Elective Mastectomies for the Non Binary

[OhHolyJesus]

I'm sharing this as I found it interesting that there isn't a single supportive comment in the post. Not one.

Dr Gallagher is known to some here already so it will come as no surprise that this woman is attempting comedy with "Teetus Deletus".

www.facebook.com/1914451722102925/posts/2846599405554814/?d=n

Also I don't support, but I do sort of see the point of elective mastectomies for trans men (if you think you're male you not go by to want to appear female in any way) but why is this required, or even preferred, for women who identify as neither male nor female.

I'm not being flippant but they don't just remove one breast, to sort of demonstrate that you are in between male and female, both both breast are removed to appear more male but you're non binary? I don't get it. Why can't you be non binary with breasts?

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?

@ACatWhoBinds

I feel like I can offer something to this thread. You can be enby and have breasts, it depends on the person and whether they have significant dysphoria over it. I know non binary people who still have breasts. It's a personal/individual thing and decision.

I personally do not have sufficient dysphoria to think the benefits of top surgery outweigh the downsides. I bind when I need to but also try to have days off when I don't feel as bad. My dysphoria waxes and wains

This.

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.

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).

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.

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...

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.

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.

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 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 ?

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

It’s just another label.

I'm beyond horrified at this. How on earth can a medical professional even consider removing healthy body parts?? What happened to "Do no harm"??

It's extreme self harm and abuse in plain sight. It breaks my heart.

Treating the body...

@RebeccaCloud9

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

I think that's how it works for male non binaries. Here's one who's just been granted asylum in the UK:

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/30/i-felt-like-i-was-born-again-first-non-binary-person-granted-uk-refugee-status

This person is a gay man who says: "Without the fear of the attitudes shown to me in my home country, I felt confident to explore my gender identity. I let my hair grow and I started to define myself as non-binary, because I love the best of both of sides of the spectrum: I love gorgeous long blond hair, along with regular man clothes, and a touch of spice with my nail polish."

It appears that this person did suffer homophobic abuse in their home country, but seems to have only identified as non binary once in the safety of the UK. They weren't actually persecuted for their non-binariness but for being gay.

So there we have it. Non binary for females = mastectomies and testosterone. Non binary for males = long hair and nail polish.

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

Don't we all? That doesn't make anyone non binary.

It's a nonsensical term that means nothing at all.

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

Yeah, I don't get how this is evidence that they're not women. It's standard for women in our culture!

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.

Lucky sods.

Mine never felt like my own. Csa when you're barely out of nappies will do that to you.

TyroTerf

It's Not Like Other Girls on steroids, I think. They think that all the other girls are at ease with gender roles.

It's Not Like Other Girls on steroids, I think.

Agreed, but there's one thing that bothers me about that trope. We tend to be pretty scathing, assuming such people think they're better than the other girls. Certainly that's true in some cases, but for some it's more a case of worse than the other girls.

I never felt like the other girls, because the other girls were real.

Now, that's insightful.

Yes. What happens when you feel you can't live up to the expectations of women, and all around you, you think you see other women succeeding?

If a girl internalises the problem as being something lacking in herself, rather than an external one of social expectations, then that could lead to what we're seeing.

What happens when you feel you can't live up to the expectations of women, and all around you, you think you see other women succeeding?

I can only speak for myself on that one. I remember when I was thirteen, and being horribly bullied (as usual), and thinking 'maybe if I do the girl performance they will leave me alone?' So I went to school wearing makeup, just the once, and they took the piss out of me for that, and I realised then that femininity was a game I could never win.

Not that I'd really wanted to play that game anyway, because even then I understood that putting on the performance makes you vulnerable, because to be visibly female makes you vulnerable.

Having had a double mastectomy, this sounds like a HUGELY regrettable choice down the line, unless they're all cool with having a permanent nerve damage, high possibility of infection post surgery, scar tissue... Thats without even starting on the weird relocated nipples....

Is that amount of scarring/ wound normal for a double mastectomy? It doesn't look like it's been done very well, but then I don't know what it normally looks like.

@ACatWhoBinds

I feel like I can offer something to this thread. You can be enby and have breasts, it depends on the person and whether they have significant dysphoria over it. I know non binary people who still have breasts. It's a personal/individual thing and decision.

I personally do not have sufficient dysphoria to think the benefits of top surgery outweigh the downsides. I bind when I need to but also try to have days off when I don't feel as bad. My dysphoria waxes and wains

Thank you for your input on the thread.

What I still don't understand is how we are all supposed to be 'celebrating' this, and how it's just like being gay?

We are talking about young women, some of them not even out of their teens, having painful irreversible surgery involving cutting off perfectly healthy body parts because they are unhappy with their sexed bodies? How is that something to celebrate in any civilised society?

@HopeClearwater

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

This