#outdated language

If you were going to put anything medical in it, I would consult with your friend first. AFAIK you’re not supposed to take any blood thinners (which some painkillers are) for a while after surgery and you should avoid sugary foods. So I would ask and see if there’s any supplies in particular your friend will need as recommended by their doctor.

A good pillow might be nice.

Fruit like bananas could be a nice addition or a fun flavored jam for toast, as they might not feel like eating a whole lot for a while after the surgery.

A book of crossword puzzles or sudoku could help cut the boredom. As well, things like puzzle cubes, a deck of cards, or a new board game or video game (maybe that you and/or some other friends could come over and play with them) could be appreciated.

Cute little stocking-stuffer-type things like bubbles, bouncy balls, paddle ball, headphones, freeze pops, a slinky, small water guns, etc. could be fun and nostalgic.

You could check etsy for nonbinary pride merch. Pins, patches, bowties, bracelets, temporary tattoos - shouldn’t put you out too much and could be really liked. You could probably even do a pride flag if you wanted to go bigger.

Hope your friend’s surgery and recovery goes smoothly!

It’s a sad truth, but the advice I’ve heard from others (accepting or trans individuals in the field or with lots of experience) is to lie in order to get the healthcare you need. I don’t know where you live or the policies there, so I don’t know if it’s possible to just lie about being a trans man in order to get your breasts removed, but if so, that’s the best option I can think of. Sorry! It’s definitely not an ideal situation to have to be trapped in. =\

Mainstream politics: Gender dysphoria

You fools, drenched in old American politics: Harry Benjamin syndrome

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has reaffirmed a commitment to holding a referendum in November to amend the “women in the home” clause in the Irish constitution. His comments come after rumours that the referendum was likely to be pushed out further following already significant delays. The Taoiseach said there has been “some difficulty agreeing on the wording” of the proposed amendment. He pointed out that there are two key issues at play, the wording in the Constitution that says the family is founded on marriage and the clause relating to the role of women in the home. “I think we all agree that in the modern world, there are lots of families that are not married families. “Families led by grandparents; families led by couples that aren’t married; one-parent families; but we need to make sure that we get that wording right and people don’t misinterpret it,” Varadkar said. [...] “In relation to replacing the old-fashioned wording around the role of women in the home with something affirmative, deletion is easy,  but we want to replace it with something affirmative, which recognises the value of care in the home. Again we just need to get that right. 

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After the Civil War, former plantation owners, the elite few who had pretty much owned the state and the South before, wanted that power back. Even though their wealth and status had died along with slavery, the South’s growing industrial revolution, following the war, provided the salvation that led to their resurrection. To supply the demand for cheap labor now, they needed to lure or force lower class whites away from their rural lifestyles and into the cotton mills. But by the 1890s, elites faced a roadblock -a strengthening movement for social, economic, and agrarian reform, when whites and blacks cooperated, politically, to create an almost formidable coalition. These “Fusionist” goals conflicted with elites’ plans, to say the least. They knew if the movement continued, labor unions and other reforms, cutting into their profits, would be next.

So the strategy in the late 1890s was to first break up cooperation between blacks and whites -a coalition that had elected a new party, one with democratic goals. Elites did this by diverting poorer whites’ attention from what they really needed -making them think their greatest need was protection from blacks. This was done through indoctrination and rethoric appealing to base emotions and instincts -with a lot of hoopla, references to religion, and specially using sex scares, laced with appeals to manhood.

- Wells, Susan Barringer. 2007. A game called Salisbury: the spinning of a southern tragedy and the myths of race. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.com.