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When Zoe Tunnell, 31, finally got her breast implants, her gender euphoria was through the roof.
In the trans community, gender euphoria is a phrase used to describe the comfort and elation a person feels about their body or their identity. It’s the exact opposite of gender dysphoria ― the sense of unease that a person may feel if the sex they were assigned at birth doesn’t match their gender identity.
For Tunnell, top surgery did what years of hormone therapy alone couldn’t do: It gave her a shapely, more-than-an-A-cup figure in which she truly felt like herself. (Both breast augmentation and chest masculinization for trans men are considered top surgery.)
Tunnell has nothing against just doing hormones ― “I think a lot of people view breast augmentation for trans women as optional, and for some, it is. Hormones do enough to make them happy in their body, and that is such a wonderful thing,” she told HuffPost.
But for her, top surgery made everything click, gender-wise. It was something she wanted to do solely for herself, not for any outside validation or anything else.
“I think due to the overall hyper-sexualized and male-gaze-dominated view of breasts, getting breast implants gets labeled as a decision purely made for sexual reasons,” she said. “But for people like me, it isn’t a fun extra to look hotter or whatever narrative is being pushed lately. It’s vital to care as much as any other affirming procedure. It helps us feel like ourselves, more complete.”
Luckily, many in the plastic surgery community have strived to educate themselves on how to handle top surgeries sensitively, said Dr. Tim Sayed, a board-certified plastic surgeon in La Jolla and Newport Beach, California.
“Many plastic surgeons recognize that for most patients who are considering or going through a gender-affirming transition, this isn’t so much body dysmorphia that we usually think about but it’s rather an effort to have the external signs of physique and body image match the internal sense of gender identity,” he told HuffPost.
Gender-affirming surgeries are life-saving and should be more easily accessible and affordable. Being trans is not a choice, but trans people are forced to prove we are who we say we are again and again.
Rose Montoya, 27
When Sayed meets with his trans clients,…
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