What is My Body Doing?!

-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.

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

your dress and makeup is now a DISGUISE

your ‘birth name’ is now an ALIAS

getting told by your parents to be nice and not yell at anyone being racist is MISSION BRIEFING

your entire extended family are now FOREIGN DIGNITARIES and you gotta make it thru the evening without being discovered as a RADICAL SPY

carrying a small water pistol and one of those fake-lipstick pens in your purse helps to get in the zone. the best part of being a spy is the nifty gadgets everyone knows that.

Janelle Monáe - Django Jane/I Like That  Live on The Bet Awards 2018 

What’s even more amazing is that he used to be almost completely nonverbal and through his art he’s been able to become completely independent and self-sufficient and is now a successful artist who owns his own gallery where he sells his drawings and people come from all over to buy his art. He is fully verbal and communicative and most people who meet him don’t even realize that he has autism.

Like I said, this dude is fucking amazing.

My heart warmed up so much when I saw this angel at parade today.

happy pride to everyone who’s been kicked out

happy pride to everyone who lives somewhere where it is illegal to love who they love

“i believe with every cell in my body that every cell in yours must not, must never, die, and if it does have to die, let it die inside my body”