Breastbinders, the new corsets for women

[Driechdrizzle]

Not going to call them chestbinders, because that hides what they are and what they are doing to women's bodies. They're for flattening and disguising women's breasts.

So many things to question about the trans movement, but why are none of these "woke" people noticing the glaring misogyny in women/female people using painful and harmful contraptions on the female parts of their bodies to modify or reshape them? I'm sure they'd disapprove of "cis" (their word) women getting plastic breast implants to fit a pornified ideal, so why is there this acceptance of erasing or removing breasts?

This article is a case in point. The writer it is planning a double mastectomy which the writer is dreading unsurprisingly because the chest binders are causing injury. They caused shoulder dislocation which the writer is claiming it's because of an autoimmune disorder. The binders were also making the writer's hands go numb.

There's also this:

This is the binder that comes out on days where I’d normally have to force myself to leave the house in a sports bra and a baggy shirt because my whole body hurts. This is a step up from that and it allows me to take breaks from the more intense binding I usually engage with while mitigating the feeling of wanting to give myself to the sea.

www.autostraddle.com/shapeshifters-bespoke-binders-put-fun-on-your-chest/

Old school feminism, radical feminism was in part about helping women/female people accept and love their bodies. How is this attack on breasts and female bodies progressive? It's no different from Victorian women being laced into corsets to give them 17 inch waists, dislocating their ribs and shifting their internal organs in the process and causing them to faint. I do not get it in the slightest, apart from the fact that patriarchy wants female humans to be in pain the whole time and some of us are only too happy to comply.

I think the WHO announcement that it's not a mental illness is doing and will do huge harm.

First explore what's wrong.

Is the child/teen suffering sexual abuse, emotional manipulation or damaged family dynamics, developing homosexuality in a homophobic environment, autistic and struggling with relationships and interactions that become more frightening and baffling as the body changes and attracts unsought attention... ?

Deal with the developing and incomplete mind and brain before inflicting permanent chemical and surgical change on the body.

It is the new socially acceptable self harm.

Men don't care as these mostly young lesbians, and girls who aren't "feminine" enough, are of no use to them sexually.

Young females who are solely sexually attracted to other females are being fed lies that they must actually be boys then, because lesbians are apparently attracted to gender not sex.

These poor girls are being failed on every level.

You mean amputation, not "surgical intervention". Please use the right words

Indeed. It is deeply unethical to use twee, wrong or obfuscatory language when discussing surgical procedures.

The correct term is 'elective double mastectomy which is not medically necessary or indicated', not 'top surgery' or any other such childish rubbish. Grow up and confront what you are advocating.

There will be male surgeons who actively enjoy cutting off healthy female breasts. Think on that.

In fact they're probably the only ones who'd be volunteering to do this procedure. Doctors who become doctors to heal people wouldn't do this sort of thing.

Does anyone like periods though Ginger?

I think that is the whole point. Trans people seem to think they have the monopoly on body dysphoria when it is extremely common. I was extremely ashamed of my female body, and in fact tried to flatten my breasts as well as being horrified at having periods. If someone had told teenage me that removing the breasts was an option I would have jumped at it. If someone had told me there was a hormone blocker to stop my periods I would also have snapped their hands off to get hold of it and not cared about the long term impact. I was also convinced I was obese to the point of starving, using laxatives and purging, strange how nobody is offering liposuction or weight loss surgery for teenagers with that kind of dysphoria or body distortion.

It has taken many years to make friends with my female body and that is the true answer to dysphoria, not mutilating your body.

I think people got the wrong end of the stick with my post - I don’t see ‘boy’ and ‘sluttily’ as opposites, nor do I think it’s a bad thing to enjoy sex or want to feel sexy. Using that word was really to try and illustrate the difference between the two. I don’t feel like a woman or a girl or female but nor do I feel like a boy or a man or male, it’s just hard to express how I look and what I wear without using stereotypes in a world which is so heavily reliant on them.
I like sex, and sometimes I feel sexy wearing short things and wearing make up (though most of the time my makeup is very experimental - think Bowie) and that was what I was trying to put across in fewer words. I’m sorry if the meaning was minced!

Also I do think therapy, education and mental health support is needed, but under the government at the moment (in the uk, not sure elsewhere) the tories have starved the services. My partner has been on a waiting list for psychotherapy for 3 years now, even attempting suicide in that time. Money needs to be put into these services because kids and adults alike need that help.

I don’t feel like a woman or a girl or female but nor do I feel like a boy or a man or male

Have you considered that you don't 'feel like' any of these things, because none of them are feelings - they are descriptors of biological reality.

it’s just hard to express how I look and what I wear without using stereotypes in a world which is so heavily reliant on them.

If you said that sometimes you like to dress in a masculine style and sometimes in a feminine style, I think we'd all understand what you meant. None of this changes your sex though, and saying that something that some of us have been doing for 50-odd years is new and groundbreaking and makes you 'non-binary' instead of just 'normal' sounds ridiculous to those of us who remember the 70s and 80s.

ACatWhoBinds

Nobody 'feels' like a woman or girl or female or a man or boy or male. These things are not 'feelings' they are words used to describe material realities. You are female, no matter how you feel, no matter what you do. You always will be.

People telling you otherwise are lying to you. I am very sorry they are doing that. It is wrong and it will not ever help you feel better about your body.

