Friend wants top surgery

Listening to and analysing ‘polarised’ views is how people gain understanding about topics, isn’t it? Isn’t that why people post on discussion forums to get those polarised views so they see if they have missed information or not considered aspects of the topic that others have?

You'll get polarised views in this forum OP.
At the end of the day, your friend is a grown up and able to make their own decisions. I think you can rightly ask if they've considered risks of major surgery but ultimately all you can do is accept /support or end the friendship.
It sounds like you're pretty accepting of their state so far so I'd just maybe raise an eyebrow when you next discuss and say wow that's a major op are you not worrying about risks? If they say yes have considered and totally worth it then leave at that.

I really do feel that there is an aspect of narcissism to gender identity that people don’t like to acknowledge. And it is there even if someone says that they don’t
force pronoun use.

Because it is there in the anticipation that others will defy the conventions of established language to communicate to them and about them. Because whenever a person has to refer to the person with that identity, a person has to think specifically about how to communicate about them. They cannot use the intuitive language reactions they have developed since they learned to talk.

And why? On one hand it seems that the person seeks to nullify themselves, to attempt to remove the sex distinction that they can never remove. Yet in doing so, they increase the attention to that sex distinction by constantly drawing attention to it. And because then society is making all sorts of special considerations for them, even while they might not be the activist type who is making demands in work places, in health care, in media etc.

When you consider it, so much energy being expelled on this group of individual’s collectively. It is individualism.

And from what I can see, from a female perspective it seems to be female people removing themselves (even if only in their own mind) from being seen as female for potentially a slew of different reasons to those of male people. And male non-binary people aren’t removing healthy body tissue to be more comfortable in the world in anywhere the same level of numbers of surgeries sought. So even in the medicalisation of these identities, the outcome is asymmetrical for female people.

Right so non binary can't be explained in anything other than completely individual terms. But said individual must be referred to by plural pronouns. And even if they aren't even androgynous, and they acknowledge that they look female, they'll still claim non-binariness for "comfort".

^^ I'm sorry I just cannot take grown adults seriously that behave like this. Non-binary means fuck all, it's a personality, because human beings are a mammalian species. If you don't feel like one or the other - congratulations that's everyone because no one has the experience of "feeling" like something they're not.

OP I think you think you're being kind, indulging your friend, and maybe you are and I'm just a stone-cold bastard. But I would pull away from a friend like this, and encourage them to have some therapy. Fine to not like your tits or whatever, but no you're not coercing me into using different pronouns for you, or referring to you by make-believe terms.

So you've bought into the whole non-binary ideology? You believe it enough to think that you must use her preferred pronouns for a conversation on a website that she is not part of?

Why do you keep referring to her as plural?

Tbh of the people I know that I know have done this I just try not to think about it. Not my business.

On a societal level I find it horrible that women get their breasts enlarged, lifted and removed in order to feel some kind of comfort in the world. To me, all of these things are extreme forms of dissociation and self harm. The non-binary man i know has not had any surgery. I would have some expectation that the urge to self harm might resurrect itself further down the line. But on an individual level... my friend is my friend. The best friendship I can offer is acceptance.

I'll only answer the couple of questions which have already come up because I hate derailing a thread from the OPs original question, which always seems to happen when I join a thread from the NB perspective 😅

The difference between me, a non-binary person and an identical person who doesn't identify as non-binary is mostly preference. I prefer the term non-binary and I prefer to cope with my minimal dysphoria by using a gender-neutral name, they/them pronouns (among those who are happy to), and this one surgery. I believe that there are many women out there with very similar feelings who fully consider themselves women and don't feel the need for take the same steps as I do to achieve comfort within themselves, or perhaps they're content with the discomfort. Either way, it's not a physical difference but an emotional one.

And secondly, to the other poster who asked what makes me different from a woman who just doesn't like having big boobs- I suppose the difference is summarised best in one of the questions I was asked in my pre-surgery psych evaluation. I was asked why I want a double mastectomy as opposed to a breast reduction, and the answer was that a reduction would feel unfinished. It wasn't the right option for me and I wouldn't have been comfortable with it. The problem was not the size, though that was a secondary factor; the problem was that they made me uncomfortable emotionally more than physically. I no longer have that discomfort, in fact, I've said before that the best result of surgery was that my chest, my boobs- I just don't think about them anymore. They don't bother me anymore. I don't know if women who are simply uncomfortable with the size of their breasts would feel the same way about a mastectomy as opposed to a reduction, though I appreciate my experience is simply one person's perspective.

OP - your friend seems to think the physical body has something to do with whether someone is a man, woman, or neither? Aren't they worried this will come across as transphobic?

TRAs are vocal about the belief that being man/woman is determined by your internal gender, and that it's TERFy to think female=woman, male=man.

