About My Boobs
Conversations with well-meaning people
Chapter 1: Franz, the boyfriend
It’s not fair of Franz to want to discuss these things right after getting out of bed, it’s not fair to discuss anything at this time of the day, so I’m chugging my coffee like I’m gonna battle him for good.
But Franz has done the research, he wrote his master thesis about queer identity and even spoke with two non-binary people. It felt as if I was late to class and forgot to bring my homework.
Talking to Franz about me, myself and non-binary, I must have used the word ‘cis’ too many times in a row, so he asked me to remind him again what Cis meant. But Franz, before anyone else, you have to know yourself first (!) I think to myself. You are cis, cis is you. He laughs and nods, sometimes he forgets a word, not the meaning behind it. I believe him, but I’m left with coffee shivers and a sore feeling on my skin.
Franz’s face is almost touching the table, his bad posture worsening gradually while we speak, as it always does, when he is actively listening.
By the way, Franz is my boyfriend, not the antagonist of my life, but he sort of is for the purpose of this article. He wants to know what I’m writing about, he asks if I still identify as non-binary, and what changed after I dropped the idea of a top surgery before I ended up with him at his kitchen table.
He shares his definition of non-binary and talks about this cheerful person, whose eyeopener was watching a queer person being the lead in glossy tv-series. I sound bitter, but I’m a late-90s early-2000s kid. Growing up in Germany without social media, I thought being gay was the only alternative to whatever my parents were doing.
You are a young woman, who experienced sexism and harassment. I agree and disagree. That’s how it all started, he corrects himself, that’s not the reason you identify as non-binary. But you still speak of women and men, you still think in a binary way, Franz observes.
Because these categories are still relevant to the world around me and I can’t pretend the world outside of me doesn’t exist, I answer and notice my voice tremble. I’m getting angry. Is it only okay to contradict yourself and have conflicting thoughts as a cis-hetero person? Why do I have to check all the boxes to qualify as non-binary? Allow me to be messy, to be nasty, Franz.
Chapter 2: Kai, the surgeon
One year ago I decided to talk about my boobs with everyone, including a surgeon. I wanted to get a breast reduction. It was winter during the second lockdown. I was living alone in my 1-room apartment. A time of heavy phone use and party-time by myself with a carefully curated playlist. Sometimes I would find myself skipping a cheerful song because it didn’t match the mental breakdown I was purging on my bathroom floor. Lockdown made it hard to romanticize alone time. One night, after one of these long ‘sessions’ I found myself sending multiple voice messages and face-timing my closest ones, confessing how much of a burden it felt to have boobs and how much I felt like I didn’t fit any gender. In that chronological order. First the weight of my boobs on my chest, then identity.
Gender mattered when I first stepped into the surgeon's office. It was me, the surgeon and his assistant, a young dude, dressed in white from head to toe, but every hospital dress code won’t trick me into feeling safe. I still felt outnumbered as I was in a room with two men and knew I had to get undressed at some point.
The only proof left from this time is a file full of nude pics of people with flat chests and cropped heads, voice notes from girlfriends telling me they like to think of non-binarity like a button you can switch on and off, and text messages from my dad, sharing his unrequested opinion on what perfect breasts should look like.
The surgeon asked me to collect pictures of various breasts to illustrate what look I was going for.
I created a folder and named it Mallorca2020. I wanted people to think that all I did on my last holiday trip was shoot erotic nudes of tourists by the seaside. I browsed through hundreds of pictures and had a hard time separating a particular body part from the whole person. For the same reason, I usually feel uncomfortable when getting complimented on my belly or my arms. It makes me doubt myself and the fragments I consist of. So I ended up choosing people, not chests, who looked cool to me, who I would like to hang out with.
The surgeon was not amused. He suggested checking out online galleries with before-after pictures of top surgeries.
Chapter 3: Muriel, the friend
Older people call, younger people text, annoying people send voice notes. Muriel tells me she is by herself in a park and jazz musicians are playing in the background. We recently talked about how lonely it can feel to be out on the streets in summer, when everyone seems to only come in packs of friends. I imagine her sitting barefoot on a blue blanket, recording a way to long voice note in response to my tipsy coming-out, avoiding to meet eyes.
