The Shitty Titty Committee was unofficially born in Busselton in 2023, founded by women with fewer nipples and more surgical scars than your average group chat.
It started when Carol, five years past her own breast cancer diagnosis, came across Kate’s story not long after Kate’s diagnosis and reached out. From the first messages, it was clear they spoke the same language: dark humour, fierce honesty and zero time for pity.
They first met in person at a photoshoot for the Boobie Ball. Kate was still in the thick of chemo, bald but certainly not quiet, and the two hit it off immediately.
Not long after, Kate came along to the Boobie Ball, an event celebrating Carol’s 5 year cancerversary, fresh from a 13 hour surgery with two new boobs and a newly sewn up tummy, proudly celebrating what she called “not dying.”
A group chat followed, and things escalated hilariously from there as more women joined. Some with one breast, some with none, some with lopsided boobs, reconstructed boobs, tattooed nipples or no nipples at all. All of them had been through the wringer and weren’t afraid to talk about it, loudly, lovingly and often with wine or coffee.
The name Shitty Titty Committee came from Kate, a brutally accurate and brilliantly inappropriate way of summing up what felt like the worst club with the best damn people.
But as the Committee grew, so did the idea behind it.
We realised just how important it was to have people around you who genuinely get it, not just during treatment, but through everything that comes before, during and long after. We wanted women facing breast cancer in Busselton and across the South West to have that same connection. Someone to talk to, someone to laugh with and people who understand the stuff that can be hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.
But we also wanted to do more than connect people. We wanted to offer practical, meaningful help to local women when breast cancer suddenly turns their lives upside down.
So, the Shitty Titty Committee has grown from an unofficial group chat into a Busselton based not for profit organisation, created to provide practical support to women affected by breast cancer in our local community while connecting them with others who have walked a similar path.
Because sometimes you need practical help. Sometimes you need advice from someone who’s been there. And sometimes you just need to sit with someone who understands why you’re laughing about something that really shouldn’t be funny.
We may not have matching boobs, or any at all, but what we do have is each other.
And that’s everything.
Because no one should have to go through this shit alone.
