#top surgery reference

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Hey, I am not very familiar with what non-binary means exactly. Could you maybe explain why Laken wants their binder to stay on?

CW: DISCUSSION OF GENDER DYSPHORIA and binding from nb person, reference to top surgery towards the end

Hey, so, essentially non-binary just means that someone’s gender doesn’t match up with the male/female dichotomy.

I’ve written an answer to this a couple of different ways but it just came out sounding like a health class textbook, and Laken would really prefer to explain this to you themself, thank you very much.

Take it away, Laken.

“I wear the binder basically nonstop. I take it off to sleep - just for health reasons - but if I didn’t need to do that? I wouldn’t take it off then, either. I don’t mind most of me, I think I’m pretty fucking hot, actually, but those... don’t feel like they’re me, you know? They just hang there. You want to kill the mood when you’re with me? Step one: take off that binder or suggest I take it off. There, you’ve done it, there is no Step Two.

It doesn’t even... it never felt like they were even mine. Not even when I was eleven and boys were fuckin’ snapping my bra straps because nobody else in my class had to wear one yet. It was like someone left them there, like my body is some lady’s lost and found bin, not mine. It was fucking hell until I figured out wearing a couple different tank tops at once could kind of press ‘em down, and now I have the binders and I just... it’s so much better. 

With the binder on, I feel like I’m me again, just... just me. And that’s an amazing feeling to have when I had to fight my ass off to get it in the first place, had to fight mi mamá and papá and every-fucking-one-else. And look, I don’t regret the fight, I’d do it all over again if I had to, but I’ve got these binders, now, and they’re fucking lifesavers.

It kind of aches sometimes if I’m not super careful but you know what? I’ll take the ache any day if it means having a body that’s my own. I’ll take any fucking thing you got to throw at me if it means my body gets to belong to me. I’ll do anything for that. I’ve done anything for that. Tank tops, sports bras, tape... oh the tape was a bad idea... you name it, I’ve done it. But the binders are what works.

I thought it’d be hard to explain that to Chris, you know, the first time he asked? And I felt comfortable enough to tell him? But as soon as I said that - the thing about how, you know, it’s how to make my body feel like it’s mine, not someone else’s body and my brain just got dropped in this fucking flesh case by mistake - it was like I could see the light bulb turn on inside his head. 

It was like... all at once, he just... got it. 

I’ve been with other people - where I was the first enby they’d been interested in - and they looked at me like I was some, like, exotic fucking bird. That was shit and I stopped seeing them real fast, trust me. But Chris looks at me and he’s not trying not to see the binder, he sees it just fine, he just... likes all of me, binder included. 

So yeah. One day I’m gonna lose these things, I’ve got a bank account I’m working on dollar by dollar, and I’m not gonna have to wear one any longer. But until then, it stays on.

Uh, sorry, kind of turned into a ramble about my boyfriend at the end, here. Hope that’s okay.”

[ftmcanadians]

Hey besides the mclean clinic, and the montreal one do you know of any good canadian top surgeons. I'm willing to travel within canada for it to speed up some wait times for me.

Here is a breakdown of listed top surgeons in Canada as of October 2017.

Alberta

Dr. William De Haas, MDRiverview Surgical Centre 3125 Bowwood Dr. NW Calgary, AB

Dr. Martin Giuffre, MD, FRCSC Plastic and Cosmetic Laser Surgical Centre at Meadowlark 178 Meadowlark CentreEdmonton, AB

Dr. Lisa Korus, MD #227 9148 23 Ave. NW Edmonton, AB

Dr. Rodrigo Neira, MD5201 43 St. Red Deer, AB

Dr. Kirsten Westburg, MD4419 50 Ave., #101A Red Deer, AB

British Columbia

Dr. Cameron Bowman, MD Fairview Plastic Surgery Centre999 West Broadway, #480 Vancouver, BCMSP-covered.

Dr. Lorne Brown, MD #830-6091 Gilbert Rd. Richmond, BC(Keyhole)

Dr. Michael Jacoby, MD 105-1315 Summit Dr. Kamloops, BC

Dr. Jason Gray, MDDr. Jennifer Robinson, MDDr. Christopher Taylor, MDVictoria Surgery 1625 Oak Bay Ave. Victoria, BCMSP-covered.

Manitoba

Dr. Kenneth Murray, MD, FRCSC, FACSPlastic Surgery Associates444 Saint Mary Avenue, Suite 240Winnipeg, MB

Dr. Stephanie Olivier, MD Health Sciences Centre 820 Sherbrook St.Winnipeg, MB

Dr. Robert Turner, MD, FRCSC Aesthetic Solutions Winnipeg Unit 10, 1250 Waverley St. Winnipeg, MB

Nova Scotia

Dr. Louis Boileau, MD The Landings Surgical Centre 1477 Lower Water St., Ste 7A Halifax, NS

Ontario

Dr. Ali Adbifar MD, DDS, FRCS©, FRCD©195 Avenue Rd.Toronto, ON

Dr. Mitch Brown, MD & Dr. John Semple, MDWomen’s College HospitalToronto, ONTakes OHIP.

