The Little Prince and the Fox

Nothing could have really prepared me for what I felt when I saw my “new” chest yesterday after the surgeon removed the bolsters from my “new” nipples. The therapy and counseling I’ve been doing; hearing the experiences and seeing the results from other people who got masculinizing mastectomy; the sharing with other non-binary/trans persons; the wonderfully supportive chats with my dearest friends (of all genders and across the globe). These were, and still are, invaluable: all of these people and experiences have been extremely important, fundamental, for me to get where I am, to actually have the clarity and courage to undertake this step in my journey — I couldn’t have done it without them all. And all of their sharing and listening and reflecting back to me what or who they saw in me was wonderfully encouraging, validating, and affirming: as such, it helped prepare me for the positive feelings post-op. But what I saw in the mirror yesterday brought such intense, profound, mind-boggling emotions that I never could have imagined or expected at such a deep level. 

I couldn’t believe what I saw — in a good sense. There, opposite me in the mirror, stood a boy, a person with a “real boy’s chest”. Despite the scars being still dark and very long and visible; despite the lingering bruising; despite the slight swelling from fluid accumulation; despite the nipples still being shriveled and black. I really have a boy’s chest now. My torso really is a boy’s torso now. 

It’s hard to put into words what I felt yesterday, what I’m feeling now. Maybe it’s how Pinocchio felt when the Fairy Godmother finally turned him into a “real boy”… 

As I saw myself in the mirror yesterday, all of a sudden I saw my real self. It felt so intense and deep and mind-boggling that, beaming in the doctor’s office, I exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, that’s the real me!” And then, after a moment’s pause, “I really am trans!” — glowing with joy and also some surprise.

My entire life, I’ve been striving, and often even struggling, to be (or to be allowed to be) my whole, authentic self, often fighting or pushing back against conventions and expectations that family, society, and culture laid on me. I’ve been fortunate that along people ostracizing my authentic self I have also had plenty of wonderful people nurturing, encouraging, and supporting the “real me”. Since moving to California from Europe seven years ago, the process of finding, being, and openly expressing my full authentic self has accelerated, partly being easier in the places where I’ve lived here in the U.S. What I saw yesterday, though, made me realize that the process of finding, being, and openly expressing my full authentic self has, until now, been through the things I did: the clothes I wore; my haircuts; the ways I acted; the friends and acquaintances and communities I chose; the activities (both professional and recreational) I undertook. Because those were the only ways I had, or knew, to be and express my authentic self. And they were fine, they were and still are great. But they can only go so far. Changing one’s body to align with one’s identity goes much deeper and still feels somewhat unfathomable (at least, that’s how it feels to me). 

Finally, after decades, having the body that feels to really belong to me, is incredible. It’s one of the most amazing — maybe the most amazing — feelings I have ever had.  

Somehow, this is still “the old me”; and yet, in many ways, I will never be the same again, neither to myself nor to the world around me.

Recently, I’ve been devouring the book “Polysecure” by Jessica Fern and I would strongly recommend it to everyone, even beyond polyamory or romantic relationships. 

I think many of the concepts and tools presented can be helpful for any relationship based on mutual attachment, and for myself I’m finding many parallels with my close, platonic or non-romantic friendships. It’s also brought me a significant sense of relief with respect to my capacities to be in healthy attachment-based relationships. While I often “messed things up” with romantic partners, I’m realizing that with close friends I have often been able to build healthy, mutual attachment relationships that are “safe havens” and/or “secure bases” for both or all parties involved. So I guess that when my therapist said to me, “I think you are ready for a romantic relationship if the right situation arises”, they really were right.

Adding the romantic level seems to be the tricky part for me in relationships, maybe partly because of the difficulties in managing the closer intimacy and/or increased time-commitment. But realizing that is where I “get stuck” or “mess up” with my (potential) romantic partners helps to know where to start to solve the issues. And realizing that I am, and have been, able to build to build healthy, mutual attachment relationships with many friends is a wonderful relief and gives me the hope of not being too “broken” after all…  

“[…] research shows that people who have safe haven relationships in their life, whether through romantic partnership or through their family, are more resilient in the face of life stressors and trauma. Attachment research has looked at many different populations including orphans, people who have experienced natural disasters, assault victims, veterans who were in combat, people who were in New York City during 9/11, people in concentration camps during WWII, as well as people who have had heart attacks or are recovering from surgery. The research has found that when people in all of these difficult situations have their safe haven attachment figures around them, either during or quickly after the event, they recover faster, experience less physical and emotional pain, and are less likely to have escalating symptoms of PTSD.”

