Yesterday was the first day I went out ANYWHERE publick without a bra binder or whatever on.Just a shirt.
It was wonderful .But just before I walked out I felt paranoid, like I was going out exposed than I reminded myself I have no more boobs, nothing to hide, tie down or otherwise disguise from the world.
I have found something very strange about being transgender and having this chest reconstruction, the body was traumatized by being and living in the wrong gender, I had this instinct to hide my front from others like I was protecting myself .. When I had boobs I apparently seemed to be always in a defensive stance in public ,always wary. And I still think it is criminal how women's breasts are made into fetish objects so women have to wear bras and contain thier boobs in the heat of summer.
All my life I longed to just walk out in the summer heat without sticky hot bras, binders or vests, to hide what was there from greedy intrusive eyes and unwelcome comments.
To go out with just a T shirt on without being oogled or hear unwanted comments from cars,about those boobs I wished would dissapear was amazing to me.
I used to joke that I wanted to wear a burka, cover my body entirely so I would not feel so intruded upon when I went out and be subjected to lookism,oogled at and basically judged because of the way our culture has fetishized boobs,I didn't want to be reminded of one of the most painful yet invisible to other's eyes,unless they were sensitive,reality in my life every time I set foot outside,that issue of not being a female but looking and being addressed and treated as one would be triggered.
And now with the male chest I have longed for here,now, with excercising this liberation I can see clearly the scars of where cultural opression has built up in me these involuntary protective mechanisms shame mechanisms in my mind and body memory. They have been gathered into me as baggage from years of being treated as the wrong gender by the patriarchial bi gendered world.
So for the first time out with nothing holding my chest in I felt a bit strange.But I felt free, this freedom has not been felt ever since I lost this freedom as soon as my body developed. In the heat it was not torment for me this time. A cotton sleeveless T shirt , shorts and my docs was all I wore. And as my time passed I began to see other people did NOT see a set of boobs on two legs anymore,no longer was I being visually cut into pieces by partriarchal lookism..I began to relax and I felt at peace going out there.And now that I felt no longer bullied by others eyes I realized the damage done to me was deep ..I noticed it most clearly when I had to reassure myself over and over in my own mind that I was safe and looked fine going out with only a t shirt on my chest.
Our bi gendered fetishized culture is very destructive to personhood.
Every time a person is reduced by strangers eyes and commentaries often unwanted to sexual parts that are culturally fetishized . It wounds the person within the heart that is housed in that body.
At least that is how it felt to me.Something to think about.
