'm sorry. I have these fake tattoos from a Zoom date a few days ago.

Calvin: [01:09:59] Cute.

K: [01:09:59] They're not coming off. So I have one there, one there, belly button, one there and one there!

Calvin: [01:10:04] That's amazing because. All right, since we're in a podcast, nobody can see that. But we can see you on the right, one to the left one of my belly button.

K: [01:10:17] Huh.

Calvin: [01:10:20] So not symmetrical. Yeah. But pretty, pretty like sort of at the top of my hip bones.

Caitlin: [01:10:20] While we're doing this, I'm showing you mine!

K: [01:10:36] Show and tell. Show us yours!

Caitlin: [01:10:39] So mine you can't really see it in my closet. But there's one there and then there's one there, there's one like right somewhere... Like in this top of pubic hair region.

K: [01:10:51] It looks like they've really kind of faded. I mean, the lighting isn't great but..

Caitlin: [01:10:56] no, the lighting is not great here. But they were just like they're just like little barbecue skewer sticks is how I think of them. Coming up on two years. Two years. And it'll be two years in August.

K: [01:11:10] All right. You're giving me hope. Yeah, well, I mean, they faded.

Caitlin: [01:11:14] They were bright red. Yeah. For yeah a long time.

K: [01:11:17] Mine are pretty obvious. I always think before the clothes come off I'm warning you about top and bottom and just tell you my whole business.

Calvin: [01:11:24] I also have the benefit of belly here. I mean they look like I made a poor life choice with a fence at some point in my life but like that's it. So do you tell folks about your histo? That you have sex with?

K: [01:11:41] Yeah, usually I mention it just because they're going to see the scars. Um. And I you know, I don't think they would ask necessarily. But I just I don't like to leave anything to mystery, I don't like the idea that anyone is wondering about me afterwards, which is also why I tell them about my breasts as well, because I'm like, they don't feel real by any stretch of the imagination. They don't look real. From afar, they do pretty well at fooling people. Um, yeah. It's weird. This is like a horrible thing to say, but I guess I don't want people to think that I've had cancer. And I don't know why. So that's that's something that I, you know, is just a weird mental thing for me, I guess. I guess I don't want people to feel more sorry for me or something?

Calvin: [01:12:42] I mean, that that makes a lot of sense.

K: [01:12:45] And so even on my online dating profiles, I put, you know, BRCA positive, this does not mean I've had cancer, because I've had people message me and say, oh, my God, you're a survivor. And there's something about that for me that's so cringy. And it's like, yeah, I've I've gone through some stuff, but like, I haven't had the C word. Which is a fucked up way to think about it, I guess.

Calvin: [01:13:12] But it makes I mean, it makes sense because I think that so what what I'm hearing from you in like my world, in my analogy, is that I want there to be room to be a complicated body. Right, like if I'm just a trans person, it limits the beautiful three dimensionality of me down to just maybe something to fetishize or something to like an achievement to unlock of like, oh, I fucked the trans person. And it takes away all of the beautiful rest of me that exists. That's beyond just being a trans person. And I wonder if there's any similarity with, like, wanting to be out about the complexity of your own body's history as opposed to just being somebody's BRCA identified or then being confused as a survivor or somebody who's had cancer?

K: [01:14:08] Yeah, I think that's probably a more eloquent way of putting some of some of what I feel. Yeah. And it might you might be right. It might be something about not wanting to be seen as one thing and not wanting to have this immediate assumption about me without having the chance to control my own narrative about it. You know, and lucky me, I get to do that.

Calvin: [01:14:34] Yeah.

K: [01:14:35] You know, I can tell someone straight out, here's the deal. Here's what happened to me without having someone immediately assume something about me. So that speaks a lot to my own privilege.

Calvin: [01:14:46] The thing that I've realized. In relationships and in connection with people, is that the thing that I strive for the most is trying to ensure that I get the closest reflection of what I'm transmitting, of who I am so that I can confirm that somebody seeing me the way I see myself. That there's they're seeing all of the good, the bad and the ugly. And we're never going to get one hundred percent reflection of how we see ourselves, because it's always going through the lens of how somebody else's lived experience. But I wonder if that plays into this. If like see me for what I really am, as opposed to what you think I am.

