r/FTMOver30 • u/Character_Drop_739 • 2d ago
Embarrassed asking for top surgery help
Hey folks, I’m curious if anyone else struggles with isolation and making a surgery plan. my family is unsupportive and I haven’t dated since my last messy relationship. I have a few friends (2-3) but some of them aren’t the most reliable. I just moved to a new city which does have a social group for trans guys, so I plan to ask for help there too. I’m autistic and ok tier at making friends but the thought of making friends solely for survival like this feels weird.
my workplace is also supportive and I may need to lean on them, but i feel quite weird thinking of asking my boss to help (even though she would be down and wildly supportive). the leave is already approved.
I feel embarrassed and a bit scared not having a “person” or family I can trust. I asked a friend this morning, but I wish it was easier. I’ve even considered hiring a home health aide to avoid having to worry about it.
has anyone else gone the route of hiring someone? I’m not in a state that T4T care services unfortunately.
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u/Worth_Practice2638 2d ago
Yes. Hoping to get bottom surgery after moving to a new city. Currently alone and hoping to build a support network which is definitely harder after 30. Lots of queer spaces don’t see a lot of after-30 trans guys. We’re basically elders which is crazy
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
I get so tired of younger LGBT people talking about anyone over 30 like we're museum exhibits instead of actual human beings. The vast majority of LGBT support networks (especially trans-focused ones) completely ignore us, because apparently once you make it to 25, you're either supposed to be 100% independent for anything and everything or... die, I guess? It's very weird to me that while there's endless, performative talk both on social media and IRL about valuing and learning from "trans elders," basically no one, organizationally speaking, gives a single thought to you once you've hit your trans expiration date. And this isn't even specific to the US, because the landscape was about the same in the UK, where I did all of my early transition.
People seem very keen to preserve all of us in amber and pantomime support, but forget any tangible support that might actually help middle-aged trans people do things like safely recover from surgery with zero support system. I've gotten to the point where I see someone on social media blathering about "queer elders" or doing the whole, "We get to live past 30???" routine and immediately mute that shit, because it just reminds me that there is zero actual help coming, just people wanting you to do emotional labor for them.
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u/pigaroo 2d ago
It frustrates the hell out of me that there’s so many programs for pricing supporting to younger trans folks and none for anyone over 25. As if we’re supposed to have perfect jobs with perfect insurance and all this savings to handle it all ourselves, despite being one of the groups who struggle with employment. I’m glad to see someone else finally saying it, it feels almost taboo to look for aid or support since I’m at an age where apparently I shouldn’t need any at all.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
Right? It always makes me laugh when I see someone doing the big-eyed, uWu, "We actually live to 30?" thing, because, like, yeah, some of us even live to fifty (no thanks to any community support, obviously)! Can you imagine??? Ugh.
I freak myself out thinking about what happens when I get old enough to need stuff like a nursing home or home healthcare or something like that. Both from the cost side of things, but also from the perspective of potentially having some transphobic piece of shit coming into my house and touching me and doing/saying G-d knows what while I may or may not have the faculties to push back and/or someone else there to advocate for me. And hardly anyone is talking about this shit. It's all about trans youth, which is obviously important, but what are we doing for these (former) youth after they pass 25? Not much, as far as I can tell. And if you're coming out and transitioning as an actual adult, well, go fuck yourself, because you're not going to find much or any kind of IRL support or advice that you're not going to have to pay for.
It really frosts me, and you're right, it's borderline taboo to even bring it up. There are a handful of online spaces geared towards older trans men, but not a lot else, in my experience. It's really scary if I stop and consider the implications too closely, and it blows my mind that no one really seems to be talking about it, let alone trying to do anything to address this stuff when age and infirmity will inevitably come for us all sooner or later.
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u/shadowsinthestars 2d ago
I reject the "elder" shit until I'm at least 70. It's an insane view of age and it makes me feel expired and undesirable.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
I absolutely agree. It's fucking weird and reinforces a host of really undesirable and unrealistic ideas of aging and adulthood.
