This is a guest post by a good friend of mine.  It deals with a question I've often received, but can't write about from personal experience: top surgery for non-FTM folks.  Intrigued?  Read on...

Top Surgery for Genderqueer, Gender Neutral, FAAB, or Otherwise Non-FTM-Identifying People

By: KJ

The decision to get top surgery—via a bilateral double mastectomy—did not come easy. I spent years agonizing over the fact that I had (quite large) breasts. I dumped heaps of cash into sports bras and binders, in search of the perfect containment vessel to make them less obtrusive. I spent years wishing boobs were detachable (like Wanda Sykes’ detachable v-jay), so I could keep them in a dust covered box in the back of my closet.

Why all this suffering and agony over a pair of breasts? Why, as an ardent feminist, could I not learn to love and appreciate that part of my body? Well, for starters:

1. They never fit my image of myself
2. They just got in the way of most of my athletic endeavors
3. I derived no sexual pleasure from them (one of my post-op nipples is far more sensitive than my original nipple!)
   

You know when you’re out shopping and you see the male mannequins in the windows, looking all dapper in their vests and button down shirts, and you think, that’s my style? So you step into the store (in all your butchy genderiness), and try some on. The shirt won’t button around your breasts, the vest hugs your boobs all wrong, and the fit across the shoulders is too broad (and too narrow around the hips).

So for me, there was a disconnect between how I saw myself in the mannequin’s classy getup, and how the clothing fit my body. But fashion design is only part of the problem, since lots of cool designers are remedying this. It was also about how feminizing my boobs were—I’m blessed with fairly narrow hips that actually allow men’s pants to fit, and the curves of my boob-heavy upper body were psychologically unsettling. (Pro-tip: Post-surgery, shopping for tops in the boys’ section is where it’s at!)

It’s a psychology I still can’t exactly articulate, even after many therapy sessions (one of the hoops to leap through en route to surgery approval). But basically, as I grew older and explored more of the world, I met all sorts of queers who broadened my horizons and made me aware of this thing called “top surgery.” Wait... you mean they ARE detachable?

It was a big decision—especially since I’d never had surgery. That was the scariest part—letting someone cut me open, remove a bunch of tissue, and sew me back up. But the fantastic images running through my mind of having a flat chest, of throwing out the constricting undergarments forever, and of flexing visible pec muscles far outweighed my fears of surgery.

Still, there were lots of other factors to consider. First, I do not identify as a man, and have no intention of transitioning. Big psychological fear: my gender presentation already confuses people; will top surgery cause greater confusion? I’m okay with confusing people, but sometimes confusing people makes them oddly violent, and some people like to hurt people who don’t fit their idealized gender norms. I was, frankly, afraid of increased gender violence and social taunting. How would I negotiate public restrooms when I could no longer point to my boobs to ease the concern of the woman giving me sideways glances through the mirror? What about locker rooms or dressing rooms? Would I be mistaken for a teenage boy even more than I already am? Note: Again, I don’t mind the “sirs,” but when people think you’re a teenage boy, they don’t treat you like a capable adult. (But one perk is getting the giveaway toys and prizes for children 16 and under at festivals and special events!)

Well, here’s what I learned: People determine gender in sooooo many more ways than a glance at your chest. In fact, I am still mostly read as female and mistaken for male with about the same frequency as I was before surgery. Most people read me as female as soon as they see my face or hear my voice. They may silently wonder where my titties are hiding, but nobody has said anything about it.

In the three months since my surgery, I could not be happier with how I feel in my body, how my clothing fits, and how my chest looks.

Understandably, you might also be concerned about scarring your perfect body. I am doing lots of scar treatment to try to reduce and minimize my scars, though scarring was, to me, a small price to pay for living the rest of my life comfortably boob-free. Maybe surprisingly, I have actually grown fond of my scars; they’ve come to seem like a natural part of my body’s landscape, and my body seems more perfect with the scars than with boobs.

Another concern is dating. Who would want to date you if you hack off your tits? (Well, I’m actually a bit of a misanthrope, so dating is the least of my concerns, but I can certainly understand how scary that can be to find a person who will accept you and your boobless body.)  Guess what? There are people out there who will love you just as you are (with or without boobs). And if they don’t, you probably don’t want to date that person anyway.

One big fear that persists is how medical professionals would treat me post-op. Sure, I’ve navigated doctors’ gender weirdness with my hairier-than-your-dad’s legs and armpits. But fear of seeking out medical treatment is multiplied when you’re living in a surgically modified, non-gender-normative body.

Recently, I found myself in need of medical treatment (unrelated to my surgery), but I hesitated. What if the doctors and nurses were jerks to me and didn’t treat me well? Eventually, a loved one forced me into the car and drove me to the ER. After a moment’s hesitation, I told the first technician who was rigging me up to a machine that I’d had a double mastectomy so he wouldn’t be shocked when he had to stick some tabs on my chest. It didn’t faze him a bit, and we talked about gender and gayness and queerness and how much he enjoys boobs and sex with his girlfriend, all while the machine measured the electrical activity of my heart.

