We must, we must, we must increase our bust!

Most girls are much more excited than they are distressed by the onset of puberty

It’s not uncommon to hear women who are concerned with the state of youth gender medicine talk about how they’re glad they grew up before there was a social or medical pathway available for youth transition, because they might have taken it. They’ll talk about how puberty is a uniquely disturbing period for some girls, as it can trigger feelings of stress and anxiety about the changes their body is undergoing. And it’s true that many girls become far more critical and dissatisfied with their bodies as they move from childhood into adolescence.

Katie Herzog

discussed her personal experience on Louise Perry’s podcast and how this transition forced her to grapple with her sexual identity. She’s also written and spoken about the case of the “disappearing lesbian” several times. I think she makes an important point: there are almost surely significantly more gender non-conforming youth than there are trans youth, and we should consider how well we can differentiate between these groups and how reversible various treatments are when debating the merits of social and medical transition for young people. But it’s not just lesbians who talk about this, here’s an example from J.K. Rowling:

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

While I don’t doubt the testimonials of these women, nor deny that Katie’s example in particular is relevant to the recommendations of when to medicalize a gender distressed young person (I’m less convinced that Rowling’s distress would have been likely to put her on such a path), I think it’s important to note that these descriptions are still very atypical. Rowling is surely correct that “sexualised scrutiny and judgement” sets “many girls to war against their bodies in their teens”, but many is not most and I don’t believe this is a common reaction by any means.

The experience of entering puberty for most girls is, in my opinion, better represented by the classic Judy Blume book (and now movie) Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret. Yes, we became more critical of our bodies as we hit puberty, but it wasn’t because they were suddenly too feminine, it was because they were failing to live up to the feminine beauty standard that we wished to represent! 

We were desperate for our boobs to come in, and were begging our moms to buy us training bras (and if we were lucky enough to have a “cool” mom, AA padded bras) well before these bras had any meaningful job to do (“we must, we must, we must increase our bust! The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater the boys depend on us!”). The boys did their part to reinforce these insecurities - I vaguely recall boys in middle school alternating between typing 80085 or an upside down 80087355 (see image below) into their calculators before calling various girls’ names and showing them the screen, just in case we weren’t sure they had been judging us:

But to be clear, while we’d have rather they skipped this game entirely, we much preferred to get a 80085 than the alternative. It’s true that the onset of puberty is often upsetting for the first girl who gets boobs and her period, and many well endowed women talk about feeling ashamed of their body during this age, or as Sydney Sweeney claims, ostracized. But being the last one to get your period or to get boobs is similarly distressing! As with most things around this age - being different is to be avoided at all costs. 

As for attention from men… we mostly liked that too. It’s true that it’s a double edged sword and that gaining sexual power before you have the cognitive power to fully understand it or know how to manage it can be overwhelming. But it’s also true that teenage girls frequently seek validation to confirm that they are sexually attractive. In Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging, one of my favorite series as a pre-teen, fourteen year old Georgia’s diary includes the following (relatable) entry:

Sunday february 7th 

11:00 a.m.

Got dressed in a short skirt. Then me and Jas walked up and down the main road. We wanted to see how many cars with boys in them hooted at us. Ten!! (We had to walk up and down for four hours… still, ten is ten!!!)

My friends and I never wasted an afternoon attempting to get cat-called, but we did occasionally shout at random men from the roof of my parent’s five-story condo building, which we’d often go up to for some rays and privacy. Of course, once they responded we’d erupt into giggles and go back to our sunning spot where they couldn’t see us, but the point is we wanted to know that we could get their attention if we wanted to. I assume these sorts of validation seeking pursuits take place on social media these days. I recall a friend being very concerned about her 14 year old cousin having a disturbingly large following on social media, which included adult men. 

Which brings me to my next point: the fact that teenage girls seek validation does not at all imply that grown men should feel free to show open sexual interest in teenage girls. Teenage girls are vulnerable and easy to manipulate, in part because they’re so validation seeking. And it’s very predictable that they will look back on early sexual experiences, especially if with more experienced men, negatively. This is why we have social norms against this behavior, not to mention statutory rape laws. But it’s simply not the case that teenage girls are in every case feeling victimized by male attention. They, like the rest of us, can see the power that beauty holds and its relevance to their dating prospects and they want to do some testing to see where they stand. 

Still, it’s certainly true that too much male attention can be distressing, especially at a young age. And there are very, very significant cultural differences here. The first time I got a hint of the ability to control male attention was when my family took a trip to Egypt just before I turned 14. I was flattered but also very overwhelmed by the constant stares and comments and I’m very glad that I didn’t receive anywhere near that amount of attention at such a young age in Canada. 

On the other hand, receiving no validation might create different hang ups entirely. Occasionally you’ll meet a woman who became conventionally attractive only after high school or college who is simply reveling in the low quality male attention that most of the rest of her girlfriends have come to detest with maturity. Which serves to remind us once again that the body related insecurities most young girls have are, just like those for teenage boys, driven by concerns about not being attractive enough to the opposite sex rather than about their bodies “changing” in general.

Again, this isn’t to discount Katie’s point or those of other women who had a more complex relationship with their femaleness as they went through puberty. As I’ve said, I think these stories are relevant to how we approach trans youth healthcare, particularly with respect to treatments that are more or less difficult to reverse. But given the more vague comments from people like Rowling, I occasionally feel the need to dispel the idea that this is the case for most girls, or that drops in body satisfaction are related to a discomfort with puberty, and remind everyone that most girls are actually eager for their body to change, eager for attention from the opposite sex and, ultimately, untroubled with respect to their gender identity.