October 16, 2024

When I was fifteen, I remember spotting blood on my underwear for the first time. I sprinted down the stairs, two steps at a time, breathless with excitement, and told my mom, “I just got my first period!” My heart raced, my face flushed. “This,” I said between gasps, “finally means I’ll have a chest!” I flashed a cheeky grin, my blue braces glinting as my mom laughed softly. I was a teenager full of hope—a flower’s petals unfurling.

A couple of years earlier, in middle school, my cousin pointed at my chest and laughed at how flat it was. We were sitting cross-legged on dining room chairs in her house, our backpacks still clinging to our backs. Behind my black-rimmed glasses, I felt heat rising to my cheeks, tears welling at the corners of my eyes; my fists clenched tight at my sides and my chest tightened. I still remember the twist of her mouth, the high-pitched squeal of her laughter—how those words spun like taut threads through the years, lingering long after that moment. It was the first time I felt shame for the body I had.

That night, I stood naked in front of my full-length mirror, using my thumb and index finger to pinch at the parts of my chest I wished were fuller. In my room with the blue-green walls, the ceiling light flickered faintly, casting a glow onto the dust settled on the mirror. The tightness in my throat grew as I twisted and turned, picking at parts of myself that felt like little more than bones. I was trapped in the same lanky body of a grade schooler, staring at my reflection like an open wound. At just twelve years old, I learned the weight of body shame.

My chest never grew past an A-cup, and for years, I wore my body like an apology, folding myself like cardboard into clothes I thought would fix what was missing. I remember the chapters of asking my mom for push-up bras and tight-fitting shirts; the jeers of teenage boys on school buses who didn’t know better; a fifteen-year-old me, swallowing the hunger for a body that felt like belonging.

At eighteen, I moved to a new city for college, and the world opened up for me like a second spring, where my body could bloom again—sculpting new colors from dust. In my freshman year, I stepped fully into my queer identity, finding solace in the mouth of androgyny. I chopped off my long black hair, replaced it with a tousled pixie cut, and swapped tight-fitting blouses for boxy button-ups. Where my hair had once been long, flowy, and silky, I ruffled and parted the short strands with pomade. I wore the same four Hanes sports bras until the seams fell apart, tucking my chest away beneath thick layers of cotton.

In the pitch black of a new city that invited change—where no lights or sirens pointed to how to be—the roads back to my sense of self lit up. In Austin, I found comfort in the size of my chest at eighteen. It felt like stepping from a lion’s cage into a field of swaying lilacs. Maybe bravery can feel a lot like fear.

When I first told my partner I wanted top surgery, she met me with tenderness, reminding me that my body deserved to feel like a place where the trees always bear green. A few weeks ago, in the exam room, she gently squeezed my hand as we waited for the breast surgeon to come in and discuss my double mastectomy. The sterile lights illuminated the pale brown walls, decorated with generic paintings and a silly fairy toy hanging from the ceiling. We sat side by side on two black plastic chairs, the clock ticking softly behind us, my sneakers tapping anxiously against the white-tiled floor. “I love you and your body,” she said to me.

At twelve years old, I never could have imagined the sun shining the way it does now.

Some days, my relationship with my body still feels like swallowing glass; other days, shame no longer fills my tumbler to the brim. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that this will always be the body I come home to—unchanged in its script, yet shaped by my choices; shame can have a seat at the table, too.

Now, at twenty-eight, I stand in front of the mirror again, the overhead light casting a soft glow on my bare skin. I cup both of my breasts in the palms of my hands, pulling it upwards and imagining a flat plane where my chest will rise and fall after top surgery. I trace the lines of my sternum, feeling the bones beneath my fingertips. I place my index and middle fingers over my nipple, picturing how my chest will look without them. This time, when I look at my chest, I see a shape that is mine to define.

This time, I see freedom.

This time, I am choosing myself.