Her signature dish

Lily Maynard takes an in-depth look at Sidhbh Gallagher, a woman who is making a lot of money cutting girls’ breasts off.

Between 2015 and 2018 she reports that she performed more than 200 surgeries on trans-identified people, removing and reconstructing body parts and tissue in what she calls ‘gender affirmation surgery’.

Her practice specialises in performing elective double mastectomies on gender dysphoric young women at a cost of around $9-12,000. ‘Top surgery’ is her signature dish, but there are plenty of other strings to Gallagher’s bow- and she offers something for the lads as well.

She’ll cut their testicles off for a price.

It’s Spring 2018. “Summer is coming!” Gallagher reminds her followers, retweeting photos of a selection of the young women whose healthy breasts she has removed. Once you’ve had your breasts cut off, of course, there’s no need for the T shirt or bikini top that society expects women to ‘cover up’ with.  Let the fun times begin!

Hm. Which is more irksome – wearing a T shirt or having your breasts cut off? I think I’m going to go with door number 2.

Lily provides screenshots of a bunch of tweets showing post-mastectomy women enjoying the luxury of being outside with no shirt on, and a string of frivolous remarks by Gallagher about the awesomeness of the surgically-altered chest. Such as:

‘Monday morning masculoplasty motivation! Let’s make shirtless fall pictures a thing!’

That’s not creepy at all.

What about the ones with regrets?

In 2021 Gallagher recorded a short video for LGBTQ and ALL, on the importance of mental health.

She spoke of how some patients experience feelings of guilt or regret – or even become clinically depressed – after surgery. This could happen after any surgery, she hastens to add, but feelings of guilt and regret surrounding elective surgery can make it worse.  It’s important it is to encourage patients to plan in advance ‘while they’re in their right mind’ how they will deal with post-op depression, for example by booking an appointment with their therapist in advance.

Or they could avoid the post-op depression by not getting their tits cut off at all, but Gallagher doesn’t suggest that.

The darker side of ‘top surgery’, the physical and mental health issues that it may cause- or fail to resolve- is not one that young women tend to talk about on social media. Instagram is full of teenage girls who are convinced this surgery will be an answer to all their problems. Expressing regret is a great way to get yourself ostracised from the online community that lovebombs you before your own surgery; from the other girls who would do almost anything to fulfil their own ‘top surgery’ dream.

It sounds like any other cult. Most cults don’t cut women’s breasts off though.

Having your breasts removed with Dr Gallagher costs $9-$12,000. It’s hard to get all, if any of it covered on insurance. Many of Gallagher’s patients have worked two jobs, their parents have remortgaged their houses; some have crowdfunded for their surgery.

But it’s worth it, because you can go outside without a T shirt.

Gallagher has a startling social media presence and an attitude towards her potential clients like no other surgeon I’ve come across. The best word I can think of to describe it is frivolous. Nothing is serious. Everything will be fine! She is the cool, quirky big sister. 

Who will happily cut your breasts off, and tweet about it afterwards.

Gallagher’s TikTok account, where she has 191.1k followers and over 4 million ‘likes’, is if anything more surreal, featuring a variety of videos where she skips around like an excited, wide-eyed gazelle, erasing potential problems and complications from your ‘top surgery’ with a swish of the gender fairy’s wand and the occassional  swing from a jaunty ponytail.

It’s all just such fun.

Read the whole thing. It’s a long, detailed, horror-filled post, much more than the sample I’ve quoted. Read it all. You’ll regret it but it’s necessary. Not medically necessary, as Gallagher grotesquely insists breast-removal is, but necessary for the sake of resistance to this appalling reckless profit-making slicing and dicing of confused teenagers.

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