When I put it out there and seemed comfortable explaining that I did it for gendery-type reasons, every doctor and nurse and tech I interacted with was pleasant and understanding. Will this always be true? Maybe not, but hey, you get better at navigating this over time, and in the end, as long as you can get treatment, it’s a small price to pay for the comfort of everyday life without boobs.

This is all to say: for people who do not identify as FTM and want top surgery, you’re not alone.  You may think it’s not an option for you, because of social pressure or because of the mistaken belief that you have to be FTM to get top surgery. But I want to tell you that you can make the choice that is best for you and you can safely navigate this world as a female, androgynous, non-FTM, etc. person without breasts.

Yes, it is a great privilege to have access to top surgery (thank goodness for my progressive insurance plan), and unfortunately plenty of people who need and want it can’t access it. But if you can, and you want to—even if you don’t plan to transition or take hormones—it’s a viable choice.

There’s plenty more information about top surgery (even specifically for non-FTM people) that you can Google, Bing, and Yahoo on the Internets, but I am also in the process of compiling a centralized comprehensive guide to top surgery for non-FTMs. In the meantime, feel free to ask me your questions or voice your concerns by emailing me at: [email protected].

Recently I was talking to someone I respect a great deal, and she said something I've often thought as well: many people are more uncomfortable with gender nonconformity than with homosexuality.  Of course, the two often go hand in hand.  But let's assume, for a moment, that we can disaggregate them.

In my work circles, which mostly comprise upper-middle-class NPR listeners, few people care if your partner is male or female.  Same-sex partnership is still noteworthy, interesting, and a titillating gossip source to some people, but for the most part, it's not a big issue.  Homos abound at high levels in my profession, and most are pretty open.  But I have trouble coming up with examples of high-powered women in my profession who wear mostly men's clothing.  If you're a woman giving a conference talk, it's not that big a deal to mention your same-sex partner.  It is a big deal to wear a necktie.  No one else does it, and you're likely to be seen as "making a statement."

For me, this begs two questions: (1) Why?; (2) What implications does this have for my own self-presentation?  Today, I'll write about the former.

Here's my guess: looking gender-conforming still adheres to people's ideas and assumptions about gender--the idea that men "are" and "look" a certain way, and that women "are" and "look" a different way.  If we define homosexuality narrowly (as I think most people do, particularly non-queers), it only challenges one aspect of gender typicality: whom you sleep with. 

It's as if are only two kinds of ice cream, and ice cream always comes in double scoops: one vanilla, one chocolate.  This is what most people always order,  then later they learn that some people order two scoops of vanilla or two scoops of chocolate.  "Fine," they think.  "Some people like two scoops of the same thing.  But there are still just two kinds of ice cream."

In contrast, if someone orders vanilla with chocolate swirls and says, "It's still vanilla--it just has chocolate swirls in it," (or if, God forbid, they order strawberry) this challenges people's fundamental ideas about the kinds of ice cream that exist.

In this way, gender nonconformists mess with people's categories.  A woman in a tie, when only men are wearing ties, is like chocolate chip ice cream.  "What IS that?" people think.  "No flavor I've ever seen."  This is probably why, as Kristen Schilt writes in One of the Guys, when people go from identifying as butch women to identifying as trans men, they become more accepted in the workplace.  As butch women, people viewed them as gender atypical.  When they become trans men, people can say, "Oh, I kind of understand--you were really chocolate all along!" 

As more states adopt legal protections based on sexual orientation, I think gender conformity will be one of the next frontiers.  This is closely tied--though not identical--to the fight for trans rights, providing another reason to help fight for the rights of all other queers, not just your personal subset.

For now, I'll leave the conversation there.  What do you think, dear readers?  In your everyday work lives, what's people's reaction to sexual orientation versus gender nonconformity?

I'm lucky enough to have a fabulous relationship with my mom.  We don't always perfectly understand each other, but we know each other better than almost anyone else knows us.  And I really wish I could be celebrating Mothers' Day with her today (albeit one of those arbitrary holidays that we celebrate largely because Hallmark tells us to--but that doesn't change the fact that it's a day we all think about moms). 

Anyway, in honor of Mothers' Day, I thought I'd combine Butch Wonders themes with mothering and pose the following questions to readers:

1. When you were a kid, did you think you'd be a mom?
   
2. Where were you when you came out to your mom (if you're out)?
   
3. What are two major traits you and your mom share?
   
4. What's something your mom taught you?
   
5. Name a mom you wish you could be with today (besides your own).
   
   

I'll go first.

1. No way!  I wanted--maybe, at the most--to be a dad.  To me, this meant going to work all day and not being involved in childcare.
2. At a PF Chang's.  We were out to lunch and I said, "Mom, I have something to tell you."  And then I burst into tears right in the middle of P.F. Chang's.  My mom asked, "Are you okay?  Are you going to die?  Do you have cancer?"  I shook my head.  "Is someone you love or I love about to die?"  I shook my head again.  She said, "Well, then whatever it is, it'll be okay."  Then we ate lemon chicken.  I think it took her some time to accept my sexual orientation, and maybe a little longer than that to accept my butchiness.  I guess "process" is a better word than "accept," because I've never felt "unaccepted" by my mom. And I've never regretted not being open as my "whole" self to her. After all, she's the one who taught me that it was not only okay but great(!) to be quirky and different from all the other kids.
3. Tenacity and creativity.
   
