A poem on the construction of female genitalia from male genitalia.

I wrote this a few weeks after my Gender Confirmation Surgery in March, 2009.  I was having some healing issues at the time, and I was still getting used to my new body. 

This female piece isn't new. It's all me,
Just that the dangly bits have been shoved around,
Stuck back together with surgical thread
In ways not formerly imagined.

They left out the swelling parts;
Left out the once-fertile parts,
Sterilized all those years ago, useless for decades –
They're in the trash bin now.

The potential to assault
Became the need to accept;
The urgency to eject
Became the urge to enfold.

I didn't burst from surgery, though,
Ready to walk the streets.
I had to break it in,
Stretching it with phallic plastic.

That self-violating self-dilation:
It sets me apart from men – males I mean.
That insertion: a man wonders how a person could do that,
Not counting women of course.

In insights subtle and actions blunt
I absorb a parallel culture.
Oh, what charms I have now,
To inhale and exhale love.

Transformation of the Genitals by Kathleen Caywood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.