quixotic chaotic

This comic is very polite this is how life should be

And that's that on that.

Apparently I wasn't done 🤔

im so fucking sick of the dysphoria debate. sam smith comes out as nonbinary and the comments are like “but do you experience dysphoria?????” like what makes you think you get to ask such a personal question? when someone comes out and tells you how they identify thats all you have to know. respect them and move on. the fuck is wrong with y’all

yre all ignoring this post bc yre fuckin cowards who dont want to admit asking a trans person who just came out “but do you have dysphoria?” is the SAME as cis people asking “but have you had the surgery”

We really have harmed a whole generation of trans and gnc children by failing to communicate how serious a decision binding actually is, how there’s no ACTUALLY safe way to bind, how it permeneantly damages the body, how it can make top surgery more difficult in the future. I don’t think we should be keeping trans kids from binding (we let kids do all sorts of things they’re really not old enough to understand the potential consequences of) but we owe them the ability to make informed decisions at LEAST

So this is definitely an important conversation to have, but can you point me at some reading about “permanent damage”? I might just be lucky, but I had zero lasting effects from binding. I’d like to at least read up on it so I can have this conversation and be more specific than “be careful.”

Of course! I can’t easily source right now but I am more than happy to provide further info when I am not at work and on mobile. Unfortunately, like a lot of trans healthcare, a lot of what we know about binding is anecdotal and word of mouth. BUT permeneant damage can include:

-Musculoskeletal damage. Binders are indiscriminate compression tools; they can’t flatten the chest without applying pressure every other anatomical structure underneath including the spine, ribs, lungs and heart. Many people who bind experience chronic back pain, shoulder pain, sharp stabbing chest pains, permeneantly decreased lung capacity, literal spine deformation, etc etc.

-A continuation of the above but the ribs are actually jointed bones. Their ability to flex is absolutely vital to their ability to withstand trauma and protect your vital organs. Imagine the damage that would be done to your elbow if your bent your arm to full flexion and then tightly bound it closed like that, for six, eight, twelve hours per day, every day, for weeks or months or years. And you don’t NEED a functioning arm to live!

-Tissue atrophy. Forcing chest tissue to lay in an unnatural way can and will change the way that tissue looks, even to risk of atrophy. Some people who bind and only moderately dislike the way their chest looks find that they HATE the way it looks after binding for a period of time. Tissue atrophy can also make top surgery more difficult in the future, and increase the risk of complications like nerve damage.

-Worsened dysphoria. Once someone starts binding and becomes accustomed to seeing themselves with a flat chest, it can be much more difficult to see yourself without one, and dysphoria that much more intolerable. You can imagine the psychological feedback loop of binding more in response.

The typical safety measures passed around about binding are harm REDUCTION measures and should not be advertised as making binding “safe.” Binding is not safe. It is a very serious health decision with long term consequences and should be treated as such. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision, but it should not be considered the DEFAULT decision for chest dysphoria which is frankly how it’s currently treated.

gonna drop some links to read more:

Health impact of chest binding among transgender adults: a community-engaged, cross-sectional study Inside the Landmark, Long Overdue Study on Chest Binding  

Binding FAQ

Health Consequences of Chest Binding

@pooflyperfectprincess

Holy shit

In light of this incredibly important information that everyone should know before making this kind of decision, reminder that choosing not to bind does not lessen or invalidate your gender or your identity.

Some people (like me!) cannot bind. Ever. At all. I tried it very moderately for a very short time, but with my chronic illness I sometimes dislocate ribs just from breathing wrong or from sitting up out of bed, so binding went out the window for me very quickly. Whether someone has a health condition that prevents them, or they've decided to wait for top surgery, or they simply just don't feel like it that day or ever, their identity still deserves respect and is not dictated by how their chest looks.

I don’t give a flying fuck what you look like. If you tell me you’re a woman, then you’re a woman. If you tell me you’re a man, then you’re a man. If you tell me you’re more than one gender or non-binary or agender or anything else, then that’s what you are. That’s your call to make, not mine.

If you’re not telling the truth for some reason, I’ll still respect that, because I understand that it’s sometimes easier to misgender yourself than to endanger yourself, or maybe you’re just not comfortable coming out to me or the other people around you. Again, your call.

And if the next time we meet you tell me you’re a different gender, then guess what! I’m going to respect that, too.

cartoons can teach us so much :)