Neovaginas are not real vaginas and require lifelong dilation
Andrew Gold said:
“They don't they don't get a vagina, do they? It's not a vagina. They have to continue to stretch it out for the rest of their lives.”
The claim sounds like a factual medical point: that the surgical outcome is functionally inferior and burdensome, which many listeners would take as a reason to question whether the procedure is worth pursuing.
Vaginoplasty creates a vaginal canal, and the peer-reviewed evidence on patient satisfaction after gender-affirming genital surgery is consistently positive. Post-operative dilation is a standard part of recovery, the same principle as physiotherapy after reconstructive surgery on any other part of the body: it is care, not a concession that something went wrong. Describing routine aftercare as proof that the outcome is not real flattens a complex surgical reality into a punchline, and the people who pay for that are trans women who are already navigating something deeply personal, now told by a podcast host that their body does not count. That is not a medical opinion. It is cruelty with a clinical veneer.
What I said at the time:
“When they were mocking someone's vagina, I was like, how cruel do you want to be?”
Trans women considering or recovering from surgery, who may be discouraged or made to feel their bodies are inadequate by a distorted account of the procedure.