Breast Binding

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

I find the practice of breast binding so abhorrent.

Breast binding is the act of flattening breasts by the use of constrictive materials. The term also refers to the material used in this act. Common binding materials include cloth strips, elastic or non-elastic bandages, purpose-built undergarments (often using Spandex or other synthetic fibre) and shirts layered from tight to loose. The act of breast binding is common for trans men, but is also done by androgynous, genderqueer and gender fluid people, as well as crossdressers and performers.
Breast binding by use of cloth strip or tape may result in bodily damage such as permanent deformation of the breast.

I am repulsed that this is somehow being normalised. I read the extract below from the blog of the fantastic Renee G in NZ. How widespread is it in the UK and elsewhere, and at what age is it being put into practice? Is it in schools yet?

Lesbian women are already suffering from ideas gaining traction that gender non-conformity might make them male. I know several young women who struggle with the popular undermining of female only same-sex attraction in a new age of “male lesbians”. This is not hysteria, but one real and devastating consequence of attempts to radically redefine sex.

RainbowYouth has been distributing breast binders in schools, ostensibly for born “transmen” – but we know teenage girls suffer discomfort with their bodies in this climate of objectification we live in. Consider Northland teenager Zahra Cooper, a young lesbian who was put on a course of testosterone that permanently altered her body and voice before she recognised she is inalterably female.

Thankyou for that info woman

In my youth, if some company was giving out free breast binders to teens, there would have been warnings to parents on programmes like watchdog and pebble mill, and some worthy and personable doctor would be wheeled out to tell everyone why it was such a bad idea. My grandmothers were of an age when liberty bodices freed young girls from the damaging effects of corseting. Times have changed and it is not progress.

Next you'll be justifying fgm.

I don't think anyone was justifying. Just pointing out the impossible choices women are forced into when there are no legal protections or enforced safeguarding of minors.

For the record: I obviously condemn breast ironing, even if it is carried out by a mother trying to prevent her 12-year-old daughter being married off to a middle-aged man.

Terf I understand your rage about this subject, but I think right now it's clouding your comprehension skills. No-one on this thread is justifying breast binding or breast ironing. No-one thinks it's right that mothers mutilate their daughters. What we are drawing attention to is the utter horror of living in a society where your choices as a mother come down to two equal horrific options - mutilate your child's breasts, or allow her to be enslaved and raped by an older man (which is what child marriage is). For some women there is no 3rd option - to allow their daughters to grow to adulthood free from the fear of male violence - out there. That lack of a third option is the fault of the men who see nothing wrong with raping and enslaving children within marriage.

Starting to wish I hadn’t mentioned breast ironing, but I could see some parallels with binding. 🤷‍♀️

We need to raise awareness about chest binding...it's happening in our schools right now and doubt many realise.

I agree with Fermat's and the others around that post.

Male sexual interest in too-young girls results in awful things happening all over the world.

Breast binding, I am sure, is NOT happening just with girls with gender dysphoria. When I was at school girls starved themselves and wore baggy clothes to try and disguise breasts. Now they can bind them. The reason, to try to avoid sexual inerest from men. Why this totally obvious link is not being made in the mainstream, is boggling, but I suppose understandable in a sexist society.

"This thread is about breast binding, which is a particular form of self harm resulting from gender dysphoria"

This - I don't think this is true.

It was common among my peers to try and minimise / disguise breasts through various means, when I was at school. Because of unwanted male attention.

The problem is that it is politically correct to support a girl who binds her breasts, and transphobic to suggest that it is a form of self harm.

The campaign to lower the age at which mastectomies are permitted is in part to prevent the harm that can come from binding...… Go figure..

Another aspect (speculation only) is the comfort that some autistic children get from a sensory compression vest. I am just wondering if an anxious (probably undiagnosed) autistic teenage girl might het comfort form the breast binder?

Like a weighted blanket...good point.

*Sardine
"This thread is about breast binding, which is a particular form of self harm resulting from gender dysphoria"

This - I don't think this is true.*

This statement I believe to be true: breast binding is a particular form of self harm resulting from gender dysphoria.

This statement I believe also to be true: it is common amongst pubescent girls to try and minimise / disguise breasts through various means, when at school. Because of unwanted male attention

Why is the first statement false because the second one is also true?

Isn't the second statement actually a common example of minor bodily dysphoria which a lot of us have experienced?

