Top Surgery is looking more attractive

My boobs never used to bother me - physically. They never got swollen, ached, got in the way, or felt like they had lead inside of them & someone was trying to yank it out of there when I bend over. Now they do all of those things. I don't know if it's due to getting older (I'm not that old!) or what, but it's really annoying & uncomfortable. It's making top surgery look more attractive to me, when I didn't necessarily want it before, but I don't know if physical discomfort is a good enough reason to have this kind of surgery. It probably isn't. But I don't really know if that is truly the full story behind my feelings on the subject.

I used to think that having top surgery would be butchering my body, and since I have small boobs (and they used to not bother me), I didn't think I'd do it. I felt that I could live with the chest I had, even though it would create some awkwardness in certain situations depending on exactly how I chose to express my gender identity. And that is something that I still haven't quite figured out. But the problem with saying all this is that I'm not really sure if that's really the full story for me. I don't know if I convinced myself that I could "live with" my chest out of fear and/or denial of my genderqueerness and/or transgenderedness. It is quite possible, since I have to admit I do have body dysphoria. I just never translated it into specifically breast dysphoria. All I know is that I'm not 100% comfortable in the body I have, and I have always wished that I could be. The tricky thing here is that I'm not among the majority of people who want top surgery because they hate their boobs. I hate certain things about my boobs, but I don't particularly hate them as a whole and haven't had concrete dysphoric feelings about them...until now. Maybe it's easier to blame my present dysphoria on the physical symptoms I'm having, or finally admit my possibly pre-existing dysphoria because the physical symptoms give me a justifiable excuse - both of which might be cop outs. Maybe I haven't really allowed myself to acknowledge that it is okay to want my breasts removed. I really don't know at this point what my authentic feelings about this are.

I'm simply not sure yet if I want top surgery or not. It makes sense to me, but I often wonder if down the road I would regret it. It's obviously a long way off so I have time to figure this out. This is one of the reasons why I'm writing about it in order to explore my feelings. I am a bit apprehensive about putting my true feelings out there, because they scare me. I don't know what is "normal" or "not normal" and I'm frankly terrified to find out. In other words, I'm terrified of my own truth because I know deep down that my true feelings are my normal. It really doesn't matter what other people think. It matters what is right for me.

The concept that top surgery is a way to feel more comfortable in my body is something that I've only recently allowed myself to seriously consider for myself. I had (and still have) a lot of "what if" thoughts & "what would so and so think" & weird adherence to vague rules like "God gave you breasts so you were meant to have breasts" that I'm not really sure I agree with. I have watched several videos on YouTube about people who have had top surgery, and I found out today that all of them had one type of surgery called "Double Incision/Bilateral Mastectomy." I guess I had the wrong impression that was the top surgery. It's not. I found a video from transoutlaw that introduced me to another type of top surgery called "Peri-areolar." The important difference here is that with the "Double Incision/Bilateral Mastectomy" you have two large scars on your chest and the nipples/areola are reconstructed, neither of which were appealing results to me. It fed the "I can live with my chest the way it is, I guess, if that's what my alternative is." The Peri-areolar surgery - and another surgery called Keyhole - do not use the same technique; instead these surgeries (which vary slightly) use incisions directly on the areola (area around the nipple) and it is left intact. In addition, the scars are minimal & less noticeable compared to the former surgery. I was amazed at transoutlaw's results in the video because you cannot see the tell-tale chest scars (you can read about his transition on his Gender Outlaw blog). Since I'm smaller-chested, I am a potential candidate for either the Keyhole or Peri-areolar surgeries so I am going to look into them more. I am definitely more excited about top surgery with this new knowledge because the results are much more appealing to me. The thought of having a "stealth" male chest (i.e. it's not obvious I had my breasts removed due to large double scars) is amazing & opens up a whole new world for me! It's scary but enlivening at the same time.

Time will tell what is right for me. I owe it to myself to find out what that is.

** this entry was written partially on 4.6.2010 & partially on 4.7.2010 **

Hairy legs...

I am very self conscious about my hairy legs - that is, if I were to go out in public with shorts on. I stopped shaving a few years ago. I hated shaving & my hair kept growing back thicker & I'd have these bumps on my legs. I decided that it wasn't worth it anymore, as shaving never made me feel good about myself. It was strictly a behavior I'd always done & feared not doing due to social pressure. That eventually became not a good enough reason to do it.

So, since I've been shaving since my teen years (after my mother put me in the bathroom with a razor and some shaving cream and told me to shave my legs because "it was time" and "this is what all girls HAVE to do"), my leg hair is pretty dark and more coarse. I hate that part of it. I really wish I had never shaved my legs in the first place. I used to hear kids my age make fun of girls that didn't shave their legs - but they were always girly girls that were more European or "hippie-ish" (I hate the word hippie, by the way - at least the negative connotation it has these days. I'm simply using it for lack of another word) so in my eyes they could get away with it. I somehow knew that if I didn't shave my legs, I'd be in for a tremendous amount of teasing and/or bullying for breaking yet another gender role. I was already pushing the limits, so I just didn't challenge this one.

My legs are pretty white, so white legs with dark hair doesn't equal inconspicuous. I'm sure there's a bit of self-consciousness mixed in there...but I do know that even today not shaving your legs is not widely accepted/acceptable and therefore makes me feel uncomfortable. It's something that I need to get over though. I no longer want to go without wearing shorts, especially with another summer coming up. So I'm sort of using my hairy legs to challenge myself to go a step further & not care what anyone else thinks of my hairy legs. I figure if I can conquer this, I can conquer other rigid gender roles & start to become comfortable with myself & my gender expression.

So this weekend I went to the state parks Saturday & Sunday, and on Saturday I wore shorts - hairy legs & all. It was fantastic! It felt so good to feel the wind blow on my bare legs (poor sticks haven't seen real daylight for an extended amount of time; they only get exposed on my private porch during my smoke breaks when I'm wearing shorts). I was pretty self-conscious about it at the park but I had to laugh at myself because I had a touch of paranoia, thinking everyone in the picnic area or who walked past our table was staring at my legs. But obviously, it was uneventful. Nobody ran up to me pointing and laughing and I accomplished the first step. I'm pretty proud of myself.

I'm sure I'll look back on this someday and wonder why it was an issue at all, but right now this is a big body image issue for me. It's an important step towards self-acceptance and it's a pretty powerful one since it causes me quite a bit of anxiety. For a long time I avoided swimming & wearing shorts - two things I used to do all the time - simply because I didn't want to shave my legs or go out in public with hairy legs. I don't want to continue to miss out on things that I enjoy just because of fear & shame. And just because of hair in the "wrong" place.

It's opening up a whole new world for me, and once I get the hang of it I just might start to enjoy displaying more gender-bending behaviors in public. If anything, it can be a source of amusement from all the gawking I'll cause - just for being me!