In other circumstances, I'd just comment on the art aspect of the zine - something along the lines of "art is an act of communication, and I can assure you this must be good art," with the text equivalent of a sly wink and a nudge at the end.
However, I'd say that because you've communicated a flavor of misery I spent years floundering through myself, so...
First off - I can't speak to this personally, but iirc the regret rate for people who get reductions specifically instead of 'complete' top is fairly abysmal. I would seriously advise against seeing that as some kind of 'compromise' - 'reductions' have essentially all the medical downsides of 'top', so unless a gentle chest curve is what you've been imagining instead of Flat...
Me: I don't think there's a line in your zine not resonant to my pre-surgery experience - with the caveat that, while I suspect you may mean a similar thing when you say "But sometimes I like my chest," to what I once felt, I may be wrong. I did ultimately get top surgery, and did so without ever having gone on HRT.
A question to ask yourself may be "Do I have memories where the way my chest currently is makes me HAPPY": just like your eyes adapt to the dark and will come to interpret what might otherwise look gray as white, having experienced the kind of intense misery you sometimes do may be making the little reprieves between spells read as positive when (if you look at other characteristics of those memories) they're really something more like neutral.
It may also be worth looking at the idea you've been exposed to an environment that says male-like bodies are sexually unattractive - "but what if I don't feel attractive" implies your feelings are biased to see the attraction of people who prefer male-like chests (which may not be flat - ex. a gay bear) as less real than that of people attracted to 'breasts'. The people who find you sexually attractive may change, but they're not going to disappear as a category! (Also, and yes, I have checked on myself, you will likely still be able to use push-up bras if you feel like dressup!)
Ok, that's about all. It may be worth browsing r/FTM - which is actually a general-purpose 'transmasculine' community stuck with an out-of-date URL - to read and/or ask users there about their experiences, because you're likely to get responses from many transmasculine-spectrum people, not just me (who is just one Guy^tm, and may have failed to vibe on some vital nonbinary axis of your experience)
← Return to zine
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
In other circumstances, I'd just comment on the art aspect of the zine - something along the lines of "art is an act of communication, and I can assure you this must be good art," with the text equivalent of a sly wink and a nudge at the end.
However, I'd say that because you've communicated a flavor of misery I spent years floundering through myself, so...
First off - I can't speak to this personally, but iirc the regret rate for people who get reductions specifically instead of 'complete' top is fairly abysmal. I would seriously advise against seeing that as some kind of 'compromise' - 'reductions' have essentially all the medical downsides of 'top', so unless a gentle chest curve is what you've been imagining instead of Flat...
Me: I don't think there's a line in your zine not resonant to my pre-surgery experience - with the caveat that, while I suspect you may mean a similar thing when you say "But sometimes I like my chest," to what I once felt, I may be wrong. I did ultimately get top surgery, and did so without ever having gone on HRT.
A question to ask yourself may be "Do I have memories where the way my chest currently is makes me HAPPY": just like your eyes adapt to the dark and will come to interpret what might otherwise look gray as white, having experienced the kind of intense misery you sometimes do may be making the little reprieves between spells read as positive when (if you look at other characteristics of those memories) they're really something more like neutral.
It may also be worth looking at the idea you've been exposed to an environment that says male-like bodies are sexually unattractive - "but what if I don't feel attractive" implies your feelings are biased to see the attraction of people who prefer male-like chests (which may not be flat - ex. a gay bear) as less real than that of people attracted to 'breasts'. The people who find you sexually attractive may change, but they're not going to disappear as a category! (Also, and yes, I have checked on myself, you will likely still be able to use push-up bras if you feel like dressup!)
Ok, that's about all. It may be worth browsing r/FTM - which is actually a general-purpose 'transmasculine' community stuck with an out-of-date URL - to read and/or ask users there about their experiences, because you're likely to get responses from many transmasculine-spectrum people, not just me (who is just one Guy^tm, and may have failed to vibe on some vital nonbinary axis of your experience)