Imagining Myself Topless After Chest Surgery

I’m sitting here at my desk, shirtless, not because I’m twisted but because it’s hotter’n Hades in here right now.

 

I’ve turned down the heat and am waiting for it to moderate in here…

 

In the meantime, here I sit contemplating how wonderful it will be after my chest masculinizing surgery to be able to sit here not worrying about how fast I can throw a shirt on should the doorbell ring or if my nieces, grand nieces or nephew come wandering in unannounced.

 

I will be able to relax and not have to worry about shocking the sensibilities of other people should I decide to sunbathe in the back yard during the summer without a shirt, towel or sports bra covering my naked chest.

 

I will be able to work outdoors bare-chested without being arrested for lewd conduct.

 

I will be able to burn my bras and never have to worry again about developing heat rashes or fungal infections beneath my breasts.

 

I don’t think men realize how freaking lucky they are to be able to disrobe on top without having the wrath of an offended nation drop on them like a Mack truck on a ripe plum.

 

I do.

 

Until I was eight or eight and a half, I was one of those lucky shirtless kids on every block. Sure, I ended up with some doozy sunburns as a result (I remember those, too–ouch!!!), but what I remember most about those days was how free I felt to be who I truly was and still am: a shirtless dude!

 

The breeze that fluttered around me was a moderating influence, no matter how hot or sweaty I became.  I felt at one with nature, and I wasn’t ashamed.

 

When I started developing breasts, Mom told me it was time to start wearing shirts and a training bra. I was appalled. Suddenly my freedom seemed to be at stake.

 

Why should I have to wear a shirt and bra when none of my other friends had to?

 

Suddenly, a part of my anatomy had to be concealed–concealed and boosted, apparently, to lift and separate.

 

Why? So guys could imagine what they could no longer see?

 

It was all so freaking stupid, it seemed to me.  Why had the sight of my upper body suddenly become so outrageous, or titillating, or whatever the hell it was that Mom scrambled to train me to become more modest?

 

I started hating what was happening to me. I was being transformed completely against my will into an object (an apparently objectionable object, to boot, in some way) rather than the person I knew myself to be: just one of the guys.

 

I don’t know if the same thing happens to cisgender girls as their secondary sex characteristics begin to develop. I don’t know if it’s experienced as a good thing or a bad thing, but it was definitely a bad thing to me.

 

I became depressed. I started packing on pounds and slouching to hide my upper body as much as I could. I wished I could cut them off or “castrate” them with rubber bands the way I’d seen bull calves neutered (but that looked excruciatingly painful to me, and I have no doubt it probably is).

 

No kid should be made to feel so unstrung by what’s happening to their bodies that they consider self-mutilation to retain the gender they know themselves to be…

 

Anyway… I’m sitting here this afternoon looking forward to getting my “guy chest” back for the first time in sixty years. I can’t imagine anything more satisfying than that right now.