What makes you non-binary and not just a woman who didn't like having big boobs?

My main worries about people wanting procedures like this are that all surgery entails risk, and as someone who’s unfortunately had to have more than a few surgical procedures carried out in my life, I would advise people to avoid elective/medically unnecessary surgery. Our culture is very keen on pushing cosmetic surgery but human bodies are not lego and operating on the body doesn’t always produce optimal results and is sometimes storing up issues for the future.

Anaesthetic carries a risk, there’s a risk of wound infection and adhesion. There’s also the risk of scars coming apart in the future or wound dehiscence where wounds fail to heal. There are too many complications that come with surgery of any kind that someone who hasn’t had any surgery might dismiss. Antibiotics don’t fix everything and surgeons don’t care about your post-op problems after they’ve done their job of operating on you.

As an older woman, I advise young people that if they have a healthy body then try to keep it that way for as long as possible because you will be glad of it when you’re older and start to experience the issues involved in aging. Also, some surgeons think they can fix everything with surgery - it’s very much having a hammer and seeing every problem as a nail - so I would advise that your friend try other less potentially damaging ways to deal with her body issues before considering undergoing surgery.

It's sad that your friend has decided to adopt an identity invented a few years ago that culminates in her committing an act of mutilation against her body.

But other posters are correct in that it's unlikely you can say anything to stop her going down this nonsensical path of self-harm.

That shouldn't dissuade you from expressing your own beliefs about what she's planning to inflict upon herself though.

And I worry that, in the fullness of time, they will realise too late that they cannot identify out of female oppression.

Removing ones breasts will not prevent lower pay, harassment, the second shift, period pain, etc etc etc

Society knows who we are, whatever size our breasts are.

It's so sad that women want to do this to themselves.

OP, what you say really depends on how much you want to remain on good terms with this friend, and also how much you feel you can keep quiet. It's like any other big issue a friend may involve themselves in (eg having an affair, leaving a spouse, borrowing a lot of money) - yes they don't need your approval but if you really feel they're making a mistake it's going to be difficult to spend time with them unless you can find a way to avoid it coming up. It's going to depend whether they will expect your approval/ tolerate knowing you don't really think it's a great idea.

Like the other big issues i mentioned, I don't think I could avoid asking questions to see whether they'd thought it through.

Incidentally, my mum had a mastectomy for breast cancer. It's major bloody surgery. She had to have drains in after, do physio etc. You can lose some movement after if you don't take proper care, or if you have complications. When I see what she went through it makes me angry that people euphemistically speak of 'top surgery'.

It ain't nothing!

@nbartist Ooh - I've wanted to ask this question for ages and never had a chance! What is the difference between a person who is "binary" and a person who is "non-binary"? Is there a difference?

And I do agree with your advice to @Jigglypufff , no-one is going to change someone else's mind about this. A friend can accept that other friends do things we don't understand or even that we don't agree with, and we can still be friends. We don't have to argue it out with them.

I worry that many of the women who are removing their breasts and choosing an NB identity are rejecting womanhood because of abuse by men. Most f the NB women I know fall into this category. Identifying out of pains and abuse.

Non-binary is a trick. It means that women have to conform to sex stereotypes or they are not women. It means that a woman is someone who 'performs femininity'. It's just another way to allow men to be women and to detach women from woman.

Offering an alternate perspective here; for reference, I am non-binary and have had a double mastectomy. I am not on hormones, never have been and never plan to be- I consider my "transition", such as it is, complete. I do not believe that stereotypes are what makes someone a woman, and I know many women who wear more "masculine looking clothes" without compromising their identity as a woman. Just because I consider myself non-binary does not mean I think everyone else outside of rigid gender stereotypes should feel the same!

Being over a year post-op, I appreciate I can't say for certain how I'll feel long-term. But right now? I am more comfortable in my body than I ever was beforehand. While yes, most people understandably recognise me as female, in my own image I finally feel right. Like myself. It's not a feeling I can logically explain, or a feeling I think necessarily can be logically explained, but it works for me. Though I can understand why you would feel sad about it in some way, I hope your friend finds the same peace in their choices as I have with mine.

My advice is effectively to carry on as you are; you do not have to compromise your opinions, be happy about your friend's choices or cheer them on in any sense. Keep talking about gender stereotypes and non-conformity, but I'd try t go about it without a view to changing their mind. It'll just frustrate the both of you. As a previous poster said, be a friend! As you said you're not making a big deal out of it, it sounds to me like you're well on the right track.

Does she want children?

If you value the friendship then be a friend.

A friend would not want someone to mutilate themselves in a way that will cause lifelong pain.

How old is this person?

Be honest with your friend and tell her what you think. Also don't use the infantilising "top surgery", say exactly what it would be - an elective bilateral mastectomy.