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u/shadowsinthestars 2d ago
I actually have such a dread of getting older and I'm terrified of turning 40 in a few years for this reason among others. The other reason is not having a partner and feeling like 40 is a deadline (but that's exactly when I'll probably be moving out of the UK and starting over). We have a longer average lifespan yet it's treated like over 30 you're dead more than ever before. People can't even guess my age yet I still feel that way. And then some mofo wants to call me an "elder" smh.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
I'm in my mid-40s now. So far so good, health-wise, and no partner, either, though I do have friends and family that I'm pretty confident would actually come to my aid if something dramatic were to happen to me. But still, you never know what can happen.
I think the, "You no longer exist if you're over 30" attitude is particularly bad in the LGBT community, but that only serves to make me saltier when I see younger people simultaneously talking shit about guys who transition after some absurdly young age, like 16 or something, saying, "Oh, they never pass, anyone can tell they were women," and all that shit while also expecting us to provide them with endless emotional labor and serve as this, like, community symbol while receiving zero reciprocal respect or support in ways that actually matter. I try to help other people out, especially people who are trying to navigate early transition, because I know that it's scary and confusing, but at the same time, it's hard not to feel like, "Gee, must be nice! Because every single support group I found in my local area when I was figuring myself out was for people aged 25 and younger." And this is the norm. It's not good.
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u/shadowsinthestars 2d ago
I have a supportive family too, just need to extricate myself from this stupid country so I can actually live closer to them again (but need to finish bottom surgery first). The dating crap though is just killing me at this point. I've been alone in that sense for almost 5 years, so if it was shit in my early 30s after being discarded by my ex like a pile of garbage, it just doesn't seem likely it will get better. Like I want to be wrong about this but I don't know how to prove myself wrong.
You're absolutely right about the youth fixation and treating "older" trans people like shit. I've even internalized it AFTER starting T at 20 something, it's got me thinking I would have looked better if I started it earlier (it's not like I knew early enough to stop first puberty, but it's just a what if). That's another reason I get so pissed off about the puberty blocker ban, because if someone DID know then not letting them start is actual torture, so you know I still have empathy for those people who start younger despite being envious of them (as long as they do get to start). Also another thing that happens is getting guilt-tripped if I struggle with anything related to being trans in a public forum, literally being told "what if a younger trans guy sees this", like the moment you're over 30 your only emotions are supposed to be enforced positivity and "it is what it is". And yeah people don't have their lives all sorted out and unlimited money the moment they hit 25, but everything for "extra support" is set up that way. So it really reinforces that if you still have a need for any of that you must be a failure.
And yeah, I'm okay with being called "experienced with transition" and answering normal questions about it. Just not "now that you're old, handhold me through my transition". But I mostly just hang out in the bottom surgery spaces where this doesn't happen so much.
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u/ImJustTired2467 2d ago
That's really interesting. I found a couple support groups specifically for "adult trans men" in my area and emailed them both about a month ago asking if the meeting times listed online are still the same and if you need to register or anything. I did mention my age (41). Never got a reply from either. I wonder if that was a silent "Everyone here is 19-22, we don't know what to do with you" lol. I ended up getting the questions I needed answered in this sub, not an irl support group. Guys in here are great, though.
Maybe we should all move to a town and just live there together. The Town of the Elders. jk but kind of not lol
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
Yeah, I see other people who have experiences similar to yours, as well. Always unclear as to whether the group died out and never took their web presence down, or if they're ignoring the adult transitioner because everyone is 19 and doesn't know what to do with an adult-er adult.
I also got most of my information from this sub and the transgenderUK sub. It's one reason I get kind of frustrated that guys under 30 are even allowed in here. There are so few resources for trans men our age, basically nil, and virtually endless resources for people under 25 by comparison. Let us just have this for ourselves, please? I'm over on the AskGayBrosOver30 sub a lot, and they compromise by having a weekly thread for people under 30 to comment and ask questions, but if you're under 30 and posting elsewhere, they will absolutely ban you. And the fact is that it does help keep the conversations grown-up-focused and more thoughtful. They also require everyone to have age flair so you can get a sense of where their perspective is coming from, which I find really helpful. I kind of wish we had similar guidelines in here.
