just complaining about trans things
if you have chest dysphoria this may trigger it but I sure do go out of my way to use creative terms and avoid potentially triggering words
For a year or so after I came out I was binding most days. My dysphoria was pretty bad so I dealt with all the hassle and heat and limited breathing and pain.
And, at some point, I stopped. I don’t really remember when. I think it was a gradual fade as I had more and more rib pain that was lasting even when I wasn’t binding, and as I realized that I could pass fairly well wearing a sports-not-binder (I mentioned creative terms). Also it has started to bother me less when I’m read as female some of the time.
So now I wear not-binders most of the time. Which is fine, except they wear out. Which means I need to buy more. But the ones I have been wearing are pretty much perfect - not overly feminine, compress things a bit but don’t hurt me, are safe and comfortable to wear all the time, actually fit - but aren’t made anymore, because that would be too easy.
So I get to go shopping. Which is a nightmare, because your options are
1. online shopping, where your size is unlikely to be correct and then the mental energy of having to return it is too much so you have a bunch of things lying around you can’t wear and don’t want to deal with
2. Go in person to a store looking normal and have people stare at you (or be incredibly anxious people will stare at you) because you are a guy creeping in the women’s section
3. Go in person to a store trying not to pass, which doesn’t feel great and I never know if its working and then I look like a nervous androgynous person in the women’s section and worry people will stare at me
And then, after you have chosen the least worst option, you have a selection (of things that go out of their way to be feminine, so finding a style you can even think of trying on is its own hurdle), and you try to find a size, where I apparently range from a medium to a XXL for some reason because women’s clothing sizing is made up and measurements don’t matter, and can’t find anything that actually fits the way I want, because, apparently, once you finish puberty and have an adult size rib cage you are supposed to fill out a not-binder more than I can, so finding one that is the correct size above the band without the band being painful is impossible
Sincerely me, with my ribs aching again after going through this process and thinking I had one that worked.
Like this isn’t just me, right? Your ribs shouldn’t ache under the band of these things. I think.
I just want to wear something that doesn’t make me mentally uncomfortable, and would like to not be in pain every day. Is that too much to ask?