K: [01:15:31] Yeah, that's pretty accurate. You got really deep from that conversation.

Calvin: [01:15:38] We did. I mean, we we can you know, we can we can go the whole gamut from poop to being understood.

Caitlin: [01:15:48] Something that Calvin, you and I were talking about was how your surgeon addressed to you in your body. And I was wondering if if you would like to say something about that, because I thought it was so interesting and so lovely.

Calvin: [01:16:05] Yeah. So without comparing surgeons, but to absolutely compare surgeons, when I had top surgery in 2004, that surgeon was really like this is the next body, this is the next procedure and was not at all interested in attaching the surgery with the personal aspect- with the human at the other end. Certainly being trans in the medical industry complex, that has been a lived thing. And I'm guessing for a lot of us, regardless of trans or cis identity, like our bodies are super detached from us as human beings. And how we care for our bodies is not at all attached to how to care for us as human beings. And so the surgeon that I had for my histo, like I can't sing her praises enough. She was absolutely spectacular. and the like the biggest gold star she gets is for immediately recognizing language that I was using about my own body and mirroring it back to me. And so like just during the first consult, she was able to have a more candid rapport with me because I wasn't an 80 year old lady that is like the majority of her clientele or her patients. And so she was able to just sort of like be another human in a room with another human. It was exceptional, and it it breaks my heart to realize how few times that's happened in my life around the taking care of my body. And so, like this stands out in even starker contrast. Because it was it was a time where somebody was just able to be like everybody and you are a person in a body. So like when I was talking about my Apocalypse Ovary, she noted it down somewhere in my file. And so on the day of my surgery, you know how they ask you to make sure that you're still the right patient and who are you? What surgeries are you getting? And everybody does it. They're like, do you want jello for lunch and what surgery are you having? And so every person who came across me in the hospital that day, they all mirrored the language that I had used with my with my surgeon. And they all referenced like not that not they didn't reference it as like, oh, this is foreign and exciting, but just as like a and we're keeping your apocalypse ovary. It's like yes, we are. Thank you. And so it was really. Amazing to to have that recognition and acknowledgement and using using the language that makes it less clinical and more human. At the end of the day. There's there's something I'd written down about using this shorthand language around top surgery ... histo instead of hysterectomy is a is a quick way to bypass the othering of the body and to sort of keep it all together. And in that moment, like you can't be an other in your own body and getting that reflection from surgeons or from doctors or anesthesiologists that you are still yourself in your own body as you're about to go through this scary, terrifying surgery made all the difference for me as far as, like calming me down and feeling like, OK, still be the same person on the other side of this. And I, of course, have the horror stories of friends who find out afterwards that their surgeons behave poorly as far as recognizing a trans body as a body. And and that's heartbreaking because we're like. Whenever we go in for surgery, we're trusting our lives with these people, and to be a woman in the world is already hard enough, to be a trans person in the world is already hard enough, and to feel that trust broken....

K: [01:20:17] I'm glad that your doctors were able to treat you with such respect and I'm sorry about your mastectomy, that's that's that's not cool.

Calvin: [01:20:30] It's not it's not cool. I just almost did that thing that folks ... socialized female are supposed to do of like. Oh, that's my experience, right?

K: [01:20:40] No, that's fine. That's fine.

Calvin: [01:20:42] That's what it's what it was. Can't undo it.

K: [01:20:46] I mean, it's not nearly the same thing. But there is one thing that I did that I really dislike designation, which is that, you know, obviously you have the bar code. That's fine. It's on your bracelet. It's a tracking mechanism, whatever. Fine. But the waiting for surgery moment, you're given a number and you're watching on a screen like you're a piece of deli meat, like when your turn is and that's how people track you is by a number. And that's felt very dehumanizing. And otherwise, my experience at NYU was lovely and I really liked all my doctors and they were all very patient and caring and everything. But yeah, there's just something to be said for being treated like a person.

Calvin: [01:21:29] There really is.