[from “Polysecure” by Jessica Fern] 

At the moment, my “safe haven attachment figures” are neither romantic partners nor my “biological” family but rather my “chosen” family: friends and people from the communities to which I belong. But they all have, indeed, made a huge difference for the better — and still are making a huge difference for the better — in my gender-affirming top-surgery. They have been there both during and after the event, supporting me, holding me, encouraging me, reminding me of my goals and dreams, sharing and/or soothing my fears, and offering invaluable practical help. 

Hopefully my doctor’s appointment today will confirm that I’m healing well — but my feeling is that I’m healing well and quite quickly. And I know that this healing and sense of safety is to a great extent due to all the love and support I have been receiving from my chosen family, from all these wonderful people. 

I’m also realizing that, although I’m still convalescent and quite far from how I hope to look & feel in the long-term, this gender-affirming surgery has already brought me a very deep sense of improved alignment with my self: despite still feeling tired and weak or vulnerable and sometimes bored or frustrated because of my physical limitations, I am feeling profoundly happy with/in myself. This feeling together with the love & support I’m receiving from my chosen family have brought a new sense of peace in how I see & feel about some ruptures with people with whom I had some complicated situations on the more romantic level. I’m seeing those situations more clearly; I’m willing to repair them, if possible or necessary, or ready to move on with no more pain. 

So yeah, I really do believe that healing is more than a “one-person job”… 

One week ago at this time I was under general anesthesia in the middle of my masculinizing mastectomy. 

In a couple weeks I’ll be starting physical therapy and hopefully in 3-4 weeks I can start running again — maybe even swimming carefully, if my scars are healed enough to avoid infection… 

Last night I was able to sleep on my side again for the first time in a week — YAY! 

The sutures for my nipple graphs pull and ache but hopefully that will also feel much better after my second post-op appointment tomorrow. 

My upper-body still feels tense and very constricted, and my energy levels are still very low, very far from my normal, but my range of motion is steadily increasing, slowly but surely. And every glimpse I get of my “new” chest, of my flat chest — even with the long dark scars and the irritated skin and the bruising and the nipple bolsters — I love it. I love this flat chest, I love it all, I really do. It’s so me.

This is me! 

And I can’t wait to be healed and strong enough again to show this to the world!

One of the people in my local support network who came to visit me & brought me lunch yesterday afternoon made a very insightful (& important for me) remark when I told them about my housemate’s attack from Tuesday evening. My friend said, “One must be careful when someone’s ‘needs’ or ‘boundaries’ actually become abuse of others”. 

“Emotional and psychological abuse may not leave physical marks, but they can be just as destructive as physical abuse, leading to anxiety, depression, and addiction. Like physical abuse, they are primarily a means of control and a way for the abuser to feel superior. They are also more insidious because emotional and psychological abusers are evasive and often make you believe you are at fault.  […] Psychological abuse also involves a person’s attempts to frighten or isolate you.”

Yes, my housemate’s “needs” or “boundaries” actually are, or have become, ABUSE: verbal and psychological and/or emotional abuse. Abuse towards me as a transgender person; abuse towards me as a convalescent person recovering from major surgery; abuse towards my needs while I am still convalescent, weak, vulnerable (physically, mentally, and emotionally), limited in what I can do and thus in need of practical, physical, mental, and emotional support & caregiving; abuse towards my friends and caregivers who are not considered worthy of even “sitting on the couch”. 

This is abuse. 

Unfortunately, I cannot get away from it for now as I physically cannot even imagine moving out of here, or even moving temporarily, for at least a few weeks. So for the time being, I need to do my best to protect myself, staying away from my housemate as much as possible and surrounding myself with the love and support and practical help from all my friends & people in my support network, also letting them all know about the stressful & threatening situation in which I am now living.

“Hey — Not sorry about asking for boundaries, but I am very sorry about how I requested them. Sincere apologies.” 

I’m still reeling from the shock of yet another instance of my housemate flying off the handle, being unable to check her control issues, and leash out at me. 

