Gender Identity?

Plantlover:  i had the same thought about going topless on the beach last summer.  I mean, what the hell, I have a Ken doll chest.  Why should men get to go topless when I have even less than they do?  So here's a thought:  maybe we gals who had bmx and no reconstruction should get together on a beach somewhere next summer and go in topless.  show how beautiful and confident we are without our breasts.

For all my ability to happily embrace the new body with no breasts, I know that loss of hair would not have gone so easily.  I would have had to chant my little mantra of "Cry a river of tears, build a bridge and get over it".  Even then I know there would have been days that it would be necessary to rid the house of sharp objects.  I didn't face that monster, at least not this go round - hopefully not ever.  I have often proved to myself that I am stronger than I ever would have imagined so in spite of the inevitable meltdowns, I would expect to scratch my way up again.

What did make me crazy were those damn dog ears in the center of my chest - unaffectionately called The Mutants.  Why those things got to my psyche in such a big way I cannot explain.  Stupid and utterly trivial I know but when I looked in the mirror it felt as if that part of my chest did not even look human, totally alien and no part of me.  No human being and not even any animal I could think of had anything remotely like them in the center of their chest.  I felt it looked like I had horns or a parasitic twin growing out of my chest.  Of all the things to cry over on this journey, it was those.  Goes back to what I have said often, things that are missing are not nearly as disturbing as things that shouldn't be there.  An eye sewn shut is far less disturbing than an eye in your chin.  It was never the scars I felt the need to hide, it was The Mutants.  

Even myself looking at these words now, I have to think good gosh girl surely you are kidding or certifiable but it really did bother me that much.  When the OCD gene kicks in and the tape starts looping in my brain, it is hard to stop.  Forced myself to wait the year the BS said would be optimal before taking on any more surgery, and tried really hard to push it out of mind forever but never could. I finally caved and had them removed. Best decision ever. Now that they are gone, I simply have a chest with scars.  Granted more the chest of a teenage boy than anything feminine but at least human and for all its imperfections or wear and tear, totally mine.

You know the odd thing at least for me is that as much as I obsessed about them on my own chest, I would never and have not viewed them the same on someone else's. But then mine were bigger, different, worse... yada yada yada.  I guess that just speaks to how self-critical we are in a way no one else would ever be.  You may now call the guys in the white coats.

I was raised in a family where "the kids" were expected to do and to help with whatever needed to be done.  Gender never played a role.  Raising competent self-reliant kids did.  Explains why my brother can cook and run the sewing machine and I can change a tire in record time.  Never made my brother less masculine or me less feminine.  Does mean I see myself a little bit like Ellie Mae from Beverly Hillbillies.  Utterly feminine even when climbing a tree.

Barbara 

Love this topic. I go flat and sometimes think of myself as a bit transgender-y. I actually feel more like myself this way than I did with boobs. I like that my chest is boyish or girlish or tomboyish. Sometimes I feel like the bmx put me back in touch with my child self in a way. But I also still feel like a woman. If I ever go for reconsrtruction it will have to be VERY small, just a little padding to fill in the boniness I think. I've been researching micro fat grafting.

I grew up with a very small breasted mother and alway thought she was beautiful and was surprised to be a large B (and then when I was breastfeeding-D+!). My mom has since had augmentation and she loves it, feels more like herself I think she would say. So funny...

Got the rents in town!  A shout out to my friend AA:  indeed, my chemopause at 39 was and is devastating.  It is emotionally bizarre, to say the least, to be out of step with my peer group. I have chosen to embrace the freedom it allows me.  For instance, this summer while some of my female compatriots didn't want to swim or go on long walks up mountains because they were menstruating, I enjoyed not having to think about it.

I work in academe, and they call it the ivory tower for a reason.  It is refreshing and wonderful to be away from the gender normative BS.  I am free, and my colleagues shower me with compliments and support.  Now, if I had to be around my totally conservative bro more than 1x a year, I'd probably feel very differently.  So much of this is our social setting!

For those of you interested in this topic, do check out the wonderful Peggy Orenstein in NYTimes.  She just did a great article about gender and toys.  As she so beautifully puts, it's not so much "nature" vs. "nurture", rather, how "nurture" becomes "nature"--children are malleable. 

Most people purposely don't look at my chest when I say breast cancer...Except, I had one wonderful wonderful experience with this at physical therapy.  There was a very handsome man...He was rehabbing from a back injury.  After chatting for a while, he asked if I'd had shoulder surgery (I was flat on one side, wearing a relatively tight t-shirt, and a little stunned that he hadn't realized that I was missing a breast).  I told him that I'd had a mastectomy.  And then he did something that surprised me to no end...  He took a long, appraising look at my chest.  None of that flitting glance, trying to look away thing...  And then he said, in a direct, piercing way, almost sexual, but not quite, "you look really good.  Really good."

It was such a wonderful moment for me.  I so appreciated the honesty of the look, the moment, the appreciation he voiced...  Maybe at another time, before bc, I might have felt invaded, offended.  But it was so nice to have such an open direct affirmation of me as a woman.

Perhaps I should be annoyed with myself for wanting affirmation from outside of me.  Perhaps I should be annoyed that this moment came from a relative stranger.  (Though I have no annoyance with my husband on this...he has been a gem...a new role for him, I might add).

