Genderqueer massage therapist helps with chest binding pain

[QuietContraryMary]

Yes, it's perfectly normal guys. (Also in the pipeline, foot binding and neck stretching.)

"The class is a workshop for people who bind — a practice that involves wearing a tight sports bra or other constricting undergarment to help flatten the chest, sometimes for extended periods of time. For people who identify as transgender or gender-nonconforming and were assigned female at birth, binding can be essential to appearing more masculine — or simply feeling more comfortable in their own bodies.

But for some people, especially those who constrict their chest for many hours a day, sometimes over several years, the practice can take a serious physical toll, leading to sharp muscle pain, shortness of breath and bad posture.

That's why Reed, a massage therapist who identifies as genderqueer and uses the pronouns they and them, started teaching these classes about six years ago at Freed Bodyworks, the Capitol Hill wellness center Reed founded that caters to the LGBTQ community, including gender-nonconforming people."

""We provide a place where, for two hours, people are in here only with others experiencing the same thing," Reed said. "They find out other people are in as much pain as they are. There's just this instant sense of relief of not being alone.""

"Connor Cory first started getting massages from Freed Bodyworks a few years ago, when he had just started law school and had recently begun openly identifying as a transgender man. Through one-on-one massages and group binding classes, Cory has learned how to mitigate extreme back pain and poor alignment after years of binding, he said. Massage therapists at Freed Bodyworks have also helped him loosen up scar tissue from undergoing chest surgery about two years ago."

"Reed has seen clients who have traveled from rural areas hours away. Some don't have the resources to pursue top surgery in their communities and rely on binding for up to 12 hours a day to "pass" in their places of work, in industries such as construction. Reed described another client, a 17-year-old, who suffered such excruciating rib pain from binding that he sometimes had to go home from high school."

"Minimal research has been conducted on the health impacts of binding. But one survey published in 2016, the Binding Health Project, found that physical discomfort was almost universal among transgender adults who bind. More than 97 percent of the 1,800 survey participants said they had experienced a negative health outcome, including back pain, overheating, chest pain, shortness of breath, itching and bad posture."

"It wasn't until after Reed had started teaching binding classes that the practice took a toll on their own life. After working as a massage therapist in a binder every day for years, Reed developed such a severe shoulder injury that they were unable to lift their right arm and were forced to take five months off work as a massage therapist.

"I couldn't wear a binder at all for those five months. I couldn't even wear a traditional bra because the pain was so severe," Reed said. "The gender dysphoria that caused for me was huge.""

Er, link <a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20190106114047/www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/Genderqueer-massage-therapist-helps-with-chest-13508777.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190106114047/www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/Genderqueer-massage-therapist-helps-with-chest-13508777.php

Why am I so not surprised?

"its consequences "cannot be but hurtful. ... the veriest novice in anatomy understands how by this process almost every important organ is subjected to cramping pressure, its functions interfered with, and its relations to other structures so altered as to render it, even if it were itself competent, a positive source of danger to them. "

www.cnet.com/news/vintage-x-rays-reveal-the-hidden-effects-of-corsets/

So, given that binding is demonstrably harmful, how about people stop doing it? Rather than just trying to mitigate the harm after the fact?

It's like running a campaign about the effects of smoking with the recommendations being to get lots of fresh air and invest in a neti pot rather than suggesting that the best way to avoid lung cancer would be to stop doing the thing that's likely to cause it.

So, given that binding is demonstrably harmful, how about people stop doing it? Rather than just trying to mitigate the harm after the fact?

If they have genuine gender dysphoria, I don't think that is a fair thing to say. I wouldn't eg say why don't anorexics eat or why don't people stop cutting themselves. I suspect that their emotional distress at their sexed bodies means that this is the only way they feel that they can be. There are also lots of other practices that people engage in that mutilate the body and which I don't understand, but I don't feel it's my place to question.

I have no issue with specific help with binding or showing them how it can be done safely if they are going to do it anyway.

Pink News
'Groundbreaking study shows health effects of binding among trans people'
Joseph Patrick McCormick 7th February 2017

A groundbreaking study has looked at the health benefits and risks of binding among trans people.

The study, believed to be the first to look a the effects of binding on trans people, was released by the Binding Health Project at Boston University.

1,800 people were asked about how they bind and the effects it has on their health.

Chest binding is usually practiced by trans men and non-binary people to flatten their chest.

Commercial chest binders are available but many also use bandages, cling film, duct tape and sports bras.

Many in the study said that binding was a “daily occurrence”, for an average of ten hours.

More than 97 percent of respondents said they had experience one or more negative health effect from binding.

The effects included pain, overheating and shortness of breath.

Fifty people said they were subjected to fractured ribs as a result of their binding.

Unusually, commercial binders were the most commonly associated with the negative effects, and those using them on the whole reported experiencing 20 out of 28 listed health effects.

Other materials, according to the study, proved less harmful to the health of the binder than the commercial binders, with just 13 out of the 28 negative health effects listed by people using these.

Sarah Peitzmeier, a researcher, was surprised to find the results about commercial binders.

She said that they are usually the safest as they are specially designed, and that the injuries or other negative health impacts could be down to them being used incorrectly “for example layering multiple binders on top of each other or using a binder that is a size too small for greater compression.”

Many said they did not seek advice from a health professional despite being in pain.

“My impression is awareness of binding is relatively low in the medical community,” added Peitzmeier.

“Even medical professionals who know about binding aren’t really sure how to assess it clinically, what the potential health impact of binding could be, and what safer binding practices they should recommend to patients.”

From those asked in the study, many said they would keep binding despite negative health risks, given the relief it gives them from their gender dysphoria.

