Elective Mastectomies for the Non Binary

It’s just another label.

Oh gosh, I just thought non binary people didn't stick to gender stereotypes (ie tomboyish girls) and used non specific pronouns.

I don’t understand how some people - ok how can I say this - some people with appendages refuse to have these removed because they are now reframed as ‘female bits’ whereas mastectomies/ breast binding is seen as the norm for people with boobs who think they ought not to have boobs.

So medical intervention/surgery/drugs regime for some ?

The NB female people I have known said that the last time they felt their bodies were theirs, and fitted who they were, was pre-puberty. They all wanted mastectomies.

What they said made sense to me, but they were all, like me, on the autistic spectrum.
It's a horror of physical change by people who find change difficult and a horror of being seen and treated as a woman, with all that comes with that.

They don't want to be part of the sex-class, the class that can only make up 25% of four-person panel shows, the class that is in films to be a love-interest to the protagonist. They want to be seen as people.

I understand the reasoning behind having surgery to help an individual live with dysphoria. However, this is where it seems dangerous and unhelpful to confuse a medical condition with ideology.

It seems very wrong and counter-productive to propose that most people fit happily into binary genders, or to suggest that it is possible to avoid the consequences of sex.

We need to stop pathologizing everything. Life is tough and we don't always like the hand we've been dealt. I honestly think the best thing we could do for our kids is to detox them, time away from the internet.

This is horrific, the whole thing is. So many girls removing breasts and boys and men growing them. Porn has muddied the water and infected everything. Lesbian is now a porn category or a male mid life crisis.

It's wrong, all of it. Wear what you like and love who you please, that's what we should all be fighting for. Not....this...

But why did they feel the need to bind? Why can't non binary people have breasts? After all, it's apparently perfectly acceptable for a 'transwoman' to have a penis, so why are any changes to the body needed?

That’s exactly what I was thinking. So much of what I’ve read doesn’t make sense. I’ve read a lot and keep reading to try to understand, but NB is one thing I don’t get st all. What does ‘feeling like your sex or feeling like the opposite sex’ even mean? Or feeling like you have no sex?

To me, it’s like considering chopping your legs off at the ankles ‘because you don’t feel like a 5ft 5 height person’. What would a 5ft5 person feel like? They’d feel things according to their individual personality because 5ft5 is just their height not something that requires any adherence to certain rules or certain feelings.

The same goes for sex IMO. I don’t wake up ‘feeling like a woman’ - I just am one. I don’t feel or think things, then say “Omigod, I thought/did a man thing!” I don’t look at other women and think I can’t be a woman because those other women think/feel/like different things to me.

Now the body dysphoria I can understand. I disliked bits of my body for years and had anorexia. If bits of someone’s body are causing self-hate, that’s just the same thing in a slightly different flavour IMO. I recognise the obsession with certain body parts because I had those fixations too. It’s a way of directing self-doubt and fear outwards and trying to find a ‘reason’, a focus for feeling unsettled inside yourself.

Someone I know did it because they found binding painful and felt their posture was distorted. They likened it to wanting a reduction due to back pain.

But why did they feel the need to bind? Why can't non binary people have breasts? After all, it's apparently perfectly acceptable for a 'transwoman' to have a penis, so why are any changes to the body needed?

And isn't it more like wanting a reduction for cosmetic reasons? If the pain is due to binding so is self inflicted.

It seems as though it's only women and children who have to change their bodies in order to be recognised as trans or non binary. Men just have to put on a dress (like Eddie Izzard).

Someone I know did it because they found binding painful and felt their posture was distorted. They likened it to wanting a reduction due to back pain.

some people may get surgeries/hormones to relieve their discomfort but still not feel like the opposite sex.

So do you think incorrect sex is the real problem in these cases?

It's a sliding scale the same way it is the other way, so some non binary people may get no medical interventions for various reasons but still not see themselves as a woman/man - some people may get surgeries/hormones to relieve their discomfort but still not feel like the opposite sex.

But everyone is either male or female. How can anyone 'not see themselves as a woman/man'? You are one or the other, even if you'd prefer to be the other or neither. How does it help anyone to pretend that they don't have a sex?

I sort of understand people wanting so much to be the opposite sex that they make radical changes to their bodies, but making no changes whilst declaring that you don't have a sex is just totally beyond my comprehension.

It surely has to be a reaction to the horror of puberty, and wishing to pause in that state of not being a small child with no autonomy, but to remain in that pre adult state. Not having to worry about adult stuff like sexuality (or bills). Fear of an otherwise inoxerable leap into the unknown.

That doctor's Facebook is a disgrace. And I have never seen such appalling surgery either. I'm guessing she's cheap.

An interesting perspective from a transman: quillette.com/2020/10/06/forget-what-gender-activists-tell-you-heres-what-medical-transition-looks-like/

My daughter, 13, knows a non binary girl and a girl who is trans (wants to be male). It seems to me that they are both just gender non conforming and have short hair. I've had short hair virtually all my life. At the beginning of puberty I could be mistaken for a boy, but not very often usually on my paper round!

Non binary today gets my goat you can't be non male or non female you are one or the other! You aren't some new species. What does it mean to your life to be non male or non female? Who cares and who needs to know?
I think non binary was what we in the 80s would have called androgenous, but I can't remember any girls wanting to cut their breasts off.
Totally agree with post up thread that girls need more support to get through puberty, they need good role models and they need to be taught self love.
I didn't like my body growing up and have struggled with my weight since a teen, but growing up today seems like so much more pressure.
Girls need something that will allow them to stand up and be proud to be female. Breasts in all their shapes and sizes are amazing biology.
Having seen some photos of large breasts that have been in binders I can see why a girl may want them removed as they are so deformed and outside of normal. If a girl starts binding and takes off her binder at night and doesn't like what she sees maybe the next train of thought is removal even though they are non binary?
Sorry more questions than answers.

I'd hazard a guess that it's not so much a case of wanting to appear more male as wanting to appear less female.

Yes. If you want to understand the 4400% figure it's because young women are running away from what they perceive being a woman to mean. It's not about being men, it's about being non-women.

Is the aim of non-binary to look like pre-pubertal, ie like a child?

OldCrone and I have linked this before, but a “non-binary body” also includes a prepubertal female body that has been perpetuated into adulthood ad infinitum by puberty blockers. In this article, they weigh up the ethnics and decide it’s ok. No mastectomy required then.

jme.bmj.com/content/46/11/743

Do any non binary males have surgery? Or is it only female non binaries who have to modify their bodies?

Who the hell performs these mastectomies? They need to be struck off.

I find this really depressing. I've been breastfeeding (3 kids in total) for 7 years, my breasts no longer hold a sexual component for me instead they instill an innate power of what I've accomplished.

I know breastfeeding rates will never be that high in the UK but it's the idea young women are deleting parts of their body designed to nurture and give life.

Very sad. No different to previous trends for young women self-harming or becoming anorexic as they struggle to cope with turning into young adult women, with all the sexism and sexual harrassment or worse that can involve.

My heart bleeds for them. They need support, confidence, a female support group, and fabulous older female role models.

And what they're getting is...dangerous and unnecessary surgery of their lovely healthy bodies. :( Maybe lifelong infertility.

But unlike the cutting scars, or the anorexia, there's no way for their bodies to 'heal' from this, once they're a bit older, and have grown up a bit and come to love their female bodies.

It's heartbreaking. :(