last night i was watching a disturbing documentary on bbc america called my secret female body. the story followed the life of a girl that felt “trapped” in her body and decided she wanted to instead be a man. she began taking male hormones, which caused her to grow facial hair, get a deep voice and stop having a period. but she/he had big breasts that she had to tape down every time she went out. the hormones eventually brought her d-cups to b-cups, but that still wasn’t enough so she went to have a double mastectomy.

when she/he went for consultations, they blurred out her boobs, and after the surgery, they didn’t blur them out anymore. so that got me to thinking… when is a boob a boob? usually, on tv they can show all the cleavage, side, upper and under boob they want, as long as there’s no areola or nipple. but what about when a woman gets her breast tissue removed and still has a nipple, is that really no longer a boob? i mean because of the skin and swelling, they still looked like a-cups, and it’s still a female nipple, so how is that not still a regular, ole’ boob? either way it was disgusting, and for all practical intentions now just moobs, but clinically they were still boobs.

even worse, she/he now wants to get a penis installed. they make it out of pieces of your forearm. they didn’t get into too much detail about it since she/he will have to wait a few years for the psychiatric evaluations required to do this type of surgery, but the one point they glossed over that i was dying to know: will it work?