← Queer Scar Care · ← Chest Surgery Resources · ← Ways of Wa/onderment
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This circle has existed—and it could exist again.
A tender, body-led space for meeting the grief, relief, joy, numbness, desire, pleasure, and contradictions held in a masculinized chest and its surgery story.
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Top surgery can be wanted, life-giving, complicated, disappointing, relieving, erotic, grief-filled—or several of these at once.
The Masculinizing Top Surgery Grief & Pleasure Circle was created and facilitated by Ro Rose in 2023 as both an intimate in-person gathering and a three-week online circle. It offered something that medical preparation and post-operative instructions rarely make room for: being witnessed in the full emotional, sensory, relational, and erotic complexity of bodily change.
“An invitation of sorrows and joy in your top surgery story.”
This was not a demand for a tidy transformation narrative. Presence and witnessing counted as participation. Every practice was an invitation: something to accept, adapt, queer, or decline.
Noticing what has been lost, changed, interrupted, protected, or left unnamed—and exploring grieving as active care rather than a problem to solve.
Turning toward relief, joy, sensation, curiosity, self-touch, scar care, erotic possibility, and what the body wants to grow toward.
Sharing top-surgery stories without comparison, fixing, or interrogation—and choosing how one wants to be seen.
Chest-focused noticing, nervous-system resourcing, movement, reflection, ritual, and practices for staying connected without forcing.
The in-person gathering used a talking-circle structure, breath, music and movement, chest-focused body awareness, personal objects, storytelling, shared witnessing, guided chest massage, and a closing ritual. Participants were invited to nest: to bring layers, blankets, tactile objects, a notebook, and something connected to their top-surgery journey.
The invitation was intimate yet spacious and without pressure. Removing a shirt, touching the chest, speaking, moving, or simply witnessing were always choices.
The online version unfolded through three live 90-minute gatherings supported by a five-chapter course: