Tig Notaro: People Saw My Double Mastectomy As 'Free Top Surgery'

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Tig Notaro allowed her emotional breast cancer diagnosis and double mastectomy to be chronicled in the new documentary "Tig," but behind the scenes, the comedian's procedure was being met with a very different reaction.

"I had a few people congratulate me," Notaro recalled in a HuffPost Live conversation on Wednesday. "I guess when you make a decision that's not medical to remove your breasts, it's called top surgery. I wasn't familiar with it, and I'd never wanted that, [but] people congratulated me on my free top surgery."

Notaro, who's long been an out-and-proud lesbian, felt that congrats were out of order. 

"I was like, 'I never wanted that -- I'm in a bad place,'" she recounted.

But while the stand-up performer wasn't transitioning in the way others may have assumed, Notaro explained how her surgery did, in fact, lead her to embrace a different mindset.

"More than any sort of gender or sexuality issues, more than anything, I felt back in touch with being a kid," she said. "I didn't have reconstructive surgery, and just lounging aroud and looking down at myself and seeing a flat t-shirt, I felt like I was 8 again, and so there was king of this lighter place that I got to. It was a weird transition."

Tig Notaro's stand-up special "Tig Notaro: Boyish Girl Interrupted" airs Saturday, Aug. 22 on HBO.

Watch more from Tig Notaro's conversation with HuffPost Live here.

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