I remember the ‘minimiser’ bras M&S sold in the 90s - clear evidence that many women are uncomfortable with unwanted sexual attention that boobs attract. It’s a problem as old as time, but not one that TW seem to share, given to how much they revel in their version of femininity.

FermatsTheorem

I can understand your criticism of my comments but the phrase "you can understand their intent" used by boat, to me, is a paraphrasing of justification.

Why include the phrase at all if not to justify the action.

Are there really only two choices open to these mothers? Are you actually saying that you would do this?

There's a difference, surely, between breast minimisation measures and breast binding, which like the outlawed foot binding, incurs severe, long term damage

I used to wear a minimiser bra because my breasts were too big to be in fashion in the 90s 😳

I think minimiser bras and liberty bodices are OK - not judging :) Much better than breast binding ...

I know of at least 2 adult women (both married to men) who had breast reduction surgery in their 20's. Both of them were fed up with the weight and discomfort but also, very tellingly because of the unwanted male attention they got.
Neither have regretted their surgery, despite the pain and scarring. Both were happy still to have breasts, just smaller ones.
Both of them previously dressed to minimise their breasts. Both complained about how men talked to them/looked at their breasts - especially at work.

Minimiser bras should have been called redistribution bras. They just squished them sideways into your armpits so you couldn’t put your arms down properly. Uncomfortable and useless.

I've also heard to women who have had breast reduction surgery because of the weight of their big breasts leading back and shoulder problems

If you have a big bust you go through life with men talking to your breasts, not your face.
With them "accidentally" brushing against them, making unwanted comments, if I had to count the times a version of "not many of them to the pound" or "don't run love, you'll get a black eye" I wouldn't need to win the lottery.

I want bras that hold them in, not stick them out, that stop them bouncing, not thrust them up and out. Minimiser bras might have squeezed them sideways, but they did keep it under control.

I also know a young woman in her 20's who has had breast reduction surgery for all the above reasons.

If breast binding had been around in the '70s, I would absolutely have tried to get one.

Lots of women and girls dislike their bodies, not because there is anything wrong with their body or because they don't know what 'gender' they should be, but because of the unwelcome attention of males.

These girls are chest binding with a view to being transmen, though.

It’s probably a spectrum (just like gender ) from minimiser bras on one end, to binding in the middle, to double mastectomy on the other. It’s all part of the same problem, that women don’t generally particularly enjoy (understatement) being constantly ogled by men everywhere they go, and having (big) breasts seems to invite this. I think that quite a large chunk of the motivation to be a transman probably comes from a desire to be treated like and seen as a person, rather than as a woman and therefore a sex object

Terf - what would I do? I don't know, is the answer. It is easy for me to sit here comfortably in my middle class existence and fantasize about being the brave, awkward individual who bucked the social norms around me and made a stand against the familial and social pressures surrounding me and refused to iron my daughter's breasts. I'd like to imagine I'd be a hero. Whether I would be, I don't know.

The practice is at its most prevalent in Cameroon, and interestingly, there's conflicting reports on where it takes place. A lot of reports presume that it's confined to poor, rural areas with low education levels, but I've also read one report suggesting it's more prevalent in cities, driven partly by higher levels of sexual violence in crowded cities, and partly by desire to ensure your daughters stay in education. Cameroon has one of the highest rates of female literacy in Africa, but also has high rates of child marriage (something like a quarter of girls are married before they're 18) and teen pregnancy (about 20% IIRC give birth while still teenagers).

It is a horrific practice, with long-term after effects (abscesses and destruction of functional breast tissue).

Back on the topic of the thread though - I simply don't get how schools and youth organisations can condone breast binding when it is so obviously damaging. I presume it's because the likes of Mermaids send round endless literature telling teachers that kids will commit suicide if they're not allowed to bind their breasts - which for me rather suggests we need much, much better mental health care for adolescents, not turning a blind eye while they mutilate themselves.

A while back someone posted an horrific picture of the long-term effects of breast binding.

I can understand your criticism of my comments but the phrase "you can understand their intent" used by boat, to me, is a paraphrasing of justification

Whereas to me, it's empathy with a horrific decision these women make, whilst not condoning it at all.

Sometimes you don't get to opt out of making a decision, and neither choice is a good one. It's that boxcar philosophy problem isn't it - which path do you choose, given two terrible outcomes.