For New York Magazine’s December 20, 2021 - January 2, 2022 issue, writer Gabriel Mac takes readers on his phalloplasty journey – from the reactions of his friends when he discussed having the surgery, to the intimate details of his recovery. Mac writes that he knew he needed a penis to be himself, and finally having the procedure brought out intense emotion. “I could suddenly feel, in a way I could never have fathomed, that this was what being alive was,” he writes of the moment he woke up in a hospital bed following his surgery.
“I wrote this story partly because writing is how I process things - and there was a lot to process,” says Mac. “But I also wrote it to put something in the world that would reflect my experience, because no existing media does. When I called the other people mentioned in this story who’ve been through phalloplasty and told them the story was coming out next week, they all said some version of: Thank god.”