I Sometimes Wish I Had Cancer

By Jaxx Davis

I am the sum of unbroken parts I wish were broken. 

The constant of things firmly in the way.  

My body piled high atop of white coats. 

Always reminding me I don't get a say. 

I sometimes wish that I had breast cancer. It's a shocking and bold way to open this, but I do and it’s terrifying to feel this way and be open about it. What is terrifying too is knowing that I am not the only trans person to feel this. Despite that knowledge I feel guilty about feeling the way I do, especially because I know and understand the damage breast cancer can do. I just can't stop feeling the way I do, no matter how angry my feelings will make some people.  

I count myself in the burdens I carry, 

then take that number and multiply. 

I can tell you in a thousand ways that I am okay  

but all of them would be a lie. 

I have been struggling with this feeling ever since the first of my yearly cancer screenings in 2020. 2020 was a very complicated year for me. I'm disabled and my disabilities mean I'm high risk for Covid. The start of the pandemic (which isn't over, and still kills thousands every day) didn't just start a period in my life in which my life and the lives of my community were under a constant threat, it also started a period in which people openly and publicly discussed the worth of lives just like mine with an intensity unlike anything I saw before.  

Within the first few months of the pandemic, and the pain that was causing, I got diagnosed with something called PHTS, or PTEN Hamartoma Tumour Syndrome. It's an extremely rare genetic condition that makes the likelihood of me developing certain cancers significantly higher. Thyroid, colon, skin, kidney, uterine, and breast cancer are those I have the biggest risk to develop. As it comes to breast cancer, statistically I am more likely to develop it than I am not.  

It was a scary diagnosis to get in a scary time to live in. Being disabled I have dealt with not knowing what is happening in my body for a very long time, but that feeling hits very differently when cancer gets involved. There's a bone-deep fear that comes with knowing things can spiral out of control fast. Having to deal with not knowing what is happening inside my body as well as having no control over what was happening outside in society, created a perfect storm of emotions. The yearly check ups I have for some of the cancers helps to ease the intensity of those feelings but the diagnosis is still a tough pill to swallow because, just like everyone else, I don't want to have cancer. I don't want that in my life.  

But the first time I got the all clear on my yearly breast cancer screening, I was disappointed. It was a shocking feeling to experience. I had had a mammogram a week or so earlier that ended up showing some unexplained masses. Quickly they got me in for an echo. While I was lying on the table, my chest exposed and covered in gel while a very cold echo machine was making circles, first on one breast then the other, my mind was racing away. I was so terrified, in part also because I feared the biopsy and am phobic about needles, but there was also this spark of hope in me that died when they said they couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. It felt so paradoxical but the happiness they showed on their faces while sharing this news I thought I wanted, was hard to cope with. I might have been relieved but I was also sad. Although I didn't want to have any cancer, I couldn't hide it from myself that clearly some part of me did and I didn't know what to do with that. After faking a smile for the doctors and my friends, I retreated into myself. 

What I now know and understand but didn't back then is that I do not want the cancer per se. What I want is a reason to lose my breasts. I am nonbinary and as you might have guessed, I have very bad top dysphoria, in part because I have a large chest. My breasts are everywhere, I can't escape them. They are always in the way. The amount of times I’ve had to scoop them out of my armpit or almost got knocked out by them is definitely not zero. They are also at that size that no matter what I do, what I wear, or how I style my hair, people will see me as a woman. That hurts. 

So I need my breasts off my chest and out of my head. I want them off by any means necessary. But I don't see any other way to get rid of them that doesn't involve cancer because transition care isn’t accessible to me. Doctors are blocking the way. 

Because people always complicate, this I know, 

and this feels way too complicated. 

My shattered heart tries to break me. 

I can't be in control and I hate it. 

As a fat disabled person that is read by society and doctors as a woman, I unfortunately experience a lot of medical discrimination. Doctors refuse to take me and many of my health complaints seriously. They don't want to hear me out. Most of the diagnoses I have, I had to push for the testing to be done. Getting medical care has been a constant battle. 

