healthy body, healthy mind

What I want, more than anything, is top surgery. The lack of a deeper voice, of a full beard, I can live with, at least for now. But top surgery – an operation to remove my breasts – calls to me above everything else. During my diagnosis, the doctor questioned me in depth about this urge. I suppose it’s not normal (my therapist hates that word) to feel like this.

“Do you know about the drawbacks of surgery?” she asks.

“Pain. Healing time, of course.”

“Yes. And you understand that if you have children, you won’t be able to breastfeed,’ she says. I resist the urge to give a sarcastic answer and instead politely confirm that I understand that a lack of breasts would be a hindrance to breastfeeding. 

“What will it be like after surgery?” 

“Well, a greater sense of freedom. Feeling like myself,” I say.

“No no,” she interrupts. “Be more specific. What will you do after surgery that you couldn’t before?” 

“Not stress about clothes. Walk about the city centre with my top off, tinnie in hand, when it hits 20 degrees. Go for a run. Swim.” This mention of sports was the golden moment, the answer that matched the checkbox on her list. We spent some time exploring how having my tits cut off would make me sportier. The truth is I’m not too into sport but it would be nice to dispose of the sports bra and no longer suffer a bouncing chest when running. I got catcalled about this once: careful love, you’ll knock yourself out. 

We made a sharp pivot then, into a series of tasks that she didn’t explain, but which I assumed were to test my mental faculties. 

“What are these animals?” she asked, holding a sheet of paper up the screen.

“Elephant. Rhinoceros. Camel.” 

“Very good,” she said. I felt proud of myself, but then worried that she’d ask me again, this time with a trickier list. Capybara. Echidna. Axlotl. Denied my diagnosis because I couldn’t identify a Cassowary, imagine that. Then a series of random words, which I had to repeat back to her. I remember my grandma took a similar test when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She did ok, until asked to spell ‘world’ backwards. My words were: Face. Velvet. Church. Daisy. Red. The blend of colour, texture and religion reminded me of the tapestries I’d seen in the Burrell Collection the day before. People frozen in time, and remembered in thread forever. The words are still stitched in my memory now, as if the doctor might ring me up at any moment and ask for them again. As if I might have to prove I’m trans again.

I talked with my therapist, as I often do, about the capitalism of it all. Is this the narrative I need to create? That being trans will make me healthier, overall – healthy body, healthy mind? A better, more productive member of society? How giving me access to healthcare was less about me, my needs, and my sense of self, and more about how I could better function as a cog in a wheel. This one’s defective, cut their tits off and get them back into the factory so that they can produce, consume. I don’t want to race, I don’t want to compete, to sweat, to struggle, to strive. I simply want to sit in the shade of a tree, my body and mind as one. I want to notice the golden sweep of daffodils in Spring, dandelion clocks scattered by the wind, a dog chasing a squirrel, chattering magpies. I want to stroll, feel the grass beneath my bare feet. I’ll be more like myself with every step; a body that’s no longer a battlefield, a brain that no longer braces for impact. I want to be soft, and slow, and me.

Read the rest of the story so far: Read the rest of the story: part 1, part 2, part 3