I didnāt feel any jitters.
That probably surprised me more than anything as I lay on the operating table back in November, staring at the ceiling while waiting for my anesthesia.
In a few moments, doctors would begin the six-hour, $70,000-procedure that most trans women consider the biggest step in their transition: facial feminization surgery, often referred to as FFS.
Iād already had my boobs done, and braces had recently closed the gap in my front teeth that had long been a source of insecurity. But this procedure was on a different level. It would be far more aggressiveāand more jarringāthan anything Iād ever endured.
My jawline and brow bone would be shaved and softened.
A rhinoplasty would reshape my nose.
My forehead would be contoured; my chin size reduced.
A tracheal shave would eliminate the appearance of my Adamās Apple.
Iād been preparing for this moment since the summer of 2021, whenānearly two years into my transitionāIād decided for certain that FFS was something I needed to feel like my true, authentic self. For the next 18 months I worked relentlessly, putting almost all of the money I earned from studio porn and self-produced content into a special bank account Iād opened specifically for the procedure.
It was a grind.
And now the time had come.
Nerves and anxiety had tortured me ever since Iād arrived in San Francisco a week earlier to prepare for the surgery. And Iād hardly slept the night before. But suddenly, in those final momentsāsurrounded by strangers in that hospital room, hundreds of miles from my home in Las VegasāI was overtaken by a sense of calm, a sense of peace. As the anesthesiologist gently inserted the needle into my arm, I may have even smiled.
āHow many times do you have to die to be reborn?ā I remember saying out loud. āHow many times do you have to die to be reborn?ā
And then I blacked out.
***
To truly understand what a pivotal step FFS was in my journey, I suppose you need to know a little more about me, a little more about my story.
Long before I became Izzy Wildeāa energetic, award-winning porn star with more than 300,000 followers on TwitterāI was a quiet, emotional teenager working in a gas station in central Michigan, confused about who I was and uncertain about where I was headed.
Like most people, I was conditioned as a child. And by āconditioned,ā I mean I was brought up to believe that gender was attached to genitalia, and that I had to live my life a certain way. I wasĀ toldĀ what my gender was and made to believe it was true. It wasnāt malicious, but thatās how conditioning works. Obviously, as Iād find out later, those beliefs arenāt true at all. You go through life and create yourĀ ownĀ truths.
Still, early on, I didnāt understand any of that.Ā
When I was around eight- or nine-years-old, I started having a lot of dreams. And in every dream, in every vision, I was female. It felt so natural and real to me. I remember waking up from those visions, and Iād be so giddy and excited about the world. I was so eager to see what would come next. Again, this was before I had any concept of gender, so these dreams didnāt seem abnormal to me at all.
It wasnāt until I was 13 that things hit me.
My family never had very much money. My parents divorced when I was 11 and a lot of things started falling on my back. My mom was grieving, so I took care of a lot of the household chores and just helped out however I could. I think my mom appreciated me for that, so for my 13th birthday she really wanted to do something nice. She and her boyfriend at the timeāwho is now her husbandāstarted hyping up this birthday present theyād bought for me. She kept telling me that they had spent a lot of money on it, and that I was going to love it. I was thinking it would be a video game or something small and cute. When the big day finally came I was so excited. A lot of friends and family members had come over to celebrate and we were all sitting in the living room. For a kid, your 13th birthday is a big deal.
Mine was deflating.
The present that was so hyped up ended up being a little weight set. It was the cheap kind, where you pour sand into the plastic dumbbells to make them heavy. It had a picture on the box of a really big, buff guy doing curls. I looked at it and started crying. It just wasnāt for me. All of these emotions that Iād never felt before hit me all at once. I ran upstairs to my room, curled up on my bed and wept.
My mom came in and asked what was wrong. I said, āThis isnāt it. Itās not what I thought it would be.ā But deep down I realized it wasnāt simply about being disappointed with a present. It was more of a realization of who I was. Or more accurately, who societyĀ expectedĀ me to be. It was a very difficult moment to experience as a child. It was very melancholy, very sad. I still have an emotional scar from it. AtĀ that moment, I began playing the role that Iād been assigned at birth, the role of a male.
But I never used that weight set for anything.
***
For most of my middle school and high school years, I was lost. I was an emotional kid who wore dark clothing and faded into the background with the art kids and the nerds and the skaters. I assumed the role society told me I was supposed to play. As I became older I started having relationships with females, but they never worked out. I had my heart broken a few times and couldnāt figure out what the issues were. Was something wrong with me? Why werenāt things working?
When I was 20, I went on a psychedelic journey, I had this girlfriend, and we decided to experiment with acid together. It was very profound. We started having sex one night, and in the middle of fucking her, I looked down at her and thought, āIām literally fucking myself. Literally and figuratively, Iām fucking myself.ā By that I meant that, I was literally fucking myself over, because I was trying to be someone I wasnāt. And more literally, I felt like I was fucking my own self, right in front of me, if that makes sense. It was a very transcendental experience.
That relationship ended, and it was a very awkward time after that. I went into a deep psychosis to fully understand who I was, even to the point of going temporarily insane.
Eventually all of the visions I had as a child came to the surface. There was so much interconnection with all the little events that were happening in my life at the time. All of a sudden it just hit me. I remember laying in bed and looking up at the ceiling and saying, āIām gay.ā
Random sidenote: It was actually kind of funny, because I had this friend who loved the popular YouTuber Idubbz. I loved him, too. There was a funny meme soundbite from one of Idubbzās videos that someone made into a ringtone. It said, āIām gay! Iām gay!ā Iād programmed that ringtone into my phone so that whenever my friend called, thatās what Iād hear.
It was almost surreal that he called me within seconds of me having my realization that night, so the first thing I heard was that ringtone saying, āIām gay! Iām gay! Iām gay!ā
Anyway ⦠shortly after I came out, I got a boyfriend. Iād been working at a gas station and he was a customer that came in a lot. His nickname was Gay Mike. Heād come in there with a ukulele and start playing songs. It was a little crazy, but also endearing.
Things with Michael started out magical. I remember walking through downtown the first week we were together. He was holding me by the arm, and there was a sparkle in my vision. Everything was glistening. It was like the world around me had suddenly changed.
At one point we were like, āHey, fuck these sidewalks.ā We ended up walking in the street and doing this dance in the middle of the road. We didnāt care if anyone was watching and looking at us like we were weird. We were just on an emotional high that weād never experienced before. It was so exhilarating. I know thatās not like everyoneās experience when they come out. It sounds like a fairytale. But for me, thatās what it was. Thatās how it happened. Everything was so bright and full of life. It was like a big explosion. Iād been in this desolate state beforehand, and now my world had shifted and changed dramatically.
Eventually, things with Michael started to get a bit tedious. He was counting on me for sex and I started to get turned off by the way he approached it. But there were other issues, too. Issues within myself. Deep down, I knew I was more than just gay
I was trans.