Cosmic

Teen girls (like the one I was) who think they’re transgender 🏳️‍⚧️, are being told it’s safe and reversible to bind their breasts. But here’s what girls like me were NEVER told: That not only will long-term binding destroy our healthy breasts, but potentially our skin, lungs, nerves, necks, and spines as well. That this damage only gets more painful with time, not less. That we will live with lasting pain and disfigurement to our chests sustained because of breast binding, whether we continue onto mastectomy or whether we do not. That mastectomy will not ‘erase’ or undo the harms of binding. Those who argue that “gender affirming” breast binding is “just social transition” akin to a change of clothes are either simply ignorant or they are simply LIARS. I am done mincing words here. I no longer care whether the people who peddle these dangerous ideas via bad arguments call themselves trans activists, gender critical activists or detransition activists. An identity label or activist label of any kind does not entitle one to blatantly mislead the public about the most common source of transition-related injuries that young women experience. Breast/chest binders are medical devices with approved clinical uses in post-surgical recovery for very short periods of time under strict medical supervision to monitor harms. There is no legitimate medical reason for a healthy girl or woman to be compressing her entire upper body (especially during development) for 8-12 hour days, stretching into months and then into years at a time. It will neither make her happier, nor healthier, nor more functional. It will only damage her body, cause her a potential lifetime of devastating pain and make her desperately want her now irreparably damaged breasts, removed. How do I know? Because I was one of those young women who was lied to. Because my whole generation was lied to. And because so many people, both trans activists and gender critical activists continue to equivocate about “safe” ways to bind your breasts without so much as study showing it can be done safely. Thank you to the team at @genspect including the spirited, determined and energetic @stellaomalley3 for giving me a platform to raise awareness about the cause of (by far) the most common but least discussed sources of transition injuries faced by young women, and of course, for allowing me to share my thoughts on gender identity ideation, desistance, detransition and to say a few words on how these themes overlap with autism.