Transgender woman wins breast augmentation contest

AMP Radio’s controversial “Breast Summer Ever” contest took an interesting turn today. The winner of the competition, who was voted for by the public, was Avery. She was born male but is transitioning to female. What may be most surprising is that Avery won by a landslide – 76% of the votes – in conservative ol’ Calgary.

Although I've never liked the contest, I think it’s interesting that Avery won. Her win has shown me two things:

First, the younger generation of Calgarians (those most likely to be AMP Radio listeners and voters) are an open minded bunch. This gives me hope that our awesome-but-conservative city can be a more welcoming place for those whose gender or sexuality is anything other than straight.

Second, I believe that voters saw through the ridiculousness of many aspects of this contest. Most of the other contestants didn’t have a compelling reason to deserve a $10,000 boob job. Many of them wanted new breasts for reasons the public just wouldn't sympathize with. Avery’s case was one of the few that caught my attention, and I was pleased to see that the public chose someone whose life could be meaningfully changed by breast augmentation.

No matter the outcome, I still find the contest a distasteful marketing ploy. The program manager basically admitted in a FFWD article that he was doing it for publicity, and now that a transgender person has won, the station will receive even more attention. Although a transgender person won the contest, that doesn’t change the fact that it was a stupid, sleazy contest that promoted body dissatisfaction and normalized plastic surgery. None the less, it was an interesting contest with the ending I secretly hoped for but never expected to happen.

Congratulations, Avery. I hope your new boobs help you complete your journey to womanhood.

UPDATE - I was asked by the Calgary Herald to comment on this story... here is the article!

Who entered the “Breast Summer Ever” contest, and why?

The judges for Amp Radio’s controversial contest for a $10,000 breast augmentation have picked their 10 finalists. Now it’s up to the public to vote on who is most deserving of the boob job.



Since I first heard about this contest, I was curious to see would enter, their reasons for entering, and whose story would resonate most with the public and win the ultimate prize. Each contestant has made a video, which are posted online. I watched each one and here are their reasons for wanting breast augmentation:

• 4/10 women had lost weight, which changed the size and shape of their breasts. They talk about the “excess skin” left over after weight loss and how their breasts just don’t look right anymore.
  
  
• 3/10 of the women talked about nursing children and the toll that having kids takes on your body. Basically, they want their pre-baby boobies back.
  
  
• 3/10 had sob stories, but surprisingly there were no cancer survivors. One woman has a large burn mark that covers her right breast, another has "lop-sided" breasts, and one had a rare disease that made her very thin and unable to develop breasts during puberty.
  
  
• 1 woman is transgender (she was born male but is transitioning to female).
  
  
• 1 woman said she wanted a lift and reduction, as she is a size FF and would like to be average sized.

I was a little disheartened to see how many women discussed their post-pregnancy bodies and how they want their old body back. Why can’t we accept that women’s bodies change after pregnancy? Our bodies change throughout our lives – why is an aging body or a post-baby body seen as something that needs to be fixed? (News flash, ladies! You can’t stop aging. You just can’t. Stop wasting your time, money and effort trying to, and accept your aging body instead. I promise life will be a lot more fun that way).



There is an unreal amount of pressure on women to get back to how they looked before the baby. Trashy celebrity tabloids publish issues with headlines like, My body after baby - How I lost 25 lbs in 8 weeks. The pressure is so strong that I actually know women who are choosing not to have children because they’re afraid of what it will do to their bodies. Says Katie Gentile in an article from the Daily Beast,

When women shed the baby weight, they are not merely getting back their pre-baby body, they are obliterating all the evidence of ever having had a baby in the first place. This means the one thing that only women's bodies can do is expected to be immediately erased. The post-baby body is wrung of its recent life-giving feat. Sagging milk-filled breasts must appear perky; the once-swollen abdomen is made concave. It's as if we should actually believe the baby dropped from the stork, from the sky, from anywhere but that toned, buff body.

To me, part of being a feminist is accepting and not judging other women’s decisions and choices. So I’m not going to rag on the women who entered this contest or judge them for what they want. But many of the women talked about gaining or improving self-confidence through breast augmentation surgery, and I think they’re missing a key piece to the self-confidence puzzle. Self confidence is an internal thing – it comes from knowing who you are, knowing your values and what you stand for, setting and accomplishing goals and knowing that you are worthy of happiness and love. True self confidence, self acceptance and self love come from the inside – plastic surgery is an external procedure that will not fix an internal problem.



I won’t be voting for any of these ladies because I fundamentally disagree with the contest. I think the contest promotes body dissatisfaction and the idea that self confidence can be instantly achieved with a surgical procedure. Also, Amp Radio has a young audience and I know lots of kids listen to it. I think it normalizes plastic surgery for young people when they hear about it as a “fun contest.” Our society’s obsession with perfect bodies has gone too far, and I refuse to be a part of anything that perpetuates endless discontent with one’s body.