One could argue that her “boundaries” are actually very unhealthy and/or unresolved control issues she has. 

One could also argue that even her apology note is messed up. Just turning around the order of the sentences in her note would have made such a huge difference — “Hey, I’m sorry about the way I requested my boundaries/needs. I still need to discuss my boundaries but I realize that wasn’t the appropriate way of doing it.” A note along those lines might actually have healed some of the damage she did last night. The above note doesn’t. Especially not after the awful things she said. 

When I moved in, the agreement was that I’d use the common space (that she now calls her own space, her house) with no limitations when she’s gone and just for meal needs when she’s at home. She stated, “I don’t entertain at home” back then and in fact has a pretty active social life. My social life has been stunted over the past couple months, first by my COVID illness with complications & a long recovery and then by my gender-affirming surgery. From which I’m less than a week out and still recovering, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. In general, the agreement was that we’d have visitors when the other one of us isn’t at home. 

This past week, I’ve been having many more visitors than usual and almost constantly when she’s away (and only when she’s away): these wonderful people in my support network have been helping me with meals, groceries, movements I still cannot do, as well as providing emotional support for the major procedure and life-changing surgery I recently had. I’m not “entertaining”: I’m having friends over because I need it, I cannot do without it now. 

So the new issue that set my housemate off last night is that she cannot stand the idea of having my friends, whom she doesn’t know, in her living-room. There are many practical reasons why my visitors & I are sitting in the living-room upstairs rather than one of the tiny rooms in my basement space downstairs, including proximity to the kitchen to help with my meals, seating, and more natural light. All things that seem not only reasonable but also perfectly necessary during recovery. My housemate last night literally said things like, “I don’t want them sitting on my couch” and “Your friends can be uncomfortable since they’re coming to visit you and they can even just sit on the floor in your space downstairs”. These sentences in themselves would be sufficiently shocking and appalling. But then she went even further, bringing up COVID and accusing me of getting her sick in November with a certainty that has no foundations and was extremely aggressive and also misgendered me, again, using “she/her” pronouns referring to me. 

Of course, she has the right to these feelings and thoughts, but she had no right to lash out at me and throw them at me unfiltered and aggressive like she did last night. Thoughts and feelings of that sort would probably require being processed with a counselor or venting with a friend or letting the steam out on a walk. And then, one can come back and have a civil, respectful, adult conversation. And at that, it would have been sufficient to say simply, “I don’t feel comfortable having your friends, who are strangers for me, sitting in my space. Could you please see your visitors downstairs?”.  

I personally find her needs incomprehensible if one decides to rent out one’s house, incompatible with the idea of renting out one’s house (and several of my friends agree with me on this point). But as long as I’m living here, I’d simply accept that request, especially given the temporary nature of the whole situation. The way she lashes out, though, is becoming a huge problem for me: it makes me feel not simply uncomfortable and extremely limited/restricted but even unsafe in my own living space. This is not OK. 

I am extremely vulnerable and delicate in this moment, both physically and emotionally. More than ever now I need a comfortable, welcoming, safe space to live and recover.

Should I wait until June to move out, when my lease is up, or should I try to find a temporary accommodation before then, as soon as I’ve recovered enough from my surgery to be able to actually move? 

[Trigger warning: some explicit description of the masculinizing mastectomy procedure.]

Eleven days ago, I undressed and changed clothing and poses, enjoying and celebrating my body — and in many ways bidding it, or parts of it, a farewell —to the notes of this and other songs by Khruangbin for my pre-surgery “memorial” photoshoot with a very talented and sweet trans-masculine photographer. 

Last night, I slowly danced and swayed to those same notes from “Shades of Man” and a couple other of my favorite songs by this artist to gently welcome this new body into the world, into my life. 

My dancing is very feminine. It always has been. My sensuality is mostly feminine. And yet, it has always been my masculine upper-body & torso that I’ve admired & enjoyed when dancing alone, naked after a shower or workout. Moving in a sinuous way that is considered more “feminine”, for years I looked at myself in the mirror imagining a completely male torso, trying to imagine that those small breasts weren’t there. 

Two long black scars, each almost 20 centimeters long, crossing a bruised chest. A flat chest. My “new” chest. 

