A Short Dialogue With My Boobs Before Top Surgery
Tags: Transgender, Nonbinary, Creative Non Fiction, Queer, Gender

A Short Dialogue With My Boobs Before Top Surgery

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

OAK lies semi-peacefully on their dorm room bed. It’s just past 10pm. Staring up at the ceiling, they quietly run their fingers across their chest — a concerted effort to make contact. OAK shifts up and down the center of their sternum, the flat part, before cautiously journeying outward. OAK awkwardly taps on their BOOBS. The BOOBS, tired of the drama, finally pipe up.

BOOBS: What are you…trying to do?

OAK: I’m…appreciating you. Everyone says to find a way to celebrate your chest right before top surgery. Something about saying a proper goodbye.

BOOBS: You hardly ever make direct eye contact with us, and now you’re trying to feel us up…Shouldn’t you take some baby steps first?

OAK: You’re right, but I don’t want to. We’re diving headfirst into the uncomfortableness of this.

OAK continues to play a game of chest-based hopscotch, working up their courage.

OAK: You know that I never had much of an issue with either of you, right?

BOOBS: Bullshit. You call us lumps and burdens. You hate our guts. You’ve made that pretty clear, Oak.

OAK: No, that’s not it. As a pair of boobs, you two are fantastic at face value. You’re perky, small enough to avoid giving me back problems on your own, and you stopped me from getting bullied for being flat-chested in eighth grade. You’re great…just not for me.

BOOBS: Go on.

OAK: Well, I like boobs. On other people, they’re an A plus feature. I’m sure that you two would make another person very happy. You’re only “lumps” and “burdens” in my eyes because of the way society views me when we’re out in public together.

BOOBS: Yeah, you spend all day suffocating us in that godawful binder of yours.

OAK: Incorrect. I’m suffocating with that binder on too. We’re all in that struggle together each day. What I mean is that, when I go outside without binding, everyone (mis)genders me. Breasts are seen as womanly. Therefore, when people see me with you two on display, they assume that I use she/her pronouns — which hurts me.

BOOBS: So, you’re chopping us off because of what society says? Isn’t that giving in to peer pressure?

OAK: You two must’ve gotten that from the internet. I’m getting top surgery because I don’t want to bind anymore. Binding constricts my breathing, hurts my posture, changes which outfits I can wear, occasionally throws my back out if I put it on incorrectly, and I have to build my entire day around it.

BOOBS: Okay, fair enough.

OAK: In all honesty, if I could have my pronouns respected while showing you too off, I would consider keeping you. If I could run around shirtless with you out without it being illegal, I would think about it.

BOOBS: But, that’s not the society we live in.

OAK: Right.

OAK lets their hands rest gently on their chest, making full contact.

BOOBS: Thanks for this, Oak. We’ll miss you.

OAK: I can’t quite say that I will miss you too, but I am thankful for the way my body will have looked before top surgery. Getting this operation permanently alters my presentation, and I do appreciate the way I look in this form. There’s nothing wrong with it.

BOOBS: Yeah, you’re smokin’.

OAK: Alright, that’s enough of that. I’m calling it a night.

Oak rolls onto their side, turns on their soft boi Spotify playlist, and closes their eyes with a small smile spreading across their face.