Gynecomastia

Adam J. Galanski *Content Warning

I wake up and look in the mirror. My chest is swollen out like a pair of breasts. My nipples enlarged and widened. Sensitive to the touch. Tender. Sore, when I cup them with my hands. They protrude awkwardly from my slender body. The torso with taut skin and exposed bumps of ribs. The six-pack abs at age 13, from hours a day of running and exercising in school and afterwards in the park. I feel that I am becoming a woman. It is a horrifying thought. And I know that I cannot tell anyone.

I remember in fourth grade, sitting at my desk and catching my classmate, James, laughing at a joke the teacher made. James is cute when he laughs. I had thought to myself. Then I shook my head. At St. Ida’s, Father Marcus told us about how love and attraction was meant strictly for a man and a woman. Sister Joan told us that thoughts in our head that disobeyed God’s law were sins, too. Even intrusive ones. Even if we didn’t take any physical action. I closed my eyes and prayed to God for forgiveness. I told myself over and over that what I thought was wrong. So much that I missed the meaning of the lesson and fumbled over my words when called upon, causing James to laugh again, and myself to cringe. I don’t want to go to Hell. ***

Am I really becoming a woman? When my parents are out playing tennis, I log into their desktop and google pornography, playing with myself below my boxer shorts. The women in these movies’ bodies are mature and fully curvaceous. My swollen breasts don’t look quite like that. And the men in these movies’ dicks are extended thick and bulging with veins. My body is somewhere in a space between two genders. It is hard to feel much of anything but anxiety.

The women in the porn seem to be having a better time than the *Body image, violence, homophobia, transphobia men. At least they are moaning more. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to sexually be a woman. I could be a lesbian. I could put on makeup, grow out my hair, and do my best to look the part. But I feel like that would be lying to myself. My head is too clouded to reach an orgasm. My breasts are growing more bulbous and somehow even more tender. ***

At night my mother and I watch the movie Ghost Ship from the comfort of our living room’s L-shaped leather couch. I am lying with my head across her lap as she strokes my eyebrows with her fingers. She does this every night before we go to bed. It soothes me, and helps relieve some of my dread for the coming Monday back to school.

A scene comes on where one of the passengers, who is really a ghost of the past, takes out her breasts to seduce the main character while singing a song. I examine them while I can, comparing them to mine, before my mother covers my eyes with her palm.

“Jesus!” she says, “You don’t need to be seeing this stuff at your age.”

She rubs her hands up my boney rib cage, her fingers reaching up almost to my nipples.

“I’ll let you know when it’s over. Hey—what’s this?” She asks, feeling her fingers over the hard tissue and rounded flesh above my nipples through my t-shirt, triggering my gunshot heart.

“Ma, that’s my rib cage...” I say, trying not to cry.

“Oh...” she removes her palm from my eyes. The scene is over. I am trying not to let my body shake. ***

When I brush my teeth that night, I lock the bathroom door and take off my shirt. I cup myself. Squeeze them. Maybe it will be okay to be a woman... I think. I tuck my penis between my thighs and imagine a new body before I am so disgusted with myself that I scowl. ***

In gym class the next day, all the boys are changing into their workout clothes.

“Look at those man-tits!” a kid named Oscar exclaims. All the boys start laughing. I cup my breasts red with embarrassment.

“You look like a fucking tranny!” he shouts to more laughter.

With a strange impulse, I grab Oscar by the neck and slam his head back into one of the lockers. The kids around us cheer for blood and cackle. His hands and feet flail as I slam him by the throat again. When I let him go, he falls to the ground. Does this make me a man? I ask myself. But it doesn’t. Because I am crying like a little girl. ***

After school, I am watching a behind-the-music documentary on VH1. Marylin Manson is donning a full face of makeup and a feminine haircut. “Robert Smith taught me that it is okay for men to wear makeup,” he says. Maybe there is someone out there who will accept my distorted body.

“Fucking freak!” my father yells and points at the TV screen from the kitchen. His face is red with anger. ***

We are on our leather couch watching Animal Planet before bed. I have the body of a female hyena. Maybe I can have the strength of one too. My mother’s fingers on my eyebrows makes me feel at peace. If I am to be a woman, at least I can be a woman like her.

“I love you, mom,” I say.

“I love you too sweetie.”

And though there is love, and trust, I still feel like I cannot tell her. ***

I wake up one morning months later. My breasts are gone. The soreness is over. Just puffy areolas. If I am not to be a woman, then what am I? This all had to mean something. But throughout all of life, I have been too confused to understand.