Transcript:
I’m very tired from work and came alone to a park where there are people playing jazz, so it’s nice. I decided to take a blanket with me, I’m telling you my life right now haha. I’m sending you a message because I’m thinking about the conversation we had about being non-binary. And I think for me it’s like a tool to have, you know? Like right now, I think of myself as being non-binary right now and it’s like something I can turn on and off. It’s like a good place to be. It’s like putting glasses on, glasses where I’m not feeling observed or judged. I never had this tool before. For me it’s like a nice, peaceful button I can press. And I know it’s an identity, so it’s not something you can switch on and off, but to me, I use it as a tool. Like right now I’m high on tiredness, I feel like a ghost and it’s so peaceful.
Later Muriel texts me on her way home in the subway, where she feels to shy to record voice notes:
Whenever I’m out with you, I see how you always get approached or harassed, often they are so aggressive from the start. When I’m with you, I got you, I show them a middle finger and would bite their face off for you. But you have to deal with it so often.
I recorded my response twice, because of an incoming call from my dad interrupting it, then gave up on the voice note and texted.
If non-binarity works for you as a safe space - to be honest - it doesn’t sound that different to what I’m feeling. Though, I don’t want to switch the button back on to being woman. Do you also do this weird little thing, every time you join a new group of people, move through a party crowd or walk down a street, do you tell yourself again and again that not only guys have eyes, but you do too and can stare back, and if you focus on yourself looking at things and name the things you see, maybe that makes you less visible, more out of focus as a woman. It’s the violence directed towards you from men and how time-consuming it is to deal with it. (At this point I regret not calling Muriel) But it doesn’t seem very cool and easygoing to overthink walking down a crowded street so much.
Chapter 4: The dad
My dad tries to call me, but I ignore the call and text him back instead.
I can't talk, I’m on a zoom call, but we can text.
I don't want to text, he replies. Just call me whenever you have time and we talk.
What a showdown, what a power struggle. Who is gonna decide what's the most appropriate way to talk about a drunk, but heartfelt text I sent to him (and too many other suggested contacts) about wanting to get rid of my boobs and my gender. There is no zoom call I’m attending, but for some reason I sit down by my working desk, open my computer and stare at the blank screen. I don’t think this classifies as a coming-out. Can it be one, if I’m coming out to myself the same time I come out to others?
On one hand, my dad was very supportive of the idea, encouraging me to use my savings for the top surgery. Savings meant for the time after my graduation. At times, he would say the right thing, telling me he was proud about how far I had come or considering me crying on the phone to him as an achievement. He would say I was onto something and feeling safe in my body was a right I had, like going to school or studying. That was gold. But then something shifted.
Old people are so inappropriate, but I know how to get back at them. A handful. I had heard that before. My first boyfriend used to say that at age 16, one hand full. But whose hand, dad? My former boyfriend, so, a teenager's hand? Your hand? Both seem to be inappropriate for me to put in any proximity to my breast. And since when is any part of my body signalling what kind of person I want to attract into my life? Does he want to make me more suitable for a certain kind of man, „a fine character“, more bourgeois, with small breasts and childlike features? I’m overthinking again, but I usually overthink when I feel unsafe, and I feel unsafe for a reason.
Chapter 5: Saskia, storyteller at best, liar at worst
At 3 in the morning, I got a text from someone I was seeing at that time. I’m still sobering up from wine and the conversation with my dad.
It felt good to write pretty nonsense.
Every time I try to make sense and tell a story, cherry-picking events from my childhood that might have led me to where I am now, I might make sense to others, but not myself. True events feel like made-up stories, once I tell them to explain myself. The thing is, I don’t have a clue, most of the time. Not about the things I’m still going through at least. I worked through childhood trauma, but it’s messier than that.
These made-up stories didn’t seem to convince my insurance either. They refused to cover the costs for the surgery, despite my therapist's report featuring sentences like:
Sometimes she has to spend hours changing without finding anything that hides her breasts without looking like she's hiding.
Or
For some time, the patient had worked with a binder, a cloth with which she could bind her bosom tightly to her body.
Back to Franz
I look up from my coffee to Franz, grab my phone and open saved images. I show him memes my best friend Miho supplied me with during those times of struggle. The memes, tailored to my very own drama and sent by people who want to make me giggle about my inner intrusive monsters, are inherently poetic to me. I’m funnier than I used to be.
Franz laughs, he gets it. That’s enough for this moment. Tomorrow I’ll wake up before everyone else, have breakfast by myself, at 4 am by the kitchen table.
