Your Son Is Getting Top Surgery
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2023 cisgender men made up the majority of male breast reductions in the United States.
There are no recorded cases of an individual under the age of 18 getting full gender reassignment surgery in the United States.
Yes, Transgender girls and boys ages 15-17 however get gender affirming top surgery and breast augmentation surgery but it is quite rare and heavily politicized. Girls 15-17 get nose jobs, lip fillers, as well as breast augmentations and reductions regularly at this age and are seen as ethically questionable. Boys between the ages of 15-17 get subcutaneous mastectomy procedures, nose jobs, ear pinning, and jaw contouring done at this time too and are seen as confidence boosting.
A harsh truth that many people need to know is no matter who they are, a lot of teenagers get plastic surgery.
However, genital surgery is extremely rare if at all practiced. The fact is that there are no recorded cases in the United States.
The only recorded case of gender reassignment surgery of someone before the age of 18 is famous German hyper pop artist Kim Petras, whenever after she met with the Head of Psychiatry of Frankfurt Medical Hospital at the age of 16, he approved her for a gender reassignment surgery to be performed in her native country of Germany. Her interview about the surgery was honestly quite touching, where the interviewer asked if she felt like a woman now that she had the surgery, to which she replied she has always felt like a woman — and that she was just born in the wrong body. She is, well, the only example of the “rampant epidemic” many conservatives shout from the rooftops.
Below is a clip from the piece on Kim Petras from The Insider.
The Standards of Care for The Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (SOC) even states in their clinical protocol:
“It is extremely rare for patients under 18 to receive genital surgery. Even if a minor meets other criteria for surgery, the surgeon, medical facility, and/or insurance company will almost certainly require the patient to be the age of majority to undergo irreversible genital surgery.”
About 64,000 plastic surgery related medical procedures, whether they be fully cosmetic or had medical reasoning, were performed on cisgender children aged 13-19 in 2022 (over 200,000 if minimally invasive procedures like botox and fillers are counted).
Shockingly, according to the Harvard School of Public Health - 97% of teenage boys who receive breast reduction surgery in the United States under the age of 18 are received by cisgender boys, while 80% of the breast reductions in adult males are received by cisgender men.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2023 men made up the majority of breast reductions in the United States.
So, let’s face it: Your cisgender son, brother, or husband is getting top surgery.
Cisgender boys get breast reduction surgery and this is something we need to talk about. Cisgender boys are getting cosmetic top surgery far more than Transgender boys are getting gender-affirming top surgery — and it’s not even close.
This is a highly stigmatized topic, so much in fact that we have shifted the blame on Transgender women and seemed to have fully erased Transgender men because they can so easily go stealth as men who have had a breast reduction while a Transgender woman cannot — because a man getting breast reduction is technically more common than a Transgender boy getting top surgery. Transgender women existing has made men with body variations more noticeable, and therefore more mistaken assumptions on their identity. Judging people by their bodies and reducing them to our assumptions hurts everyone. Whenever we make assumptions about who people are because of how they look or their scars, we hurt the identities of human beings, Cisgender or Transgender. Just like how women with facial hair, deeper voices, or stronger jawlines face stigma for their natural features as well.
The World Professional Organization for Transgender Health does not recommend breast augmentation surgery for Transgender Women under the age of 18. The literal organization that advocates for Transgender health does not even recommend sexual reassignment surgery until the patient is of age. While mastectomies for cisgender boys are seen as a life enhancing, self confidence boosting surgery, for Transgender boys they are heavily politicized as women who are butchering themselves, if ever mentioned at all.
We are discussing a system that is made to enhance the aesthetics of cisgender men and women, but denied to Transgender men and women. When these people use surgery to further their position secured within in the binary, whether that is achieving conventional beauty, enhancing their own aesthetic, or x-sculpting to look more naturally like their perceived self, they are widely accepted and normalized. However, those who do it for gender affirming care in a transition from their birth gender are seen as wrong.
Who are we to police each others bodies when our sons are also getting top surgery?
Personally, it clicked for me because I realized that cisgender men who may have had this surgery are mistaken for Transgender Men their whole lives. People who assume things about you and reduce you to one trait are shallow and are not kind. People who are kind will understand that men also get surgery and not to carry a stigma, whether those surgeries are Rhinoplasties, Phalloplasties, hair implants, liposuction, or of course breast reduction procedures.
Your story deserves to be told just as much as Transgender men, gender nonconforming women, women with high testosterone counts, and others. For others, think about the short haired cisgender women who recently have had trouble going to bathrooms in public places, nobody wants to be mistakenly clocked as Transgender by a Transphobe, I mean who would want to be hated by how they look? You are not being counted out, we quite literally do not see you, I didn’t know you were here, but I do now. The numbers see you. You are not counted out. Your journey with your body is valid.
We must remember that there are cisgender men who may have had a breast reduction that did not heal well who are scared to go to the beach because they don’t want to be mistakenly clocked as Transgender by someone who is Transphobic. If you are a man who has been treated this way and this may be is the root of your hatred to Transgender and non conforming people, let’s remember why surgery and body modification exists in the first place, to ensure life is more comfortable, affirming, and normal for the person who is getting the surgery — cisgender or transgender.
Nobody wants to be judged for their decisions with their body.
There is nothing wrong with cisgender teenage boys getting breast reductions as much as there is nothing wrong with Transgender boys getting top surgery. They are doing what feels best for them in their bodies, and they should make their voices heard. I want to let any cisgender men know who may have chest scars that it is okay to look different. I want you to let the world know about them, I want you to normalize what you have gone through to other people. You deserve that freedom for yourself, and people — especially Transgender men, women with breast reductions, Transgender Women with breast augmentation, and cisgender women with breast reconstruction — will accept and support you tenfold. You have more in common than you may think, but this does not make you any less of a man, I promise you that. There are more people who know what you have gone through, find strength in that, find community in that, find beauty in that.
You all deserve to see your bodies as beautiful. We all do.
Everyone.
Please take care of each other.
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