Contested Reconstructions" explores the dichotomy between a double mastectomy as part of treatment for breast cancer and top surgery as part of gender transition/transformation. The music and text work together to explore the fracture and (re)construction of physical embodiment. I am not interested in portraying a straightforward picture of transness or femininity, of queerness or heterosexuality, but am interested instead in the boundaries and the ambiguities, the struggle for definition when there aren�t words. This piece revolves around a medical procedure that carries intense circumstantial/contextual meanings, and the contradictions of investment in surgery as necessary cure or chosen vehicle of transformation.