Meet Tess:

A New Dance of Scalpel and Soul

By J. J. Allen

Exploring the complexities of the transgendered soul requires courage and heart, for the essence of the transgendered soul lies precisely in "its perverse tendency to contradict expectations." Such is the case when we consider the recent, unique expression of body and soul made by my dear friend, Dr. Tess Cowell.

Tess is a dentist by training and profession. She does my teeth, but I knew her long before I was her patient. We first met at a PPOC meeting about ten years ago and liked each other almost immediately. While we have some spiritual and intellectual interests in common, I think our bond is mostly emotional and nurturing, for we have comforted one another through some of the trials of our respective lives.

While I admire Tess, I do not idealize her, for she is unmistakably human, having had a long and tortured struggle with her destiny. The nature of her struggle is not unknown within transgenderism: Substance abuse, a heartbreaking divorce, financial woes, career problems, crisis therapy, cosmetic surgeries, and the relentless pressure to surrender to an undeniable, inner truth.

Yet I have always seen in Tess a poetic, soulful grace, pervading the hell that her life has sometimes been. It is this grace, along with her solid medical background, which led Tess to a fascinating reconciliation of the contradictory demands of her male body and female soul. Hers is a triumph of medicine and imagination; it is a new dance between scalpel and soul.

About two years ago, it became apparent that Tess wanted to "have the surgery" as we like to say. I saw an unease eating at her about the prospect. On those occasions when we would speak at length, it became apparent that she was struggling with certain aspects of the finality of SRS. In particular, Tess did not want to give up sexual orgasm. Of course, many post-op MTFs insist that they still have orgasms, but Tess was not convinced. Her skepticism was based upon her medical knowledge, and conversations with many post-ops. Was there a way, she asked herself, to become a woman on the outside while still retaining the physiological and psychological benefits offered to the male body by testosterone, including the ability to have an orgasm?

Based upon her medical studies, Dr. Cowell knew that testosterone plays a role in mood stabilization; it is in fact given to some post-menopausal women and post-op MTFs to elevate and stabilize mood. From a psychological point of view, then, Tess reasoned that it would be preferable to keep her testes.

Moreover, Tess had not taken female hormones for over three years, relying instead on her natural beauty, cosmetic surgery, and breast implants to create a very natural feminine appearance. So what advantage would there be, she asked herself, to undergo castration as part of SRS when she had already achieved a convincing female appearance? Still, the presence of testicles on the exterior of her body would ruin the feminine aesthetic which she sought.

After much consideration and some consultation, Tess underwent a unique medical procedure. While penile inversion was performed, the testes were not removed. Instead, the surgeon relocated them superior and anterior to the inguinal canals, approximating the location of the ovaries in a genetic female.

While men with undescended testicles face an increased risk of testicular cancer, no studies have been done on the risks posed by the surgical re-ascension of the testicles. In Dr. Cowell's case, the testes lie just below the dermis, so that they can be palpated to a certain degree for examination. A full examination, though, requires the use of a modern radioimaging device, a procedure which Tess will undergo at regular intervals for the rest of her life.

What was the outcome of this modified form of SRS? A few weeks after her surgery, Tess experienced orgasmic ejaculation while pleasuring herself in the same way a woman would. Female on the outside, male on the inside, has Doctor Cowell achieved the best of both worlds?

What Tess has done is an expression of soul which asks us to look at transgenderism in even larger terms than we have previously imagined. For what is Tess? Is she an intersexual? A transsexual? Indeed, could the procedure she underwent even be called Sex Reassignment Surgery? The procedure was a combination of penile inversion and testicular relocation; might it be better termed Genital Reconfiguration Surgery?

In his book Male Femaling, Richard Ekins asks these same sorts of questions, when he wonders what people should call themselves when they don't fit into one of the "queer/trans" worlds. Dr. Cowell very definitely does not fit into any known world of which I'm aware. Ekins' solution to this problem of definition is to argue for a postmodernist schema of identity, in which categories become meaningless. I think that Ekins succeeds in a rather nifty way, for Male Femaling opens a much needed rift in the space-time curvature of transgenderism, through which the stifling gases of pious ideologies may be vented.

Which still leaves unanswered the question, "What is Tess?" I'm sure she is transgendered, but what does that word mean? Tess does not define herself. She says simply, "I arrived at a solution that was appropriate for me. It was a very personal decision."

Will Tess' solution become a welcomed breakthrough in transgenderism? Will Genital Reconfiguration Surgery become an intelligent alternative to SRS for some people? Only time will tell. In the meantime, we can all benefit from Tess' approach to her needs. For as transgenderism becomes increasingly differentiated in terms of individual expression, all of us will need to arrive at solutions that are appropriate, even unique, to our own unfolding lives and destinies.

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