Why it never ends

Chapter 973 Identity

Stella looked at Victoria: "Why did you give up a few years ago? Just because the doctor told you that it might cause organ displacement?"

"Not entirely," Victoria said. "My principle is not to accept any additional medical treatment unless it is necessary - my appendix is ​​now well inside my stomach, not to mention my uterus."

Stella was puzzled: “Then why are you consulting this?”

"Because of the smell, the smell of menstruation does not completely end when the period ends, and some chelates are sensitive to it, so I applied for medical consultation at the time to see if there is any solution..." Victoria said, "But this way I have more vacation time. And my menstruation is very regular and rarely painful, so it is not a problem for me."

"Amazing," Rico fell into deep thought, "Although I also think menstruation is troublesome, I have never thought about removing my uterus!"

"Then you can understand now," Stella raised her finger, "If you have never thought about having children, then removing the uterus is a great idea. I also know a mother who has given birth to four children. She didn't want to have children anymore, so she had her fallopian tubes removed. But her surgery was minimally invasive through the abdomen, so the recovery period is a little longer than mine."

"I thought the people you were interviewing were all women who had their uteruses removed due to illness," Victoria propped up her face, "but in the end, everyone happily got rid of the big trouble?"

"Oh, you mean my interviewee... Of course not," Stella lowered her eyes to look at the mint tea in the cup and raised her eyebrows slightly, "You know, there are still many women in this world who regard childbearing as part of their lifelong mission. Most of them are under the age of 30. For them, suffering from adenomyosis is a more unacceptable humiliation than a terminal illness. To some extent, they are the mental patients of our time."

Instead, Rico laughed at the absurdity. "Is it that serious? It's just cutting off an organ—"

"That's it. If you break your leg, burn your hand, or have cancer, no one will question your pain," Stella looked at her, "but the pain of most mental patients can only be understood on a very narrow scale. If they want more comfort, such as asking people to take their pain as seriously as a patient with a broken bone, what they get in the end is mostly ridicule and humiliation. Isn't this serious?"

Rico realized belatedly that her laughter just now was a little inappropriate. She restrained her expression and looked into Stella's eyes as if apologizing.

"What do you think is the most prominent feature of women?" Stella asked again, "What is the one thing that makes women different from the other sex? The uterus?"

"Well... yes, but not absolutely." Victoria said, "You have had your uterus removed now, but there is no doubt that you are still a woman."

"So what about those who have undergone surgery to change from female to male again? They also once had a uterus. Are they female?"

"...Of course, gender identity must also be female."

"Okay, let's say there is a child who is born as a girl, raised like a girl, praised, suppressed, and threatened with violence like a girl... After living like this for 20 years, it is suddenly discovered that he or she actually has a male reproductive system. Do you think that he or she was a girl for the first 20 years of his or her life?"

"...Really?" Hesta narrowed his eyes, "It's still okay."

Stella turned her eyes away: "So, you think the key to distinguishing one gender from another is actually her experience, not her physical factors."

Hesta frowned: "Uh..."

"So suppose there is a feminine man today who identifies as a woman and who was born into a bad family environment and therefore has to endure far more gender-based violence than a girl born into a middle-class family - would he be more of a 'real girl' than the latter?"

"…These are two completely different things," Victoria whispered, "You can't say that whoever suffers from gender issues is a woman." "Then what is the difference between this feminine man and the XY woman above? Aren't they both living a typical life based on gender bias? It's just that the social expectation image of the former has always been female, while the latter is expected to be male - or do you think the real sign that distinguishes the two genders is the social expectations they carry?"

"Let's make this simple," Victoria leaned forward slightly, "What you said later were all individual cases. When defining a group, we should look for the greatest common divisor—"

"So it's still the uterus, right? Because that's the most straightforward thing."

"……Correct."

"Okay, now there is a group of people who are forced to lose the symbol of their femaleness. Isn't this a serious matter? Isn't this painful? But we don't even have a special word in our language to describe this kind of pain. Men's castration anxiety has been discussed to death, but what is women's 'castration anxiety'? When it comes to losing the uterus, apart from health issues, the rest of the discussion anchors almost all fall on the value of marriage and childbearing for women. Has anyone ever considered what this means to women themselves?"

There was silence at the dinner table for a moment.

"Is this also what you want to discuss this time?"

"Yes, I want to go back to the Third District just to see a ballerina and a farmer again. They both had radical mastectomies due to adenomyosis two years ago, and they both wanted to have children of their own." Stella sighed softly, "They are already very hesitant about discussing this matter. If I don't go back in person--"

"I can think of a way," Hesta said suddenly, "there should be a way."

"As expected of someone brought up by Qianye, look, look! He's reliable!" Stella's eyes lit up and she applauded on the spot, "Then I'll wait for your news!"

……

Around nine o'clock, Victoria and Stella saw Hesta and the others off.

It was drizzling at night. Victoria looked at the car lights disappearing in the rain and suddenly turned her head: "I have a question. I don't know if it's offensive."

"Ok?"

"Will this surgery not cause you castration anxiety?" Victoria asked, "Or are there women like you who can be free from this worry?"

"Good question," Stella said. "You know, making this decision feels like having a meeting with my 20-year-old self and my 50-year-old self at the same time. The younger self slams the table and says, 'What are you hesitating about? You dare to betray our life principles!' The older self sits aside and says, 'Stella, you are cutting off a life possibility for the next 20 years of our lives.'"

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Risk warning: Please be careful to distinguish between the novel plot and medical reality, and do not replace medical advice with the character's point of view