Welcome to Ella and the City—a new column by Ella Snyder about what it’s like to date as a trans person in New York City today.
Before my gender confirmation surgery (GCS), I never felt comfortable touching myself. Even washing my body in the shower, I’d fill with self-hatred acknowledging my groin area. My penis was never a sex organ to me—it was an unwanted appendage; something that simply didn’t feel right. From the moment I learned having a vagina was an option for me, I knew that it would change my relationship with my body forever.
I first heard about this operation that could fix me, and the anatomy that didn’t feel like my own, when I was 9 years old, in 2008. While watching Kim Petras’ This Morning interview, the show hosts claimed she was the “world’s youngest transsexual.” She’d made global news for being cleared by the German government to receive vaginoplasty—the surgery that creates female genitals, sometimes with or without a vaginal canal—at 16. One day, that will be me, I thought.
As I got older, I hunted down all the details of the procedure: it’s irreversible, takes about six hours, requires a lifetime of revision surgeries, and more. Most surgeons wouldn’t perform the surgery on a minor. For those that would, you had to prove that you’re already in the process of medically transitioning via hormone therapy and bring a gender dysphoria diagnosis.
My parents supported me completely, and helped me find a leading expert in vaginoplasty who was willing to operate on me. He was across the country from our Boston home. All I needed was clearance from the licensed therapist I’d been seeing since 4th grade and a letter of approval from a third-party psychiatrist (who I had to meet with three separate times for hours each session). I told the doctors I knew what was at stake: I was putting my life at risk, irreversibly altering my anatomy, and choosing to make myself infertile. I was signing up for a lifetime of care, and I knew there was a possibility that I may never feel sexual pleasure—ever.
The summer before my junior year of high school, at the age of 16, I was fully cleared. I scheduled my surgery for July 2015 and booked flights to my doctor’s location in Scottsdale, Arizona. The day of my operation, I wasn’t scared at all. As nurses wheeled me towards the operating room, I told my parents how much it meant to me that they were there, that I wasn’t going through with this alone. My dad had driven me to every appointment, and my mom had fought the entire battle with our insurance company. I needed to express to them how grateful I was that they helped me become who I knew I was inside all along.
Waking up after the operation, I felt stiff and uncomfortable, but I wasn’t in any pain. More importantly, there was a mound of gauze between my legs and just knowing that there wasn’t a dick and balls underneath it gave me a sense of comfort and relief I’d never felt before. My eyes welled up with tears of joy. I was ready for the next phase of my life.
I wish I could say going from feeling like what was wrong was finally right was instant, but nothing is sexy the first few months post-vaginoplasty. Miles of gauze were stuffed inside of me, keeping the canal of my neovagina open at optimal depth. When that was eventually pulled out, I then had to dilate my vaginal canal with plastic, surgical dildos—called “dilators”—five times a day for about 15 minutes each session. In those sessions, everything between my legs felt numb, and as my sensation started to return, dilating wasn’t ever pleasure inducing, it felt cold and uncomfortable; I was, afterall, forcing a foreign object into layers of scar tissue. After a month, the frequency decreased to four times a day, then three the next month, and so on. I spent the rest of that summer before school started dilating and growing more comfortable with my anatomy. That first semester, I began to feel fully woman for the first time in my life and I moved with a new confidence that made me excited for each day.
By second semester, what had felt like a sexless, numb mound now resembled an actual vagina. My nerves healed, and slowly I started to notice sensations around my perfectly sculpted, man-made clitoris. I felt like I was finally free to listen to my desires and explore pleasure.
In my affirmed body, the prospect of orgasming felt like searching for the end of a rainbow, because I didn’t really know what I was looking for since I had never orgasmed in general before. In an effort to find out quickly, I watched porn, bought vibrators and dildos, and messed around with two different boyfriends (one only cared about his pleasure and the other came out to me as gay), but nothing seemed to get me there. I finished high school without orgasming once and sexually frustrated.
Thankfully my sex life evolved with me through college. In 2019, during my junior year, I was in a T4T whirlwind romance and fell in love for the first time. Being with a trans man, there was a new level of communication and understanding around intimacy. Cole* asked me straight up if I had orgasmed before, and I was completely honest. Our openness allowed for uninhibited and safe exploration.
We experimented with toys and different positions and techniques, but over time, I realized I couldn’t get out of my head. I would get anxious anytime I approached climax. I worried about my body, if I was doing a good job, and this self-induced pressure to get there was loud. I wanted to be good at sex but something still was off. I felt ill-prepared and unequipped. Anytime I came close to finishing, I’d enter panic mode and need to stop.
My anxieties actively gatekept my pleasure. My therapist suggested meditating, so I looked up guided videos and followed along through mindfulness techniques, like body scan rituals and asking myself what my body needed. I took note of my senses and tried to heighten my awareness. I began to silence my internalized concerns around my ability to achieve pleasure and released the pressure I’d put on myself to orgasm. After a month or so, I returned to the bedroom with a focus on having fun and feeling good.
Immediately, I noticed a difference. After many more tries with Cole, I orgasmed for the first time and it shook me to my core—I almost thought I was dying. My body filled with warmth from the tip of my toes all the way up, my muscles tensed up and relaxed rhythmically. It wasn’t earth-shattering or sneeze-y, like I’ve read online, it was a full-body experience with tingles and sensations of gravity. I was ecstatic to discover this feeling, and to be certain I wasn’t broken or unable to ever experience this—I was just like so many other women.
After reaching my first climax, getting to that place again and again was much easier. Even after my relationship with Cole ended, I knew what I needed to do for my own pleasure: it was a matter of letting go, releasing my inhibitions and self-esteem, and truly being with and loving myself in my current state. As a trans woman, I had to unlearn the deep rooted notions, stemming back to childhood showers, that I was broken in some way or that something was wrong with me.
There wasn’t anything wrong with me; I simply needed to be more present with myself and this part of my body, especially since that body was now fully aligned with what I’d known would feel right from such a young age. I now stand affirmed in my body, in my pleasure, and in my identity as a whole. It may have taken my entire life to reach this point, but no journey has ever felt as worth it.