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Check out some of the contests in Canada offered by ReadersDigest.ca

Sex Sells - Even the Calgary Stampede Thinks So

Check out this ad I found in FFWD magazine a couple of weeks ago. It's an advertisement for a "ladies getaway" at the Calgary stampede.

So, I get that it's making a reference to the Superman thing where he rips off his suit to reveal his superhero costume underneath. But in this advertisement, it's more like she's thrusting her breasts in your face than revealing her "cowgirl superhero costume." Also, the design of her western shirt has black arrows conveniently pointing directly at her nipples. Looks more like an advertisement for her breasts than a ladies getaway at the Stampede.

Does this irk anyone else?

British Model says her Breasts are for her Hubby, not her Baby

This really irks me. British TV star and model Nicola McLean has made headlines in the UK with some of her recent comments on the purpose of her breasts.

Nicola, who is married and has a three-year-old young son named Rocky, defended her choice to bottle-feed him by saying, "[My breasts are] a sexual thing for me – I don’t want Rocky sucking on them... after Rocky was feeding on them, I wouldn’t then be able to go and have sex with Tom and him be sexual with them. "

She goes on to say that because she was a "Page 3 girl" (similar to Calgary's "Sunshine Girl") for five or six years, she only sees her breasts as sexual. "I just didn’t like the thought of my child feeding off them."

Um... does anyone else find this incrediably disturbing? Let's not even get into the whole "nurturing your baby is what breasts are designed for" argument, cos that's just too easy. And I'll even leave out the "breastfeeding your child has proven health benefits to both the mother and child" argument. Let's just leave it at this: How about the fact that breasts can be both functional AND sexual? Why does Nicola think it has to be one or the other?

Update on Breastfeeding at City Pools

The protest over public breastfeeding in Calgary pools was canceled after a group of Calgary mothers met with City staff on the weekend.
Apparently there was some miscommunication amongst city employees regarding the City policy on breastfeeding in pools. Fourtanately, Heather Bruce, the City Aquatics and Recreation Manager, cleared up the confusion by stating that there has never been a policy against mothers breastfeeding the the water. All City pools will now post "breastfeeding friendly" signs.

What's really sad about this whole story is that the woman who seems to have spear-headed the protest - Gemma Kelsall - has received hate mail and harassment because of this. The CBC reports that Gemma said:

"I have received over a 100 pieces of hate mail in the last two days via my Facebook [group]. People searching me out — strangers. I've been looking at the CBC website and there's over 800 comments this morning, most of them saying we're wrong, we're child abusers, we're disgusting... but I have also got a lot of support and love. I don't want to turn this into a bad news story, 'cause it's really a good news story."

I think it's really sad that some people think the act of breastfeeding in public is "disgusting" and dare to call these women "child abusers." Breastfeeding is the most natural and nurturning thing, and once again (I cannot say this enough), I applaud Gemma and the other women involved for standing up for this important issue.

Calgary Mom's Plan Breastfeeding Protest

The CBC reports that a group of mothers plan to breastfeed their babies in the Killarney pool on Sunday morning to protest what they say is harassment from lifeguards.

A number of women are saying that when they have breastfed their babies in the water or on the pool deck, lifeguards have told them they can't breastfeed there and they must go into the change room.

Calgary aquatics manager Jim McDonald says "The intention of the staff is to provide information to the mothers just to prevent the possibility of ingestion of water," but that doesn't explain why women nursing on the pool deck are asked to go into change rooms.

I applaud the mothers for taking a stand on the issue of public breastfeeding. It drives me crazy that breasts are flaunted all over our billboards and media and we love to see them in a sexual context, but when boobs are doing what nature designed them to do - feeding a baby - nobody wants to see that.

What do "Normal Breasts" Look Like?

Ok, so I admit this is kind of weird, but I guarantee that it will make you feel good. While I was randomly surfing the net, I found a website that has a photo gallery of natural breasts. Women of all ages, shapes and sizes can submit images of their breasts to this gallery. The purpose of the gallery is to let women (and men) see what NORMAL, natural breasts look like.

"A huge proportion of American women are not happy with their breasts. The media images make them believe the ideal is big and perky breasts with a small nipple and areola. But, in reality female breasts come in all kinds of sizes and shapes. These breast pictures are here to let you see normal breasts - big, small, sagging, asymmetrical; big areolas or nipples. Many young people growing up never see what normal natural breasts look like, and influenced by the media, think that pert big breasts are ideal."

I looked through a few of the gallery pages and thought it was really neat. It definitetly shows you that most women's breasts look nothing like the ones we see on TV, in pornos and such. And if looking at this gallery doesn't make you feel better about your own ta-tas, then take comfort in knowing that 89% of men perfer real breasts over fake ones!