Let Me Have My Boobs, Please

A trans woman’s breast augmentation surgery is not the same

It took two years to qualify for Kaiser’s standards for breast surgery. I got the letters, the approvals. Along the way, I had to debate a cisgender male nurse about my need for the surgery, a staff member in their ‘transgender support’ department. “A lot of women have small breasts,” he told me.

Tanner Scale (from Scientific Spine)

I had to fight with them about the Tanner scale — the chart plotting breast development on young women. Apparently, at a Tanner Stage 3, I would no longer qualify for surgery coverage. A Tanner Stage 3 is typical of 11–13-year-old girls.

I tried to explain to the staff at Kaiser that a tween’s breasts would not look right on my middle-aged frame.

All of this became moot when I lost my job, losing my insurance. I moved to another state and, once settled, started the process once again.

This time the process was a bit easier. I already had a therapist’s recommendation letter. One year later, I received my approval for surgery.

I’ve felt a bit hesitant and uncomfortable discussing my upcoming surgery with my female friends. There is a widely accepted notion of breast implants as a vanity project — or worse, as an anti-feminist, male-gaze-driven bow to patriarchy. We women are sometimes terrible toward one another. We cut each other down, we judge one another — we slutshame each other. Much of this is driven by internalized misogyny. We often judge one another through a male-imposed lens. The girl wearing a hijab is too much of a prude, the girl wearing a thong is too much of a tease. Sometimes we don’t let ourselves breathe.

An acquaintance of mine — a cis woman in her fifties — had shared with me the judgment and derision she had often received over her implants. Another friend — a cis woman in her forties who’d always been very self-conscious about her small breasts — never dared to get implants for fear of judgment from her earthy, hippie friends.

I’m a trans woman. But I’m also very much a feminist, and many of my friends are zero-waste vegans, lesbians and earthy hippies. I’ve had friends give me light-hearted putdowns for shaving my legs, for wearing lipstick. I keep having to explain my situation is different.

Eight years ago, at an early point of my transition, a dear friend and lover, upon arriving at her home after Pride, got immediately naked, then turned to me and said, “well, if you were a real woman, you wouldn’t still be wearing a bra.”

I didn’t take offense. It was a lighthearted jab, though misplaced. “You would keep your bra on too, if your boobs fell to the floor when you take it off,” I retorted, taking off my bra and letting my falsies fall to the floor.

Over the last few years, I’ve had a few interesting moments — some funny, some awkward, some poignant. Two years ago at a sexpositive retreat I was in the bathroom with my then partner, changing, and one of my ‘filler boobs’ snagged on my underwire. My ‘filler boobs’ were bags fashioned out of pantyhose, filled with quinoa. Suddenly, a heavy quinoa rainfall flooded the bathroom floor. We both burst out laughing. Cleanup was a bitch though, and then I had to find a replacement (rice, from the retreat kitchen, did the trick).

A less amusing moment was an incident at the state penitentiary where I lead a trans women’s support group. Recently I forgot that they don’t allow underwire bras. The metal detector kept buzzing, and I was told to take the bra off and leave it in a locker. Without my heavily padded bra, I grow incredibly self-conscious and uncomfortable. I couldn’t imagine being that exposed inside a maximum-security men’s prison. I was over an hour away from home, so driving back home to get the sports bra (and yes, the two handfuls of quinoa) wasn’t an option. After some begging and pleading, the female prison guard allowed me a “just this once” exception.

Now, as the date of my surgery draws near, I’ve been posting boob memes and funnies on Facebook. They’ve mostly been well-received. But a couple of acquaintances — cis women both — complained to me that these jokes were inappropriate.

I joke when I get nervous. I joke when I’m scared. I joke as deflection.

To my cis female friends: please understand this procedure means something different to me than what it might mean to you.

I know many women with natural breasts who wish theirs were bigger. I know some who with theirs were smaller. This is different.

This is the grief of half-a-century of being outside, door locked, looking at womanhood through a glass window.

This is not about feeling ‘not quite as pretty,’ this is about feeling monstrous, misshapen, wrong.

Santa Barbara, Sept. 2017

Two years ago my partner and I were at a retreat in Santa Barbara. We were diving into a romantic night at the bed-n-breakfast. My lover was already in bed, waiting for me to undress and join them. I started undressing. Suddenly, my peripheral vision caught a man — a naked man, spying on us through the window.

There was no man. There was no window. I had accidentally caught my own naked reflection, in a full-length mirror.

The night was ruined. My dysphoria had spiked, my fight-or-flight impulses were in full alert. I couldn’t stop crying.

Recently I’ve had several women tell me “but you don’t even need the surgery.” I’ve thought about it. My tiny puberty boobs are no solace to me. It’s different when you’re cis. It’s different when you have a womb. When your primary physiology affirms your gender in such a fundamental way, itty bitties are contextualized as another expression of womanhood. When one lacks the essentials, a flat chest is a heavy constant reminder that one’s a fraud, an impostor, a poser. That one doesn’t belong, never has belonged, never will belong in the sisterhood of women.

At different points, in intimate conversations, cis friends have shared with me their feelings about their breasts. Too saggy. Too small. Too big. That is valid. That exists. I’m just saying it’s different.

The only time I’ve heard a cis woman express an anguish similar to what I live was in a hospital. A woman roughly my age. She was recovering from a double mastectomy. She was talking to me about ‘no longer feeling a woman.’ She was talking to me about loss and grief — not for something physical, but for what it represented. The connection and ‘samehood’ to other women. As she talked, and I tried my damnest to focus on her pain, her need, I could feel a sword go through my heart.

So please be kind. Don’t tell me, “lots of cis women have small breasts.” Don’t tell me “I didn’t get to choose what size mine are.”

Let me have this.

I need it.