I am also not the type of patient they prefer to help. Someone with a problem that has an easy solution, someone that presents as a text book case. My questions come with a lot more questions before an answer presents themselves. So they present their inability to help as an easy solution instead. It is all in my head. It's stress, anxiety, or possibly hyperventilation. It must be related to my weight or pre-existing conditions (despite me knowing my body and knowing what is and isn't normal for me). I'm exaggerating my pain, or my other symptoms. It's my age (I am 43, and have heard that since my thirties).  

The statements that doctors make can be downright ridiculous. I can never forget that time when a doctor decided not to give me the allergy tests I was supposed to get. She told me it wasn't allergenes, it was my weight and me being bedridden with ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). I was already experiencing anaphylactic swelling in my face as an allergic reaction at that point. Most people will never expect their doctor to say something so ridiculous but for marginalized people it can be the norm.  

Doctors are less likely to take marginalized people seriously and more likely to discriminate against them. Some of that discrimination is even taught in medical school, others learned because the doctors who teach hold those beliefs. The reality is, doctors are people. They aren't flawless and they aren't immune to the discriminatory beliefs held in society overall. Unless a doctor actively tries to unlearn those beliefs, they will consciously or subconsciously discriminate too. 

That discrimination done by the hands of doctors endangers people. It has put me into the hospital once already. If they judge me already for those parts of my identity I can't hide, what will they do when they know all of me. Will they provide even less of the care I need? Will they let more things escalate? How far will that go? Will it kill me? That might sound over the top, but it's not. I would not be the first disabled person, fat person or person thought to be a woman, who would die because of improper medical care. 

Why do I need to feel unsafe so I can protect myself? 

Close this door so no others slam shut? 

I go weary of painting this smile on, 

and of pretending I'm something I'm not. 

All of this has led me to make the painful decision to stay as medically closeted as possible as it comes to my gender to protect my health and my life. Trans people also experience medical discrimination. 'Trans broken arm syndrome' is a thing because of medical discrimination. If I would be open about my gender with doctors, trans hate will be added onto the types of medical discrimination I already face. Being in danger already, I can not add more danger on top of the things I am already facing. I need to protect myself. 

It was the hardest decision I made in my life, but it makes sense to me. It hurts me mentally, but physical damage or death are a bit more permanent. However, I'm not okay. I don't think any trans person with dysphoria will fare well on this. I don't know when I can get out of the medical closet. If ever. It also means I cannot change my legal name or gender marker. 

At least I am safe with my partner and friends and I don't use my dead name or my location online. I do not have to be completely closeted and hide myself in my day to day and that is why I can still keep going. The doctors don't know the real me and can't find me outside of the doctors office and that's a relief. But it is not a relief that offers transition care.  

Medical discrimination does mean that even if I would have been able to access transition care, there is also a high likelihood that I still won't be able to transition. Transition care isn't exempt from medical discrimination either and I will likely not be approved for surgery at all due to my weight and my disabilities. They don't do surgeries on fat bodies because they don't train on them. They often think disabled people don't know themselves and are less likely to believe them. On top of that the care itself can be inaccessible too. 

So what's an enby going to do? I genuinely don't know. It feels like an insurmountable mountain. I am not the only one who has to deal with medical discrimination or a lack of access to a medical transition, and I am not the only one feeling these feelings. With the attack on transition care, and the growing medical discrimination and hate towards trans people, so many more people will join me in my closet or in not being able to access transition care. That is what terrifies me the most. 

My fight for less discrimination won't cut my breasts off NOW. It's not even likely that this issue is going to be solved in my lifetime. I know that realistically my fight is for future me's. For me I do the one thing I can. I hope I get breast cancer. I will dream of it every time I get my screening. I need that hope of being released from my chest. And I am not going to judge myself for that coping mechanism, if that is what keeps me going. Whether other people will or not. I am not a bad person. I am reacting to circumstances out of my control. 

I have tried wilting myself to fit their narrative of me. 

I have tried their judgement and I consumed their guilt. 

It all feels so paradoxical.  

Is it care if it will get me killed? 

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Bio: Jaxx Davis (they/them) is a trans fat queercrip activist and artist and a genuine menace on wheels. They write, they art, they scold, they teach. They do a lot of things, except being healthy. You can find them on a lot of platforms as @slaapkameractivist. And you follow their art on Instagram: @singularitypoetry.