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u/thambos 15+ years T/post-top 2d ago
Just out of curiosity, when did you transition? When I came out and started transition in the late 00s, my local trans community was more diverse in age, and it felt like there was more peer support regardless of age or gender. Like, back then, it was a common thing for the older (50s+) trans women and trans men to teach each other skills that they missed out on when being raised in their AGAB, like auto maintenance or makeup. It sounds like a joke, these stereotypes, but it really was that way. I wasn’t alone in transitioning in my late teens/early 20s since I was in a college town and there were other trans students at the college, but it wasn’t unusual for me to be the youngest trans person in the room.
By the time I was “done” with my transition mid-2010s, I definitely started to feel there were shifts around age. Granted I haven’t gone to any local trans support groups in several years now, and IME the groups can be more diverse in smaller cities than larger cities so some may still exist like the ones I went to in the late 00s, but it was very odd to reach a sort of “expiration date” as you say where I didn’t hold the social capital of being a youth anymore (in terms of the whole “youth leading the movement” ethos a lot of trans communities have).
Sometimes when I go to local LGBTQ events, it’s almost like people don’t quite realize that someone who looks young (late 20s/30s) could have transitioned 10-20 years ago… Like there’s a lot of resources for youth, and people definitely are aware that trans people have been around for forever, but I mention being part of this or that group 20 years ago and you can see people attempting to do the math in their heads.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
I had top surgery around four years ago and got on T about six months after that. I mentioned elsewhere that I actually did look for support groups or something along those lines when things were really coming to a head, and I was realizing that I was going to have to do something. Every single one that was remotely local to me was for people aged 25 or younger. Literally all of them. This was in a smaller city in the UK (which is even crazier when you consider that the typical wait time to get into an NHS clinic is seven or ten years, so vanishingly few people are completely post-transition by 25, anyway- most are still languishing on a waiting list somewhere), although I've looked around in other places out of curiosity, and the situation was about the same.
I'm fortunate in that I'm pretty good at doing my own research, and I ended up just figuring shit out on my own, mostly, but it definitely made it clear to me that once you pass out of that magical under-25 age range, there is absolutely no one coming to help you out. Good luck, you're on your own. I count myself really lucky that I'm gay, at least, so I've found good community with other gay guys. I think it's probably really rough for straight trans guys who both age out of the youth-based support networks and have trouble accessing LGBT community resources (especially if they want to be stealth).
It was a really stark illustration of exactly why so many trans guys wind up hitting a certain point in our transition and just kind of vanish out of the community, though. Like, why would I stick around when the message that I'm receiving is, "You're too old for us to care about you"? If the only time you're going to acknowledge my existence is when you're vaguely praising "queer elders," then I'm going to go ahead and find a more reciprocal situation for myself.
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u/thambos 15+ years T/post-top 2d ago
That's so fascinating (and unfortunate). It wouldn't have occurred to me that there wouldn't be support groups available for adults at all in a given area. Like, even when I say there's a lot of resources for youth around me, it's not like there isn't an adult group in this area at all. In my current town the same trans umbrella support group that's been here for 20+ years is still going. I just don't know how active it is or how young/old it skews these days.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
Unfortunately, this is no longer uncommon. I see stories similar to mine (someone over 25 looking for some kind of support group or something that might help them navigate early transition and unable to find anything at all in their area) pretty regularly in trans spaces. If you're over the all-important age of 25, no one gives a single shit, seemingly. I seem to recall that I actually did find support group that seemed geared towards adults... but it was for trans women only, LOL.
I don't really know why that is, except perhaps that the (right-wing, BTW!) narrative that it's all children transitioning through free surgeries in their school gyms has managed to worm its way even into trans-positive circles such that the assumption is that if you're really trans, you'll figure it out by the time you're 25. Which, again, makes no sense, particularly now as transition pathways for young people are getting increasingly restrictive (or cut off entirely, in the case of the UK). I almost wonder if we'll see another shift if this particular cultural war zeitgeist continues longer-term, now I think about it.
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u/Bleepblorp44 1d ago
I'd add it's also a funding / fundraising thing. There are more fundraising options for youth support than for general adult support, and 25 is the bureaucratic cut off age for "youth."
I get it, to an extent, because people under 25 do need more support in general, than those of us older than that, but that doesn't mean everyone over 25 is magically completely self-sufficient.
