Transgender Dilemma

After watching that film about the Vagina Monologues in class last week that’s all I seem to think about. These perpetuating thought were also encouraged by a Grey’s Anatomy episode which dealt with a man who was planning to have the surgery which would change his penis into a vagina, the sex change operation. However, this character had been taking hormones previous to the surgery which allowed her to grow breast. During a pre-surgery check-up it was discovered that she had developed breast cancer which in essence was being fed by the hormones. She was told by the doctors that if she continued with the hormones the cancer would spread and chemotherapy may not work, this left her with the likely possibility of death. But, if she stopped taking the hormones her masculine feature would come back and she would become a man again.

This character was left with a horrible decision. To live as an unhappy woman trapped in a man’s body but “normal,” or to live for what may be only a while as a happy woman body and soul, meanwhile being “strange” and prone to hatred or violence. She chose to go ahead with the surgery and continue to take hormones despite the risks. Now this particular case I know doesn’t apply to all transgender people, but her story really made me think about how important changing really is to them. Honestly I never truly thought about it before as life and death, but theoretically (at least for the Grey’s character) it was be a man and kill your soul, or be a woman and celebrate life.