Should We Call Them Top Surgery “Scars?”
Tags: Queer, Identity, Creative Non Fiction, LGBTQ, Gender

I had FTN (female to nonbinary) top surgery two months ago. Time flies when you’re in the middle of a worsening pandemic, recovering from a moderately-to-severely traumatizing election season, wondering what (if anything) American elected officials plan to do about systemic shittyness, and trying to navigate your sophomore year of college on Zoom, right?

As I’ve talked to friends and the Internet about my journey to the big teetus deletus, I’ve begun to feel a bit ashamed of the wording I’ve used to discuss my surgery. I’ve talked about my:

top surgery scars (introducing my new chest lines, Caspian and Eustace — just kidding),

recovery period following the operation (a wild and humbling ride),

whether or not I’m experiencing any regret (I’m not),

and how my nipples went from pepperonis to Neapolitan ice cream. (It’s a funny thing about being mixed race.)

I’m beginning to question the language we’ve set aside for top surgery as it relates to AFABs. I’m jazzed, relieved, comforted, and energized by my top surgery results, yet I’ve grown accustomed to referring to my surgery as if I’ve returned from an active warzone. (Arguably, gender dysphoria is an active warzone, but that’s beside the point.)

The author, seven days pre-op.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m honest without exaggeration when it comes to talking about the struggles of my recovery. To quote Daniel Levy, it “wasn’t the end of the world, but it was also not nothing.” I had trouble comfortably using the bathroom for the first week, couldn’t reach above my head for the first month, couldn’t sleep soundly for the first two weeks (until I finally decided to sleep on my side while holding my chest in place with my hands), couldn’t keep my post-op compression binder on because there was nothing there to hold it up, got tired after standing for more than five minutes for the first month, and generally hated the feeling of not being able to operate at full capacity.

I want to convey the struggles that one can expect when preparing for top surgery, but, now that my recovery is 98% over, I want to focus on celebrating this massive step forward in my journey toward unveiling and loving my most authentic self.

Calling my top surgery lines my “scars” feels like a slap in the face to several people and things: my top surgeon, the boobs that lived there before, and the pecs that are working their way to visibility now. My results are astounding. I have healed well, and I’m confident enough to walk around with my new chest lines on full display, whether that happens in mesh crop tops or in lowcut muscle tees.

I am proud of my results, and I am going to call them that (or my “new chest lines”) instead of calling them my “scars.” The synonyms for scar are blemish, disfigurement, discoloration, defacement, wound, and injury to name a few, and those words just don’t ring true for me and my new chest.

I am going to take steps to honor the chest that has been hand-crafted for my most loving and lovable self.

The author, three weeks post-op.

Changing a heavily used transition word such as “scar” may have other benefits that extend further than my own chest (bad joke intended). Trans-exclusionary individuals are quick to point to gender-affirming surgeries and label them “maiming,” “mutilating,” and/or “disfiguring.” (I’m not linking articles proving these points because we don’t need to bring that energy into a safe space.)

I’m not sure if we are helping our case by using a word that also holds these connotations. Granted, this shouldn’t be an issue that trans and gender non-conforming folks are required to lift a finger to help with, but I can see this linguistic shift making a tiny drop in the inclusion bucket.

Just to be clear, I am by no means declaring that all trans and gender non-conforming individuals who are (or have been) involved in the top surgery process need to make this change. I just like thinking about things that potentially nobody else cares about. I’m a philosophy major for a reason. (They say, only semi-joking.) I just know that I will feel better if I don’t use a word with negative connotations to describe a deeply positive aspect of my body, and that may just be a me-thing, which is cool too.

Oak

December 2020