The tiny tits are gone and with them also the old nipples that were removed, resized, and replaced on my chest in a different, more masculine, position, and are now hidden under two small bolsters to help them heal in the hope that they don’t die, that they are “accepted again” by my body. 

The scars pull and itch, forcing my torso and shoulders into an uncomfortable (& for me unnatural) hunched position. The binder constricts me to a degree that is hardly bearable and the little bolsters are sore. But I can shower and also move more than I instinctively feel like doing, so last night I once again danced with my naked upper-body, gently, slowly, gently gently gently welcoming it into the world almost a whole week after the last time I had danced like that but with a different torso, with my “old” chest… 

At my first post-op medical appointment yesterday, when the assistants removed the tight corset and other binding garments slowly exposing my “new” chest, I burst into tears and sobbed wholeheartedly for several minutes, grateful for my friend’s hand I could squeeze and for the safe space I was in. 

It wasn’t the physical pain that made me cry. There’s some discomfort but not much physical pain. I sobbed in grief. The grief just washed over me like a tsunami. 

It’s not grief for the physical breasts (my “tiny tits”) that I got removed. It’s a deeper grief with two causes, one relatively new and one very, very old. 

The recent source of sadness is the opportunity that I nearly had, and then missed, of pre-surgery physical intimacy with that person I had started seeing. It would have meant a lot to me, for many reasons: it would have been the last moment of physical intimacy with someone I liked while I still had my breasts, sort of a final farewell to my breasts shared with someone else; it also would have been my first experience of physical intimacy with a woman, and as such the first & last time for me to have physical intimacy with a person who had “my same given body”; and last but not least, to me it felt like a gift to both of us, a seed in our budding relationship, as this person would have been maybe the only one to see and share intimacy both with my “old, given” body with breasts and with my “new, chosen” body with a masculine chest. Up until the very last minute, it seemed that I, we, would have this special moment of physical intimacy together, until it evaporated a couple days before my surgery. Last week, I shelved, almost suffocated, that sadness as I had so much else to face for my surgery. But now, with the procedure having been safely performed, the actual sight of my “new” chest yesterday brought back that sadness with the full strength of grief: the reminder that that moment, that experience with that person, is lost and gone forever for me. 

The older and probably even more intense grief that is coming up for me now is very deep and has been there almost unheard for so long that when it emerges it can be totally overwhelming: it’s the grief for that boy who wasn’t allowed to be for so long — for years, for decades. Seeing him slowly emerging through my “new” chest now, through this battered chest I have at the moment, is almost more than I can bear… He’s there, still trying to come through. He never gave up in all these years, but it’s been an effort — and now this effort, even the physical effort, is clearly visible in those huge scars, in the bruises, on my battered chest, in the stiffness and pain of my upper-body. 

This boy is going through yet another battlefield and the tears I’m shedding now are for his pain. But my gentle dancing is also for him, to celebrate him and encourage him to come out and live, to let him know that he is welcome and accepted and loved — one of the many possible “shades of man”.

I think this might be the hardest phase… 

Three days ago, on the morning of Thursday, January 26th, I had my gender-affirming top-surgery. And now I’m in this in-between phase: neither having that body I had been used to for years, for decades, nor yet having the partly new body that I’ve been craving for so long. 

I’m somewhere in between, like a hermit crab in between two shells, when the old one has been shed and the new one hasn’t been found, yet: weak and vulnerable, almost naked, and partly in need of hiding. 

Hopefully, this phase won’t last too long. And while it does, I’ll be as gentle as I can to myself, to my body and soul, and let all the loving support around me keep seeping in and embrace me warmly, safely.

Keep that vulnerable little hermit crab warm and safe.

Funny how time stops beating regularly in these phases before some big event, some huge leap of faith — minutes drag on like centuries, hours are gone in seconds. 

One year ago in these exact same days I was preparing for my partly unknown move, my transition, from California to Colorado. 

Now I’m preparing for another partly unknown move, another transition: from my given body with breasts to a new one rid of female breast tissue. 

On January 26th, 2022, I arrived at my chosen destination in Colorado. 

On January 26th, 2023, I will be undergoing surgery to align my body with my gender identity. 

