![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
top surgery process
Mar. 25th, 2025 10:07 amif you follow me on bluesky or if you follow my wife beanside, this won't come as a surprise, but I've decided that I want top surgery. I've wanted at least breast reduction for the last several years, but with taking care of Dad full-time there was no way I could have taken weeks off from physically lifting him and generally taking care of him. but as T and I were talking about the fact that I could finally get surgery, I slowly realized that I was torn between simple breast reduction and the thing I really wanted. every time I saw someone I know online go through the top surgery process, I was SO HAPPY for them, but there was a quiet little kernel of jealousy and wistful sadness underneath it. but of course I couldn't do that; Dad was alive, and I'm nonbinary rather than a binary trans male so I can live without it, and we can't afford it because our insurance won't cover it, and BMI / mental health limits, and I'm too old, and the political situation in this country is a goddamn mess and I'm too much of a coward to deal with that, and and and...
anyway. as I tried to decide between a compromise and the thing I really wanted, T looked into our new insurance under Hopkins, and they cover gender affirming surgeries. there's no BMI limits. Hopkins itself has a transgender care center that's really good. so many of the things I was afraid of weren't factors. there's still the political bullshit, but being trans is probably never going to be EASY in the span of my lifetime; do I want to live with dysphoria for the rest of my life, wincing every time I see pictures or my reflection, hating the fact that I live in this body? and I realized that if I'm going to do surgery, I want it to be on my terms.
so I've started the process by making an appt with a gender therapist to get a letter confirming that I have gender dysphoria, understand the risks of the procedure, and am capable of consenting. I filled out a lot (A LOT) of paperwork yesterday, from mental health screenings to questions about what I know re: the procedure and its complications to more questions about my experience of gender dysphoria. I almost never talk about that last thing, because I was raised not to complain about stuff, so it was very weird to articulate. now I have to wait until the 22nd for the actual appt, agonizing over whether this guy is going to think I'm trans enough or if I'm too mentally ill or whatever. this is his full-time job and he said on his site that he tries not to gatekeep and only worries about whether you're in an active psychotic or manic state, but still, I'm stressing over it. now that I'm letting myself think about how much I want it, it'd hurt like hell to have it taken away.
so yeah. tl;dr, I'm hopefully going to yeet my mammary glands at some point in the future. I might ramble about this process here, I might not, but it's a thing that's happening.
anyway. as I tried to decide between a compromise and the thing I really wanted, T looked into our new insurance under Hopkins, and they cover gender affirming surgeries. there's no BMI limits. Hopkins itself has a transgender care center that's really good. so many of the things I was afraid of weren't factors. there's still the political bullshit, but being trans is probably never going to be EASY in the span of my lifetime; do I want to live with dysphoria for the rest of my life, wincing every time I see pictures or my reflection, hating the fact that I live in this body? and I realized that if I'm going to do surgery, I want it to be on my terms.
so I've started the process by making an appt with a gender therapist to get a letter confirming that I have gender dysphoria, understand the risks of the procedure, and am capable of consenting. I filled out a lot (A LOT) of paperwork yesterday, from mental health screenings to questions about what I know re: the procedure and its complications to more questions about my experience of gender dysphoria. I almost never talk about that last thing, because I was raised not to complain about stuff, so it was very weird to articulate. now I have to wait until the 22nd for the actual appt, agonizing over whether this guy is going to think I'm trans enough or if I'm too mentally ill or whatever. this is his full-time job and he said on his site that he tries not to gatekeep and only worries about whether you're in an active psychotic or manic state, but still, I'm stressing over it. now that I'm letting myself think about how much I want it, it'd hurt like hell to have it taken away.
so yeah. tl;dr, I'm hopefully going to yeet my mammary glands at some point in the future. I might ramble about this process here, I might not, but it's a thing that's happening.