I don’t feel like a woman or a girl or female but nor do I feel like a boy or a man or male

I think you’ll find that most of us here would concur - That not only do we not feel specifically male or female, but indeed that there is no way to “feel” that is distinctly and universally male or female*. The difference is that we accept this is the case, whereas among genderists, the dogma is that people have a strong, biologically determined feeling of being male or female, and that this feeling is central to life and far more important than the reality of sex.

• exceptions to this would be, eg, when giving birth or breastfeeding obviously I experienced an experience that only a female can feel. For men ejaculation would be analogous - my husband can not describe to me what that feels like.

Using that word was really to try and illustrate the difference between the two.

I guess what I would encourage you to do is to interrogate why you have an association between “female” and “being sexy” and an opposite association between “male” and feeling neutral/normal.

My guess would be you will find patriarchy / misogyny at the end of that inquiry process. It’s worth considering why we have certain feelings or make certain choices, because they are not made in a vacuum. If we are to demand that of our opponents on the right (“why do you feel disgusted when you see two men kiss? Why do you find theories about white people being inherently smarter interesting?” Etc) we should be just as willing to query our own choices dispassionately

By the way ACat I sincerely hope you and your partner will be able to get help with your mental health. I worry that governments are spending far too much on unproven medical interventions so there is less available for treatments that actually work (like CBT or treatment for PTSD for those who have been traumatized).

@FWRLurker mental health support in the UK is a joke really. If the Tories get in again I honestly don’t know what to do. They’re starving the whole NHS and it’s brutal. My friend has endometriosis and was prescribed something (can’t remember the medication - sorry) that starts a chemical menopause. She was told she wasn’t ‘special’ enough to keep getting it as it was too expensive - that was the word they used and she has it recorded. Yet it’s the same medication used for IVF. Anyway, I digress, this probably isn’t the place for my rant about how the tories are buggering all but the1%!!

ACatWhoBinds
The thing is , that nobody “feels like a woman”, or at least no women I know. I feel like me. I don’t have a gender identity. Like everyone else I have a complex personality, and I like some things traditionally associated with women, and some things traditionally associated with men, and many things not associated with either. This is true of all my friends, male or female. That is what makes up a personality. So to assume that not feeling female has some significance, and that all other women go around feeling like women, is misplaced. All women feel different, all that they have in common is biology. The only times I have felt very conscious of being a woman, are the times when I was pregnant , breastfeeding etc. Things specific to female biology.

I see I cross posted with others !

Abysmal mental health provision underlies so much of this.

I would think that, but it seems to be down to the whole policy of affirmation if someone declares that they are the opposite sex. We should never have allowed the legal fiction of a GRC for a start, as that has led to the whole “I am a real woman, let that penetrate” type of behaviour.

Comparing elective mastectomy to C sections just gets more bizarre the more you think about it, and makes me suspect that anyone comparing the two as if they're in some way equivalent must have very odd attitudes towards both.

Many people argue that c-sections should be offered as a matter of patient choice, and that the question of doctors practicing according to evidence of least harm of best practice is irrelevent. So choosing a section for any reason, including ones unrelated to health questions, is fine, whatever the evidence suggests about risks - doctors have no role other than to do the patients wishes.

It's a very similar attitude, and the fact that we are so blasé about a major surgery done at levels well above what would be considered advisable for optimal health outcomes is not divorced from the fact that we are blasé about surgery in general.

I would point out that mental health services have been a disaster for decades, under governments of all stripes. They are simply not a priority even for the most serious conditions.

Deliberately creating a mental health crisis, as gender ideologists are doing, on top of the long standing mental health crisis is unconscionable. It is one of the things I find most distasteful about them. One of an endless list of things.

The analogy with elective C sections, even for maternal request and no other reason falls down because once you are pregnant the baby has to come out one way or another, and there is no risk free way of this happening that doesn't put you at some level of risk of ongoing morbidity - ask any woman whose pelvic floor has been comprehensively knackered by a vaginal birth and severe tearing.

Don't have a mastectomy... well, your breasts carry on as they were before, perfectly healthy parts of your body (regardless of any mental health conditions which might make you feel distressed by their existence).

Goosefoot I think Barbara has point on C-sections not being a great analogy. I'm pretty sure you are already aware of my opposition to cosmetic surgery generally, not just trans related, as we have discussed it before. I'm also aware you are in North America which has a different culture around child birth. I do find it worrying that some countries have way higher rates of elective C-sections than others but I'm not sure removing the option from mother's control is the best approach rather than providing better support for women before, during and after labour. It isn't a clear cut case in the way breast enlargements or facelifts are.

Again with the "we", Goosefoot. Please stop assuming that. We as in the women here have varied views on C sections. It's still a bad analogy regardless of what those views are as, as Barbara said, a baby has to come out in some way regardless, but barring cancer there's no reason why breasts shouldn't stay as is - "do nothing" is and should be the default.

My friend has endometriosis and was prescribed something (can’t remember the medication - sorry) that starts a chemical menopause. She was told she wasn’t ‘special’ enough to keep getting it as it was too expensive - that was the word they used and she has it recorded. Y

WTF? It's bad enough that they're cutting services without using that sort of language towards patients.

I honestly think that if more resources were directed to mental health it would pay dividends in other areas. When people who would have been best served by mental health intervention end up in the regular medical system instead that's generally a worst case outcome from every perspective.