#and our experiences of dysphoria can be a source of empathy and deeper understanding of those outside our community

[gender0bender]

There is another group of men who live, and often suffer, with breasts. Unlike gynecomastia patients, these men are transgender. Assigned female at birth, they identify as, transition to, and live as their true male gender. It is common for transgender men to report dissociative feelings toward their chest. Many trans men develop personalized terminology to re-gender their body parts; it's common for trans guys to think of their chest exclusively as their chest, without using the word "breasts" to describe that part of their body.

Some non-transgender men who have gynecomastia also manipulate gendered language to describe their gender nonconforming bodies. Specifically, these guys use acutely masculine terms to talk about their breasts. One user on a popular gynecomastia forum underwent surgery to have his breasts removed. He wrote about the experience with sports terms, stating, "I had two liters of fat removed from each breast, and a hockey puck of estrogen, or whatever." Another described his breasts as if fast food: "The amount of tissue for each breast was about the size of a quarter pounder burger from McDonalds."

None of the men that I spoke with felt like their gynecomastia was a gender issue. "I feel the need to say [that] I've never had any complex with my gender. My case with gynecomastia was no different to the mindset of someone who wants to remove an ugly scar, birthmark, or lump," Sam told me.

Brian is also in his twenties, and he lived with gynecomastia for many years before having it surgically removed. "Gender was never really something I contemplated in any sense of the word I guess," he told Broadly in an email. "When I developed gynecomastia, I was embarrassed by it and sometimes made fun of for it, but I never felt like 'less of a man.'" He said that he never felt the need to be manly. But he and Sam both felt a need to correct a part of their body that they had come to see as abnormal, something that caused them some degree of mental anguish. Though they don't feel aware of the way that gender relates to their experiences, it is arguably intrinsic. "Gender didn't become more important after puberty," Brian said. "I never really paid attention to the idea. It just was."

"Feminists and critical race theorists have long argued that this is how privilege works," Blum said. "Just as most whites don't experience themselves as having a race, [cisgender] men seldom experience themselves as having a gender." The sense of anxiety, insecurity, or disconnect that men with gynecomastia experience toward their chests can resemble the way that transgender men experience gender dysphoria. Both groups deserve to live without that anguish, and to have healthcare that recognizes the difference between cosmetic and medically necessary plastic surgery—but they also deserve to live in a society where their bodies are not deemed abnormal.

- 'Chop the Things Off': The Plight of Boys Who Grow Breasts, from VICE by Diana Tourjée