The first stage, as I approach the mirror, is to hold my breasts apart and flat down with my hands. I turn to see the side profile of the body I wish to have naturally, in the future. I try to get a picture of how I want my chest to look, before I bind.
As I do this so often, it’s rare that I’ll feel connected to this part emotionally. I don’t have hatred or resentment for my boobs; they just don’t feel right on me. I appreciate them as I do any other part of my body – it’s not their fault I don’t want them.
I suppose the only thing I feel is bad for them. I almost humanise them sometimes, in the same way that I wish they weren’t attached to my body, they also wish they weren’t attached to me.
Before I can bind, I have to carefully trim the pieces of tape down. This involves curving the corners and cutting four strips long enough. The corners are rounded for longevity and comfort. I also cut two small strips for protecting my nipples with.
I suppose this stage feels to me as if I’m making an art project of myself, cutting and sticking to make an improved finished product.
It’s very repetitive and the most tedious stage. Unfortunately, I’m also thinking of the cost of being trans, as each roll of Kinesiology tape is about £20.
The price and effort it costs me to form a body that’s closer to what I belong in feels unfair.
The first step of binding involves covering my nipples with a cotton pad and applying a small bit of tape over the top to hold them down. This is my way of protection but there are plenty others, such as using ‘pasties’ instead.
Binding with tape is generally damaging to one’s skin and especially to parts with thinner skin, such as nipples. Without coverage they can be extremely painful, itchy and even blistered or bleeding.
Once covered, more attention is brought to the existence of my breasts as breasts, visually, I feel. This can be uncomfortable sometimes but, equally, I have never been in denial that I have breasts and that they are mine.
Finally, we reach the point of flattening my chest. I always require a mirror and patience for this.
I remove the backing of the first piece of tape and apply it across the front of my whole breast, tilted slightly upwards towards my shoulder. I then pull it taut around my side and under my arm and stick it as smoothly as possible.
The idea with pulling it up, rather than flat across, is that the first piece brings my chest up and the second piece secures it flat. This is so that my chest ends up sitting naturally higher than breasts do, to look like a cisgendered male’s chest.
Due to my size, it’s impossible to bind completely flat, so I try and get as much realism as I can.
At this point, I’m focused on the task at hand and my mind is generally absent of emotion.
The next step is applying the second piece of tape, to the same breast, except pulling it around my side horizontally.
After the first piece is applied, a lot of my breast is spilling out of the top, due to the angle it was applied at. This is purposeful, so the second piece can stick onto the overflow and pull that flat, at a higher part of my chest.
If I only pulled them horizontally, it wouldn’t be as flat and also, due to how low it would sit, may be obvious to the untrained eye that it is a breast taped down rather than an actual chest without breasts.
Once this is done, I finally have a vision of how my chest will look at the end. I begin to look more like myself, blooming into the body I belong in.
Now, I move onto the second breast.
I repeat the step of applying the first piece of tape, at a diagonal and pulling my flesh taut. Despite how many times I do this, it never comes naturally, or doesn’t feel strange. I know that my breasts weren’t meant to be hidden away, squashed into artificial shapes and tainted by the glue that rips at them.
Once the tape is on, the middle of my chest feels right and I feel almost restrained. I know that I have to do this to feel comfortable to go outside and to try and be perceived correctly but there’s nothing easy about it, mentally or physically.
If it instantly appears different or inadequate to the other breast, I have to reapply it or adjust it. This often involves cutting the tape again, as it only really sticks once.
Elongating an already frustrating and intimate task, easily annoys me, as does the fact that I have to bind at all anyway.
The final physical aspect of binding for me, is applying the fourth piece of tape.
This is the same horizontal piece as is pulled over the other breast. At this point I feel I have almost finished my sculpture; the piece of art that should be how my chest looks.
Once this piece is stuck down, I check for inadequacies and mismatching features from the other side.
Binding and symmetry is an art to me, as much as it is a necessary process.
Once both breasts are flattened into me, my chest is right and my arms can relax at my side. I consider myself bound.
I often take a minute to look in the mirror and appreciate my work. I finally get to see the closest version of myself to the one I really belong: post top-surgery (double mastectomy). My confidence is instantly increased and I look completely different in the masculine clothes I wear. I’m able to stand straighter, my shoulders back more, standing tall as I should. I’m not slouching to camouflage my chest as much.
I always turn to see my side profile and how masculine I’ve become. I don’t despise the look of the tape but rather embrace it as a crutch in my journey. It matches my skin colour and almost feels medical to me. It looks as if my breasts are an ailment that have to be held and covered for now, like a cast. Not in a bad way, more just that that’s my internal injury, for now.
I feel connected to all of the butches, trans-mascs, trans-men, gender queer people in history and that have bound their chests similarly to achieve the same goal as me: GENDER EUPHORIA! The feeling of relaxation but also fireworks going off, when your body matches your brain. I feel grateful to be a part of that incredible group.
In the same way that I have no problem with having scars from my future surgery, I have no problem with how the tape looks visually.
I never want to give the impression that I am a cisgendered man – I always want to be queer. And I am in love with the symbolism of queerness I get to incorporate into my physicality every day.
For everyone who fought and still fight for me to be allowed to be who I am – Thank You, I Will Do You Proud…