A webzine for shifting times

In just a few months in the approaching London winter, I will be lying on a surgeon’s steel table, wrapped in a disposable gown and wheeled into the surgery theatre.  In moments, or, three and a half hours to be precise, my body will emerge in a way I have always dreamed of. Once healed, I will run my hands smoothly down my chest. Button ups will sit flat.  I will sit up straight without hunching. I will be flat chested. Flat as I haven’t known since before puberty!

I am twenty-six years old.  Ten years ago, when I was sixteen, I had  breast reduction surgery. Up until puberty, my gender was wild and free.  I could express myself as a so-called “tomboy”. My slim hips and flat chest  accommodated my androgynous expression.  It wasn’t until puberty, when curves began to appear, and something began growing out of my chest, that gender binary issue became a consuming state.  Who am I?

I was one of the first in my grade to begin developing breasts.  I tried to hide them with large t-shirts, hockey jerseys, and to hide my hips with sweatpants. I despised going shopping.  Feeling trapped when I felt the only option now that I am a “girl” is to shop in the “girls” section. Pink. Dresses. Tight tights.  Whimsical patterns. No, not for me.

Well, what about the boys section?  But, with my already internalized transphobia, I felt as though the ceiling might collapse on me if I were to venture into the boy’s section.  And we are only talking about clothes here! At that age, in my early teens, I knew something was deeply troubling me. But I didn’t know where it was coming from, or what it was about.  I just thought this is just the way I am, and I should do my best to fit into the boxes society wanted to push me into.

At fifteen, I had a consult with the surgeon, who would perform my breast reduction surgery.  I distinctly remember asking “can you please make them as small as possible?”. I think what I really meant was, “can you please just take them away entirely?  I don’t fit in this body. I am a genderqueer non-binary trans person!”. But I didn’t have this language or self-knowledge yet. I didn’t even know you could be outside the gender binary.  That knowledge didn’t come until my early twenties.

Fast forward  to the first year of my university life.  I came out as queer and felt an enormous sense of freedom to feel open about my sexuality.  I cut my hair, changed my wardrobe, and finally felt I could wear “boys” clothes and present as masculine-androgynous.  However, that backfired a few years later, when I l felt that being a part of the ‘girls who love girls’ crowd also didn’t feel quite right. I tried a more feminine phase (for the first time ever!), with dresses, even long hair.  No, that wasn’t right for me. Definitely not. What is going on?! Why do I feel so deeply out of place?

After meeting more and more gender-non conforming people and finding  friends in the trans community, a little voice inside (my subconscious) kept saying -- “Yes, Kendall! This is you too! Will you let me show you more? Say yes;  it will eventually be okay, actually more than okay! It will seem terrifying at first, but saying yes to opening the pandora’s box of gender identity will be one of your greatest teachers in this life. Take your time, but I hope one day you will say yes to me.”

After two years of this little voice piping up, I finally did said “yes!” after a rough summer of many breakdowns and a heightened state of constant anxiety.  I ordered my first chest binder from GC2B, I put it on, and was delighted to see my chest was as flat as ever.. Who cares that it was uncomfortably tight and made it harder to breathe; my chest was finally FLAT!  What a liberating feeling. At the same time, I decided to try they/them/theirs pronouns with close friends. It took getting used to, but now it feels like a I am truly seen for who I am when I hear it being used.

Now, many ups and downs and decisions later, I am on my way to top surgery, A.k.a., a double mastectomy with nipple grafts.  This surgery removes your breasts and nipples, reconstructs your chest according to pectoral muscles and upper ribs, reattaches the nipples, thus creating a more masculine chest.  

The day I emerge out of surgery will be a new beginning.  I will be proud of the scars across my chest. I will contribute more trans visibility to this world, and hope to make it a safer place for more trans and gender non-conforming people to come out and express themselves fully.   

Every non-binary, trans, genderqueer person has a different journey.  This is where I am now. Gender exists on a spectrum (or off of the spectrum entirely if you’re agender). I fall somewhere on that spectrum in the transmasculine non-binary area.  Transition is not a linear journey. It’s okay not to know all the answers. You don’t need to have any surgeries or go on hormones to be trans. Some do, some don’t. Some trans people are binary, some are non-binary.  Some are queer, some aren’t. It’s okay to question, to be confused. It’s all part of the journey to becoming. This is a vignette of my queer, non-binary, creative self today.