My Hot Trans Summer: a year of transition
From rough and crispy
What I didn’t know three days after undergoing life changing surgery to remove my breasts was how sweaty I was going to be. It felt like my glands were in hypermode. I was sweating, and itchy and felt like the end of recovery was eons away.
I was sore and bruised, yellow and purple mottling my skin. I remember celebrating when the whole collage on my chest finally turned green and then faded to yellow, eventually disappearing. I was the definition of rough and crispy around the edges, literally.
A week later, my drains were removed from my side, I could finally start imagining being independent. Until that day, I’d been having to undergo the grueling process of having my drains stripped, the uncomfortable tubing tugging at my side, making my stomach lurch with nausea.
I can still bring up the feeling when I rub my thumb across the nub of a scar that exists on my side along my rib cage. I was the most terrified of the drains, and when that step of my recovery was over I celebrated with ice cream and good pain drugs.
To hot and sweaty
Summer was at once the worst time and the best time to be recovering from top surgery. I didn’t have to worry about shoveling snow or driving in inclimate weather. I was also sweating, and itchy and had no clothes to wear that felt good on my new body. I hid in my dysphoria sweaters for quite a few months, trying to find balance in the new freedom I had the subsequent drop in euphoria I had been warned to expect.
My own queer version of summer camp blues, when I returned to work and still wasn’t able to pick up my cat or drive long distances. I was still dealing with dry and stretched out skin and worrying over swelling that wouldn’t go down and redness that I would anxiously take photos of to message to my doctor over text.
Recovery was work and then work was work
I wouldn’t, not right away, realize the weight I had released when I went under in that OR, just four days before my birthday. Recovery became my new project, and fully consumed me as I worked on healing my body and knitting myself back together.
Then I had to go back to work, and start scar care, and top surgery was just another thing I had to do and take care of my body. It wasn’t for a few months, when I finally stopped feeling like I was making up for lost time, that I realized how relieved I felt. How easy it was to get dressed in the morning, and wear the clothes that I wanted to. It was a slow realization that almost seemed to fog up my vision before I’d notice and wipe it away.
I needed everything about this summer
That was how most of my winter felt, until this summer came. Now fully recovered, my energy back and my body whole, this has been a hot trans summer for the books. I have finally enjoyed my skimpy tank tops and swimming, SWIMMING, for the first time in a decade! I stood in the water in my super gay swimsuit and got sunburned and sipped seltzers on the beach and talked loudly about my favorite NSFW podcast while someone got baptized a few feet away.
That’s fucking heaven to me. I wore a swimsuit and didn’t mind when the little nubs of my bilateral scars poked out or show through my thin tops or v-neck shirts. These little nubs of skin lead to thin and soft lines that go under my arms. I used to be self conscious of the ripple they would make in my shirts, but that hyperawareness faded with time, much like they did.
Dysphoria is a monster that never sleeps
Top surgery granted me a freedom to be at home in my body, a final piece in the puzzle I was working to solve between gender and identity. I was committed, and sure. It brought out a whole new wave of confidence that I had yet to experience since coming out as transgender years ago. I was always calculating,
“Can I still breathe?”
“How long until I need to take a break from this binder?”
“Did I already come out to this person?”
“Where can I get changed?”
“Do I want to be without a binder here or should I just stick it out?”
Those questions, all normal, albeit it draining became memories of the past when my lovely surgeon granted me freedom from five pounds of breasts I never wanted nor would ever have a need for.
I was never uncertain, my only fears being that my chest would grow back, or my scars would look stupid. Boobs can’t grow back, and tattoos hide scars beautifully, and that solved those concerns pretty quickly. I unlocked a new part of my brain with a combination of surgery and anxiety medication that allowed me to BE in my body and enjoy myself fully.
Everything feels so good now
It feels so good to come home and strip off my shirt now and snuggle my old cats while I wait for my food to warm up in the microwave. I can sleep naked and not feel overwhelmed when the cool sheets slide across my scars. I don’t cringe when sweat slides down my ribs, and my scars don’t itch anymore. The phantom pains from my nerves reconnecting are few and far between, and I have full sensation again.
I got my first ever massage because of top surgery, and felt years of tension release from my shoulders. I had kept hunched to hide and be small. Now I sit on the floor of my living room and I paint with the windows open, shirtless. I can soak in the bath for hours scrolling on reddit and drinking seltzer by candlelight and not feel dysphoric whenever I catch sight of myself under the water.
This has been the best summer because I have had the most time to enjoy my body and the work I’ve done to be at home with myself.