4. The importance of being a surVIVor, as she says--meaning persevering in the face of adversity.  When life throws her lemons, my mom does not get discouraged, nor does she "make lemonade."  Instead, she catches the lemons and stacks them into a pile, then uses the pile to get somewhere she'd rather be. Or she, like, makes a car out of lemons and drives away. She is pretty darned awesome.
5. My mom's mom.  She died many years ago.  I still think about her a lot. She was an amazing, philosophical, totally self-made woman.
   
   

How about you, dear readers?  What are your answers to some of these questions?

I attended an amazing event this weekend, where I got the privilege of spending two days with some of the most accomplished, dynamic LGBTQ folks I've ever met.  More on that in a future post, but while I was there, someone asked me what topics I've wanted to address on BW but haven't gotten around to, or that I've found it too hard to write about.  I had two answers: (1) Butches and race; (2) Butches and body image.

The former is hard to write about because, as a white woman, it's impossible for me to speak from personal experience about how being a racial minority interacts with butchness.  Sure, I can talk about whiteness + butchness, and maybe I will--but I'm still looking for a guest blogger of color to write a post about this (hit me up if you're interested).  Number (2) is hard to write about because it's such a touchy topic for so many people.  But I'm going to take my new friend up on his challenge anyway, and delve into the topic of butches and body image.

First, my experience.  I'm not exactly "fat," and I'm usually pretty active (well, when I'm not dealing with mono, whooping cough, or a broken foot).  But I'm carrying around about 30 pounds more than I'd like, and the BMI scale puts me solidly in the "overweight" category.  I've lost 12 lbs this year without giving up ice cream (because, like, let's be realistic, people), and hope to lose a bit more.  So I know firsthand what it's like to be hefty, though admittedly I don't know what it's like to be obese.  (And I really don't know what it's like to be thin.) 

I've had multiple butches confide body image issues to me, though always one on one, and sometimes anonymously.  There's a sense out there that it's just not "butch" to talk about being insecure about your physical appearance.  Most butches don't talk about this with one another; to whom are we supposed to talk about it?  A girlfriend in front of whom we're trying to appear confident?  A male friend?  A straight female friend?  Frankly, none of those options sound appealing.

Furthermore, diet and exercise present special problems for butches, which mirror some of the problems faced by straight men.  Butches trying to lose weight may think they'll lose butch points if they admit to dieting.  The diet industry paints monitoring food intake as something "feminine."  I know I wouldn't feel comfortable telling a butch buddy that I'm on a diet.  And when it comes to exercise, many of us want to look competent, because physical fitness is "butch," right?  But what if we're wheezing after a half mile?  What if we can't bench press as much as our femme friends can?  Overall, it can be a lot easier to hide behind your butchness than to risk making yourself vulnerable.  It's easier to "puff up" as you walk by the gym, but to avoid going in.  And don't even get me started on swimsuits. 

On the other end of the spectrum, some butches suffer from anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders.  And these folks can feel invisible.  It can feel decidedly un-butch to seek help for this.  And available support groups may not contain a heck of a lot of people who look like you.

I hope to post more on this issue soon, but for now, I just wanted to get the topic out there.  We think about our bodies, too, and a lot of us are self-conscious--and we don't always talk about it.

What do you think, butches?  Is butchness and body image an issue you've ever thought about?  Experienced?  Heard about from others?  What kinds of issues related to body image would you like to see addressed on BW?

Too many queer women steer clear of wrist adornments because they think bracelets are inconsistent with a masculine fashion aesthetic.  I say: no way. It's totally butch to add pops of color and glitz to your outfit (see some basic guidelines).  If you're rocking a fauxhawk, guys' shoes and jeans, and a plaid shirt with a white undershirt (I know I just described at least one in three readers), no one will take you for femme just because there's a string of beads around your wrist. 

In fact, your willingness to embrace a little flare can actually underscore your butchness (note to my buddy C: I dare ya). 

Ah, but where to start?  Well, I've put a bunch of bracelets in the Butch Store, so check those out (I just added a bunch of new ones yesterday).  But even better, I wanted to share some of my favorite Etsy sellers.  I love all of the bracelets I'm describing here and I wear them all myself (yeah, that's my albino wrist in most of the pics). [Disclaimer: these sellers gifted me a bracelet to review.  But per usual, I've refused to review anything I don't like, and none of these are paid endorsements.]

BTW, if you're not sure how to layer your scores of excellent bracelets, here's an example of how to rock the layered look.  Basically, everything goes with everything as long as there's no egregious clashing happening.  (If you can't decide whether it's okay, you should probably assume it's fine.  The standard rules of matching don't apply to casual jewelry.)  You should probably skip loading up on bracelets for a job interview, but pretty much everywhere else, you're set.  Especially great for the summer, if you're like me and tend to rock plain T-shirts and shorts whenever possible.  A pop o' color is totally--even hella--butch.