Dr. Marc DuPere, MD, CM, FRCSC Visage ClinicFashion District, 179 John Street, #209Toronto, ON

Dr. Mario Jarmuske, MD FRCSCThe Ottawa Hospital501 Smyth Road, Module S, Room S6Ottawa, ON(Admin note: Pretty sure takes OHIP)

Dr. Hugh McLean, MDDr. Giancarlo McEvenue, MD FRCSCMcLean Clinic 50 Burnhamthorpe Rd. West, #343 Mississauga, ON Uses informed consent, takes OHIP.

Dr. Marietta Zorn, MD FRCSCRouge Valley Health System, Centenary Site2863 Ellesmere Rd.Scarborough, Ontario M1E 5E9Takes OHIP.

Quebec

Dr. Pierre Brassard, MD, FRCS-CDr. Maud Belanger, MD, FRCS-C Dr. Eric Bensimon, MD, FRCS GRS Montreal995 De Salaberry Montreal, QCTakes OHIP.

I can only speak of my experience with Dr. McLean but maybe folks have experience with surgeons on this list. 

- Teagan

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Also boxboysandotherwhump again with a cute idea for you maybe^^ I think it would really be super cute to have Chris take care of laken post op and be all happy with them but also a bit worried as he waits for them to wake up from the anesthetics? Just happy doting Chris and laken shuffling through the hospital floors only in sweatpants please (that's what I and the other trans people did when we were in the hospital. No one wore shirts on that ward 😂)

Chris struggles heavily with hospitals - too much white, the lights are too flat and not warm, they tend to be cold, it all pricks at his worst memories and drags them to the surface. But he would make an exception for this and show up with like a giant bag of all of Laken’s favorite foods and some flowers and stuff because he panicked and Jake had given him some money so he just bought everything he thought Laken might like and then got an extra blanket too because it’s cold in white rooms and you should have more blankets right? Right?? Is anyone else freezing? Chris is freezing. Can he please sit where he can see the light switch, please, can he just - can he just turn the lights off and on again like three times just to know he can please-

and Laken is just like, make it a light switch rave, baby, I don’t care

[wolverineheight]

okay vis a vis my 'people should be looking at references for top surgery scars and including nipple scars' here are your references. first is seven weeks post op, then 1 year, two years, and just nipples at three years. specifically look at my nipples here; you can see the indents around them where the stitching was. while this is pretty much gone at the year mark, there are still areas where the stitches were on the areola where the scarring is thicker, and overall the whole nipple is surrounded by lighter scarring.

Obviously this is not what everybody looks like. everyone heals differently. but it's worth looking at what people DO heal like when you're drawing things in order to get a good grasp on what they look like before stylising

[s-quashed]

"Science Lesson Intermission

As an evolutionary psychologist, this sudden shock I experienced makes a lot of sense. The body always experiences slow and gradual changes, too small to notice in the present moment, and only with a retrospective mind does one realize the changes that have actually taken place over the long run. Thus our brain is used to processing bodily changes only at this crawlingly slow pace. Except in extreme cases, of course, such as accidents. Accidents are bad, therefore our brains should be shocked in the case of something that looks like an accident. They need to trigger the stress response, the fight or flight response. Increased alertness, which morphs to anxiety and nervousness, is the result. [Note, these are merely my deductions, not actual scientific research.]

Not Regret

I don’t regret it. I can’t regret it. When you do something wrong, you go through all the what-if’s. Scrolling down this list, we concluded it was impossible for me to have NOT made this decision.

If I had waited more, a few months, even two, five years, the itch would have still been there, top surgery would have remained on my mind. You can’t unknow something you already know, and this was one of those things. The minute I learned this was a very real possibility, I clasped on to this idea.

If I had researched more, I probably would not have come across counts of post surgical depression. I’m already actively researching this with almost no luck. In all the forums, list serves, conferences, blogs, etc, I never once read how people sometimes feel so crappy after their surgery. Or maybe I read it, glossed over it, made nothing of it, since nobody seemed to make a big deal out of it.

If I had been in therapy or counseling, I would have still wanted top surgery. Had the therapist tried to talk me out of it, I would’ve been resistant, doubly stubborn and doubly resolved. Had the therapist not tried to talk me out of it, I’d be, well… here.

If this was just “an idea I bought into,” like a cool fad or trend (as my mother has expressed), then why should I “buy into the opposite idea” or fad or trend (like my father has expressed)?If this was for the worst, then what could have been for the better?

 Nothing has come to mind yet."

(source)

[s-quashed]