At the time, the whole idea of transition was so daunting and impossible that surgery seemed like the easy part. All I'd have to do was lie there, really, and I'm a real pro at that. But I'd have to pay for that particular privilege - tens of thousands of dollars, all out of pocket.

Most health insurance companies specifically deny any coverage for treatment of transsexuals. If you have a policy, check it and see. One health insurer once denied me reimbursement for otherwise-covered psychiatric care because I got an Official Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis. A couple years later I was denied whole health insurance policies. A young coastal California vegetarian non-driver with no prior medical history (other than a tranny diagnosis), and I was denied coverage as a "high risk."

Kinda makes me wonder if twenty years down the line if my health insurance will refuse to pay for, say, a liver transplant because I compromised it with hormone use. Guess I'll just have to burn that bridge when I come to it.

But since no one really has health insurance these days anyway, the world's smallest violin is playing somewhere just for me - only I can't hear it because my current PPO doesn't have an in-network otorhinolaryngologist. Oh, the humanity.

Even out of pocket, though, the individual surgeries are generally cheaper for a transwoman than a transman. There's just more surgeries for the womenfolk, so many that you'd think that some of us actually have money to burn. THE OPERATION - which is usually more than one surgery anyway - is only the beginning of what is possible.

But THE OPERATION has become de facto, so that it's become more like THE CAR WASH, one of those things that you keep putting off until one afternoon you bit the bullet and go through, and pay a little bit more than you're comfortable with, but you come out the other side with a shiny new vehicle.

So much emphasis is placed on THE OPERATION that a body could start to wonder what deeper issues might be being smokescreened because we're focusing on clever nerve relocations and extra slick skin grafts. Would maybe we ask more interesting questions about what all this Gender Dysphoria business might be about, and what its political significance might be?

But I may be getting ahead of myself. I might even give off the impression that I don't even really want to get all surgified, because isn't that what becomes a transsexual most? No, I don't want to give the wrong impression here. No, siree.

Recently I started corresponding with a transwoman who started her transition well before I did and still hasn't made her first million, either. She tells me, it's rare to go as long as we have without having had THE OPERATION. In fact, it seems, my credibility as a transwoman might even be suspect because I haven't managed to afford this surgery.

Huh.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time in my life I've gotten dressed up with nowhere to go.

In the last decade or so, the whole "trans movement" has taken quite a shot in the ass thanks to an explosion of vocal FTMs, who receive a smaller menu of less-successful THE OPERATIONs at many times the costs of MTF surgeries. Along with this explosion has come the idea of "non-op" trannies; i.e. those who transition from one to another with no intent of going under the knife. Others opt for chest reconstruction surgery and skip the poking around Down There, because the cost/benefit ratio simply doesn't make economic sense. Plus, the results that hormones alone provide seem to make for some fairly revolutionary things to happen, but this is another column entirely.

Does it make sense for someone who is ostensibly male-to-female to also choose to be "non-op?" For years, lesbian-feminist groups have been dealing with the issue of transwomen within their ranks, and sometimes have opted for a "Post-Operative Transwomen Only" policy. This was famously challenged at the Michigan Women's Music Festival, with the end result being that transwomen are all barred from entrance, regardless of how much money they have.

I think we can all understand why. When I was in high school, this one dork was always glomming on my cool cultural collateral and then showing off like he invented it. One weekend he heard my new Smiths mix tape and the next day he bought everything they'd ever released, including imports. I will always resent him for this, because to this day he can't tell "Hand In Glove" from "Frankly Mr. Shankly," and it's insulting because all the information was in front of him the whole time.

But back to me, sitting daintily here on this fence. As critical as I am of Western Medicine's methods and assumptions, I've had surgery on my mind for a long time. Plus, I'm a dyke, and dykes tend to like their dicks detachable - they're easier to boil that way.

But check this out: of 19 surgeons listed in one of the major transsexual medical resource sites, none are female. None are transsexual. Only recently has a transsexual woman surgeon begun training to take over the practice of genital reconstruction surgeries. And while I'm sure that every one of these surgeons is a swell guy, let's just say that I really don't know anyone who admits a preference for a male gynecologist. Not even my PPO.

What is a body supposed to do?

Rahne Alexander won't insure your health, but she ensures a good time daily at xantippe.com.