The New York Times Magazine just published a lengthy piece by Jamie Lauren Keiles titled “How Ben Got His Penis,” about a young woman with mental-health issues who went to college, suddenly began thinking she was a man, and then pursued radical genital surgery to construct a fake penis.
Here’s one interesting section, among many:
In the spring of 2015, Ben got happy hour drinks with two friends at a Midtown barbecue spot. The setup was the usual — sitting at the bar, dissecting sex and gender, putting the pieces together again. They had done this many times before, but this time something clicked, and suddenly Ben understood he was a man. He stood up from the bar and told his friends: “[Expletive]! I’m trans! I gotta go!” Out in the street, he took off his heels and ran five sobbing blocks to the train. That night, he began the bureaucratic work of transition: texting his mother, posting a Facebook status, scheduling a doctor’s appointment to start testosterone.
After that, Ben dropped out of college and had a double mastectomy. However, Ben still felt uncomfortable using the men’s restroom and decided “having a penis would help him feel safe.”
The piece ends with Ben feeling satisfied with the results of phalloplasty — a grueling surgery to create a pseudo-penis. This surgery has an unacceptably high complication rate, as the surgeon comes close to acknowledging. For testimony from a less satisfied patient and an idea of what can go wrong, see here.