Those conducting the study recommended taking “off days” from binding if possible, and to use extra caution when using commercial binders that the correct size and fit is used.

They recommended not using cling film or duct tape for binding.

The study was conducted by the Binding Health Project in order to empower trans people and their medical professionals, by educating about how to bind safely.

“We want medical professionals to support people who bind in making decisions to maximise their physical and mental health,” continues Peitzmeier."

www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/02/07/groundbreaking-study-shows-health-effects-of-binding-among-trans-people/

so despite reporting actual health risks. The 'health benefit' is a perceived feeling

recent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3447751-Pink-news-looking-for-girls-for-a-video-on-binding

" I wouldn't eg say why don't anorexics eat or why don't people stop cutting themselves."

Er, you what?

We don't encourage anorexics NOT to eat, which would be the equivalent of what's going on here.

This doesn't seem to be about doing something safely so much as promoting something that causes pain, and promoting the idea of breasts being something you have to remove or hide.

Well for starters, if I’m getting any part of my anatomy massaged I really like to know if it’s a bloke or a woman.

My friend binds. It makes them uncomfortable, but nowhere near as uncomfortable as not binding. If there is something that would ease that discomfort then that is a good thing no?

There would be a whole lot less use for chiropodists if people wouldn't insist on wearing ill and odd fitting shoes. Or chiropractors if people would use their bodies as intended and not sit at desks all day.

There is no way to bind safely. More safely than with ace bandages, sure, but the practice is inherently harmful.

If you actually would attempt to advise anorexics on ways not to eat "safely" then that's unwise and unethical too.

My first unkind thought was also that I can think of lots of people who'd jump at the chance to volunteer to perform chest massage on young female people, too, Fekko.

This has come up in, of all places, Emmerdale this week.

Their transman character is shown struggling to keep up during a couple of workouts with other characters due to sweating, breathlessness and pain caused by a binder. They also had an assault scene where an ex-boyfriend (from pre-transition, the character is now trying to date women) knocked them to the floor and lifted their clothes.

I found it interesting that they even touched on the problems a transman may experience with binding, and wished they could have explained exactly what it is and why it causes these problems, but am a bit that they now have the character deciding to push for "top surgery" as a solution.

The whole thing so far has been handled quite well for a tv drama, will be interesting to see where they take it.

Makes me think of foot binding.

But this is to help people who do bind and try to reduce pain and injuries. Not to try to entice the general population to do it. I appreciate that binding causes health problems, but I have no issue with people receiving targeted support to try to reduce injuries.

Still a bit "let's get that anorexic on a more healthy 800 calories a day and under diet", honestly.

A century on from female bodies escaping heavy duty corseting and lacing , that shoved organs out of place and made free movement difficult , and they are doing this to themselves. 😔

For people who bind, most of them have a serious psychological condition and binding makes them feel better. Saying ‘just don’t do it’ probably isn’t that helpful. Same with other behaviour that’s not good and that we don’t want to encourage- eg schemes like clean needles for drug addicts or providing condoms to underage teens or sex workers. The point is to try to encourage them to do it safely.

I don't think that's true at all. Social contagion is leading to lots of young women binding for reasons that would not have been recognized as gender dysphoria even 5 or 10 years ago.

Perhaps... But if these people are adults... Lots of people used to say that sex education and contraception in schools encouraged underage sex. I am guessing these people will do it anyway- not sign up just because someone is running a class to help those who do it. I don’t have gender dysphoria so I don’t know what it’s like to feel enormous distress at my own body, but I think ‘just don’t do it’ is probably too simplistic.

I also don’t like people slicing their bodies open and inserting bags of silicone into their chests for cosmetic reasons, but I know that I wouldn’t eg want to stop a website helping people do it safely (eg reputable surgeon, don’t go abroad etc). There’s loads of body mutilation going on, but some of it is normalised and some is not.

It always reminds me of foot binding too. And it's always women who undergo these long-term painful body alteration practices too, isn't it? FGM, foot binding, neck rings, whale bone corsets...

I imagine I feel a fraction of the pain of binding when I wear one of my sports bras which is too small, as it was bought when I was much skinnier than I am now. I get back and shoulder pain within an hour.

I personally don't feel that expanding the range of normalized bodily mutilation is a good thing. Others may disagree.

It is funny how it's always female bodies that just "need" to be controlled, reined in, made less visible, isn't it?

That quoted extract in the OP seemed to imply that a binder is some kind of ‘non- traditional bra’?

That would be like saying foot binding constrictors are a non-traditional form of shoes. Just absolutely no.

Important article by Lily Maynard which shows the reality of binders on young female bodies.

There is a very moving and powerful enbedded video by Kat who has come to profound realisations about the relationship with binding, self harm and abuse. As part of Kat's commitment to a healthier future, she cuts up the binder.

lilymaynard.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/im-feeling-ecstatic-and-scared-and-mums-feeling-sick-young-women-binding/

An example of a non-traditional bra would be the ones that have decorative and entirely non-functional extra straps. Not a device designed to make it look as if the wearer has no breasts at all.

Well, stopping support services isn’t going to have a great effect imo. Same as stopping support services in other areas.

I see what you mean re female bodies but obv TW often take estrogen which also brings about significant changes. I just think that if we as a society tolerate quite serious body modifications through surgery and fillers and waist-training but then say that a support group to teach people who bind to do so safely, it’s a bit hypocritical.

Good and I would rather safer binding for a few years and then cut the binder up than having an irreversible mastectomy. But I do appreciate that I don’t know what it’s like to have GD and that some people will feel that having a mastectomy is better than feeling distress at their body.