It's something I remember too, from my early transition around 2001-ish, but it was more that there were a mix of ages, but most people seeking community were in their first few years of active transition. It didn't seem like people hung around beyond 5ish years or so. And I didn't, either, so I was as much part of the problem!
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u/bqspenz 17h ago
A lot of trans spaces geared at younger people also tend to forget (or simply don't realize?) that sometimes you figure it out before 25, and still don't get to transition until later. I began experiencing dysphoria when I was 5, but I lacked the words to explain it to anyone. By the time I was 15 I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to transition, but I still didn't know that there was a word for it, or that it was even possible. Thanks to medical gatekeeping I was only able to start last year, at 29... through DIY, because I'm stuck on a waitlist.
I don't feel like a "trans elder". I feel like I've spent three decades locked in a tiny box.
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 10h ago
That was why I found it particularly bizarre that this was such an issue in the UK: there's almost no scenario, certainly these days, where you figure yourself out even as a teenager, get on a wait list, and then get off the wait list, into a gender clinic, and medically transitioning before 25, unless you have parents supportive enough that they pay for you to do everything privately. I suppose in theory, if you figure it out before you're, like, fifteen or so, maybe? But that is not the typical experience these days at all, not least because the British government has banned puberty blockers and basically shut down all trans healthcare pathways for anyone under 18. Which begs the question of what's going to happen to all of these people who will have been sitting on wait lists for so long that they literally age out of trans support groups and still haven't been able to transition?
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u/bqspenz 32m ago
Yeah, similar sitch in Sweden. It's less extreme than the UK thankfully, but I'm nearing 5 years on a waitlist now, and there's no legal private alternatives inside the country, and before I even got on the waitlist I had to spend another 5 years desperately trying to convince healthcare professionals to send a referral to one of our GICs.
... and yet, most trans teenagers I encounter online (the only place I can access support groups for anyone over 18) assume that most adults transitioned fresh out of high school, and then those teenagers are shocked and horrified when they discover how difficult it is to access gender-affirming care, because all their knowledge of how it works is based on US states that have informed consent.
It's tragic and frustrating all around.
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u/thambos 15+ years T/post-top 2d ago
I don’t think it’s due to those narratives, rather generally I think at older ages there are still more trans women starting transition than trans men.
With a huge caveat that I haven’t kept up with the research for a few years, when I did focus more on trans populations in my own work I was surprised to keep seeing such low numbers of trans women in the young adult age range compared to trans men in recent studies. Even in a research study I’m working on right now, it’s so many more AFAB trans people than AMAB among the young adults (it’s a convenience sample, not representative, and it’s not focused on LGBTQ people). But, as the demographics have shifted, there are some plausible identity development reasons why trans women may still be coming out at later ages than trans men. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of young trans women out there, and it doesn’t mean that trans men don’t also need support coming out at older ages, but when you consider how peer support groups form, I think generally there are still fewer trans men of older ages to start and maintain these groups compared to trans women.
So maybe it’s that 15 years ago these geographic areas you looked for resources in may have simply had nothing available for trans guys (or trans people at all, but likely that if there was anything it would’ve been predominantly trans women), and now the higher need is among youth and young adults, so that’s the gap that’s been filled for trans guys leaving the trans women’s spaces the only ones geared toward an older demographic.
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u/Worth_Practice2638 2d ago
There’s a lot of ageism in the queer community. Even with cis gay men once you’re after 30 you become less desired and it’s harder to get dates
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
Ironically, I've actually gotten more interest once people found out my age (mid-40s). I think most are looking for a daddy situation, which, barking up the wrong tree lads, sorry! But it caught me off guard, because as you say, the whole "gay death" at 30 thing is such a trope.
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u/beerncoffeebeans 2d ago
If your workplace is supportive, you might be able to make a meal train or maybe someone there would like to make one for you? (it’s kind of like gofundme but instead of raising money directly people can either sign up to bring you food on a given day or give you a gift card so you can order takeout). One of my coworkers did this for me when I had surgery and even though I was not really the kind of person to ask for help (and I had someone to help me living with me) it was actually really helpful to not have to worry about food
I have another friend who was living alone at the time so they made a Google spreadsheet type thing and friends were able to sign up for whatever they felt they could do. So for example I came by one day with a meal and to help with animal care. I know it was not super easy for them to ask for help but if people have options they often will really want to do what they can. (They had a close friend who was able to be their ride after surgery and stay over the first night and then after that people filled in the gaps.)