Again, I know this veers way off topic, but the last two comments raised it for me.  Or maybe it doesn't veer away.  Maybe this is about how we go about feeling feminine or womanly...from self or others...

 On another note, I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year!  May the coming year be happy and healthy, strong and fulfilling...

Claire

Too funny, Caryn!  I agree.  You KNOW I'd be sneaking a look if it were me too.    

Happy New Year, everyone! 

Coraleliz... I am sorry that your experience with "coming out" at the gym was so...unfortunate.   Nice retort on regrowing breasts.  I hope that put an end to her lecture.

 I am glad you brought up the breastfeeding--you hit that nail on the head.  For me, that was the most feminine experience of my life.

I'm sorry that you're having a tough time, Alaska.  Could you seek out some counseling just through your insurance and not your cancer center?  What can we do to support you, hon?  This is such a long, long road.  I remember people telling me to give it a year....BS!  

Well said Melly T, I agree with you. I am finding this thread fascinating with all the different ideas that have been shared. But, I tend to be a brain picker LOL

Gender and sex are defined by anthropologists and sociologists as two distinct entities.  One is cultural, the other "natural".  I have read wonderful anthros who describe gender as identity, as display, and as sex, among others.  Gender is the tool we use for approval and belonging.  In my summation, when we are rewarded for it over and over and over and over again, it becomes our sense of sexuality.  This fits right into the "men desire, women desire to be desired"--a classic example of socialized sexuality.  The human sexual response is the same for men and women insofar as it can involve climax.  To desire to be desired has nothing to do with sexual response per se, rather, what we associate our sexual response with.

Women are rewarded for how they look, plain and simple.  It comes before just about anything--the first words out of even my best friends' mouths isn't "congrats on that grant" it's "you look great".  We can debate the nuances, but women get this far more than men.  Period.

And so, when something as crushing as breast cancer takes away all the signification of our "womanhood", we retreat to these difficult terms: feminine, masculine, etc.  What those things are are pretty inextricable from the society we were raised in.

I think I understand what AA is saying, though I don't want to assume.  We have a lot of cards from our deck taken away from us, and so, basically, it's really hard to play a full hand.  I feel like a cardboard box a lot of days.  And I'm so sick of my short hair.  I look MUCH better with it.  But I just can't stand it anymore, it's my whatever-gender-you-want-to-call-it cancer cloak. 

Yes, this is an interesting discussion. I guess I always viewed gender as whether you identified as male or female. The original designation is based on your genitalia, at birth, but as we know, people don't always feel that they match the gender of their genitals. When one loses a physical part that identified with a specific gender, i.e. Breasts on a women, does that change ones gender identity?

For many, I would guess no, since one would have many years to identify as a woman and still feel like one despite the loss of breasts. For others that might not be true and I'm sure many of us have wrestled with how it effects our own image of what femininity is.

Sexuality has to do with having sexual feelings.Whether we act on those feelings with members of the opposite gender, same gender, with our own hands or not at all is how that sexuality manifests itself.

BC and all that is done to us in order to stave it off can clearly effect both gender identification and sexuality.

Caryn

I hadn't really thought of flirting, but I have always flirted a little and I still do. It hasn't stopped or changed really during the course of my treatment. 

Janeybw, I might end up like you with same dx, went to the surg today to get a date but we gotta wait on the plastic to get back from the vacation b4 we can coordinate a surg date. I will end up with bumps but I cant believe the one on here who had surg in May and didnt get the exchange til Dec? how come took so long if you dont mind my asking? I thought we got 3 to 4 mths withTE then we got exchange? No we gotta wait after final fill? My friend got a cosmetic implants and I asked her about implants and she told me to get double D saline. ROTFL...I am very petite and I told her I didnt think it would work for me. I am thinking of getting regular C gel implants. The PS says they will sit high and be very round and you get cleavage regardless. My friend was happy with her cow udder but her boyfriend left after that and she never did get the male attention she thought she would get from the "investment". I'm small and always wore padded and now my PS says you get to be whatever size you wanna be. its great to be able to make a decision instead of being between a rock and the deep blue sea with bc...and the reg surgeon says no port, I may not need chemo...so happy for that,I should be happy for wks.

What an interesting discussion.

I have never felt traditionally female or heterosexual (nothing to do with the "Outfield" name, I really was just thinking I so much wanted to be able to play sports again when I chose that).  I knew from childhood I didn't want things flopping on my chest, and knew before I was diagnosed that if diagnosed I'd have a BMX.  As it turns, out that was a good decision for me given the specifics of my cancer.

Since my surgery, I feel more fluid in my gender identity.  I haven't minded passing for male and sometimes dress very butch, but I've also felt more comfortable in traditionally feminine shirts.  Somehow it feels like I have more control over my perceived gender, and maybe I do.  It's very interesting to me.  I have never had any desire to transition to being a man, but I don't mind playing at being one now, and playing at being a little more "girlie" than I ever was before. 

But my sexuality is gone, just gone.  I can remember what it was like, it's just gone.  I don't think it's nearly as much to do with the physical loss of my breasts as with my anxiety and the hormonal changes, and feeling old and worn.