yeah my reading of it was it was a 'make do with what you got' situation since they couldnt make vaginas. all genital surgeries that required incision had pretty high mortalities so they mustve really wanted it to attempt it. generally was only given to younger people (re: ages 14-25) cause the mortality was so high to not be worth it older. main cause of death was kidney infection from swelling around the urethra making it impossible to pee. they did come up with some ways to combat this (re: do not drink or drink sparingly for 4-5 days and keep them in a cool area) which lead to decreases in mortality. the main benefit of the forked penis surgery is if the swelling got too bad they could just make the fork bigger by cutting further down the urethra allowing you to pee, so thats why it was prominent