Bound and Free

Not as contradictory as it may seem actually, to be bound and free-—particularly in my case of binding my breasts…

Over the course of my life, I’ve tried to have an amiable relationship with my breasts. I suspect, like many other little female-bodied tomboys, it was the boys around us with whom we ran around the neighborhood and schoolyards through which we first encountered the negative power of breasts to separate “us” from “them.”

But, as an undergrad in college with a growing feminist consciousness, I grew to realize that this was my body, my self, and that coming to peaceful terms with it would serve me in the future more so than continuing to be a war with myself. Hence the beginnings of my body modifications—piercings, tattoos, and cuttings. Through these alterations—-personalizations of the canvas that was my skin--I claimed my body as my own.

Working out has been yet another way in which I have been altering the landscape (both interior and exterior) of my body to my own likings. It’s true that the endorphins released from physical activity make for a good natural high.

Still, there has been a growing unrest within me—centered on others’ perceptions of my gender identity (note: NOT my gender identity, but its reception), attributed in large part to my breasts. When I saw the way in which a transman friend of mine started to carry himself differently when he was bound, I grew curious and got binders of my own.

And, I have to say, while by no means are they perfect, they definitely make a huge difference. Binding flattens my chest in a way that secures my breasts to me—-I’m still aware that they’re there, but the closeness with which they are pressed to me conveys to me, and I think to others as well, that I am the man I say I am. I stand taller, holding my shoulders back, unafraid to walk upright. I feel evolved.

The clothes I’ve worn for decades finally fit in the way they were designed to, and perhaps my favorite thing—-the comfort with which my messenger bag strap lays flatly across my chest.



They seems like such small things…the fit of a shirt, the angle of a strap, others using my name and pronoun of choice, but all things which go a long way in making a big difference in having peace and freedom...