I know it will be months before my “new” body, my chest actually looks like what I’m hoping for — just as it took months before I was able to rebuild a sustainable and somewhat steady life here in Colorado. This is what makes these moves, these decisions, these events, momentous leaps of faith. 

It’s the third time I’ve been through a momentous life change precisely around this time of year. Yesterday, in fact, was my “anniversary of liberation”: the day I got on my flight from Europe to California, liberating myself seven years ago. 

This is “my moment”. Even this “frozen week” before the “big day”. This is always the hardest moment or phase of these huge events in my life: the worst or hardest and most terrifying phase for me is often the one or two weeks before the actual event. It’s this last phase of hectic activity that somehow also feels “frozen”, frozen in space & time, like a still snapshot out of a rolling video. The surface is a frenetic turmoil, a frenzy of last-minute activities and urgent errands, emotions flying on a wild roller-coaster; but something deep seems to be frozen. Doubts and last-minute or deeply-buried fears arise and explode almost uncontrolled and on the surface seem to cast a doubt on the final decision, but the final decision is really made, unmovable deep down inside, set in stone in some unfathomable conviction arising from a visceral sense of inevitability. 

Inevitability because, no matter what the future arising from this momentous decision, from this big event, might bring, the present or current situation has simply come to be unbearable. 

“Change is not necessary unless it is necessary to change”, my beloved maternal grandmother used to say (from her privileged WASP position). 

The need for change might not be apparent or obvious or clear here, and I myself fear it in some ways; yet, it truly is necessary for me in ways and for reasons that I cannot fully explain in words but that I feel deep down in my gut, that I know to be true viscerally. 

So in this last week of frenetic frenzy and frozen time, all I can really do is trust: trust my gut; trust myself, i.e. trust my own feelings and thoughts and decisions that have been unraveling and that I have been processing and evaluating (even with professional support & guidance) for months & years; trust the people around me who care about me and will take care of me.  

And hopefully, once again, this time of year will prove itself to be a wonderful “time of liberation” for me…

Getting on testosterone feels like one of the best decisions of my life. 

As my arms & shoulders squeeze into, stretch out, or simply can no longer fit into my old tops, as my thighs fill my jeans in a different way, as I see my body in the mirror morphing slowly but surely, one of my oldest, most vivid memories from childhood comes back to me. I must have been somewhere between 5-8 years old. My father had one of those home-exercise resistance bands made with springs, also called “chest expander”, to strengthen the upper body, particularly pectoral and bicep muscles, that he kept stowed in one of the lower shelves of one of his closets. I wasn’t allowed to use it, of course, as it was deemed “dangerous” and also “very inappropriate” since I was AFAB (even now if you look for these devices on Amazon, for instance, they’re still aimed at a very “buff” male audience). And my vivid memory is this: of me sneaking to find this device and use it whenever I could, when my parents were out and I was free to do my thing. And I truly loved it — not just the thrill of doing something forbidden but also, and mostly, the fact of doing something explicitly and clearly meant for boys/men! 

But what does one do with a pretty little girl with golden locks and big blue eyes (at least of my generation whose own mother had wanted to do ballet and hadn’t been allowed to by her own mother)? Of course, you take her to a ballet school and put her in a tutu. So for years I did ballet, slowly starting to do other physical activities such as running track, sprinting and playing soccer, as my light and lean body grew to be “just a little too muscular” for the “perfect dainty ballerina” (which was then the unhealthy model of classical ballet dancers). And here pops up another vivid memory: my fellow ballet students continuously amazed by my biceps and even some of my ballet instructors commenting on them (although by that time I had stopped using my father’s device). 

When I finally quit ballet and started swimming at age 15 and proved to have an excellent breast-stroke, my mother forbid me to compete on a swim team as well as to play water-polo seriously (so I only played that on an amateur co-ed side team) because of the risk of my “shoulders becoming too big and unfeminine and unattractive”. 

OMG, if my mother saw me now! 

The point, though, is that what I’m feeling now is not at all a rebellion against, or revenge or victory over, my parents forbidding me to do things as a child/youth. What I’m experiencing is much, much deeper and stronger and more positive than that: I feel that I am really coming into myself, becoming MYSELF: at last becoming my real self, that person that I had always felt & known that I was, since the youngest age. 

In the words from Dorothy’s song What’s Coming to Me, “I got what’s mine comin’ to me”.