K: [01:21:32] Not not like a number and not like a body.

Calvin: [01:21:35] Yeah, it goes a long, long way and I think also acknowledging, like my own white privilege and all of that and hearing the horror stories for folks who are not white and just the utter shit show that can be like it can be so much worse than it has been, so much worse for so many other people. How completely fucked up that is.

Caitlin: [01:21:58] My darlings. Is there anything else that you want to say as we're wrapping up here?

Calvin: [01:22:06] I've got one more question for K.

K: [01:22:08] Ok.

Calvin: [01:22:10] How do you balance sitting sitting in between the places of what used to be, what you I idealy would like, and where you are with your body?

K: [01:22:27] I guess, first of all, I do feel grief for the body parts that I once had. And I forget that that is still there and will probably be a constant for who knows how long. So there's a certain sense of loss and of mourning over what was. But I've come to terms with that more and more as time goes on. And then, you know, as far as my current body. I'm not super happy with it. Nobody's happy with their body, almost nobody, so I don't feel alone in that at the very least. Everyone's got their issues. People are trying to lose weight, gain weight, you know, shape their butts differently, all sorts of different things. So in some ways, I contextualize it like that. I think if I didn't have these surgeries and I had the body I had before, there would still be something. There'd still be that thing that I hated and there was beforehand. And those things are still there. But, you know, as far as what I see for the future, as long as I maintain sort of what I have and keep my health. I'll be relatively happy. I do consider a revision surgery if the rippling gets much worse or even if it just remains the same, I might want to correct that at some point just because aesthetically I don't find it pleasing, but, yeah, I don't think that I don't see that making me feel necessarily any better about my body overall in a huge way. Yeah, I don't know. Does that answer that?

Calvin: [01:24:09] It does.

K: [01:24:10] How about you? How do you how do you feel before? During, after?

Calvin: [01:24:14] I'm tempted to just say ditto. Yeah. I think that in my transness and in my journey of getting and working towards a body that feels more in line with my gender, I'm going to always exist somewhere along those lines of the spectrum. Like we're never... None of us are going to have the body we hope for, dream for, that society tells us we should have. There is the sitting with the grief of that and sitting with the acceptance of that. And then also the... I feel like it's a choice for me to focus on the negative aspects of like I'm not going to have the body that I want versus this body still does a lot of kick ass things and still enjoys a whole variety of sensation and livingness and focusing on that that part of it. But it's it's a it's a I mean, it's a daily struggle. It's a lifelong struggle. And I get tired of that struggle some days. But it's better than the alternative, at least for right now, until they make AI bodies that can just be like exactly what we want them to be and we can just put our consciousness into any kind of body.

K: [01:25:38] Yeah, I'm already a little bit jealous of people that get these surgeries decades into the future, how much better the surgery is going to be. I mean, I'm like...

Calvin: [01:25:48]  I know but we get to be the forbearers who paved the way for them. Yeah.

K: [01:25:54] And I mean, similarly, you know, when people in the 70s got the same surgeries, they didn't have near the advancements that we do now.

Calvin: [01:26:03] So thank you to all those forbearers who paved the way for us.

K: [01:26:07] Exactly, yes. 

Caitlin: [01:26:10] Can I ask both of you one last question before you wrap up? Now, what do you hope people listening to this will get from hearing your conversation.

K: [01:26:21] I'm hoping that they will get a willingness to be curious and to ask questions and to be brave about learning and exploring new cultures and new ideas and not being afraid of people that are unlike themselves.

Calvin: [01:26:42] I think I hope that people get a moment of feeling less alone, both both in these after times of covid and in the feelings of having a body and all the complicated things that go into that that go with that. Cate, do you have hopes on what people get out of this?

Caitlin: [01:27:02] I hope that people hear these two wonderful human beings who live and love and have hopes and dreams and things that they're scared of, just like just like them. Just like me. And my heart is full identifying with and hearing both of your stories. And it's an honor to be able to hold space for you here in podcast realm and an honor that you trust The Down There team and myself to to do that. So thank you. Thank you so much. It's really a privilege to have both of you.