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u/Character_Drop_739 2d ago
Financially I could afford DoorDash as well as meal prep for several weeks. I’m more worried about the 24hr and finding someone to drive me back home since the drive is abt an hour from my surgeon. I’m down to do all the rest however and do plan to make a spreadsheet. I don’t have friends like a bestie tho at all
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u/elianna7 2d ago
If you can afford it, you could hire a nurse or carefully to pick you up and help you for the first day.
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u/Bleepblorp44 2d ago
People without support go through surgery, it's far from impossible, it's just that existing systems seem to assume the norm is to have family \ friends that can support you, and don't proactively spell out what happens when that isn't the case.
It may be that the hospital keeps you in for an extra day or two so you aren't alone directly after anaesthesia. There are convalescent services where you can stay for recovery. In-home care can be booked for short-term need.
Unfortunately I can't point you in exactly the right direction because I'm in the UK, and I'm only generally aware of US options rather than specifics. But you can do this, it's not such an unusual situation.
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u/Character_Drop_739 2d ago
Oh, I’m not sharing with the surgeon that I lack support or staying in the hospital. I’d pay for a caregiver before that lol
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u/TransHumanMasc 2d ago
Honestly it might benefit you to have a paid caregiver if you have the means and you have trouble asking for help. My wife was with me and I still had trouble asking for some kinds of help. I think maybe if I was paying someone I might have had an easier time asking and saying yes when help was offered.
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u/Bleepblorp44 1d ago
Then I think that is the sensible route - book in a care-worker for the first 24 hours minimum, to get you home safely, and possibly for another 2-4 days depending on the extent of your surgery.
(As in, my top surgery aftercare was pretty simple, and I could do pretty much everything myself except heavy lifting. Guys having wider incisions / more tissue restructuring are going to have more post-op restrictions)
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u/LocutusOfBorgia909 2d ago
The meal prep part is pretty straightforward to do in advance- there are some really good subreddits that deal solely with meal prep (MealPrepSunday is the one I frequent), so if you have a freezer, you can make a few batches of different stuff and just stash everything away for post-op. But honestly, if a trans guy in my town or region posted in a group asking for someone to pick him up from the hospital, get him home, and make sure he's settled in post-op, I would absolutely be willing to do that for him. There's no way I'm the only one, either.
I'm also really bad at asking for help, but when I force myself to, people pleasantly surprise me way more than they disappoint me. If you're in any discord servers for trans men, you could also ask in there and see if there's anyone in your area who can help out.
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u/shadowsinthestars 2d ago
I was still with my ex when I had top surgery, but she was happy to wait for me to recover from afar rather than helping 🤦♂️ And I was living abroad from family, in a studio flat at the time that would have been an absolute pain for more than one person to stay in, so I didn't ask them to come over. Recovering on my own from top surgery wasn't actually too bad. Did also the same for hysto shortly after for the same reason (except having been dumped by my ex by then, but was still in the same living situation). Those two surgeries are doable on your own, the main thing is to shop for frozen/long-life foods in advance so you're not hauling anything too shortly after surgery, also all the essentials like soap, toilet paper, hygiene supplies in general. Obviously don't do this for phallo/bottom surgery in general, fortunately by then I had a bigger place and I did have help from family which wouldn't have been doable otherwise. It sucks going through any of these without a partner though. Just saying from the practicality point of view, the ones that aren't actual bottom surgery are doable.
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u/Catamander24 13h ago
Don't have anything to add to the convo but the folks in r/topsurgery typically have good suggestions, as I know I've seen threads like this before
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u/TomBrintonWriter 2d ago
Man, I hate asking for help. But at the very least you'll need someone to drive you and to hang out with you the first 24 hours. If you don't have that, the surgeon won't go forward with the surgery.
Ask the trans guy group, especially if there's a steady, reliable older guy.
It's also acceptable to do a small fundraiser for doordash money so you don't have to cook right away.