Leaps and Binds (Part 2 of “How did I get here?”)

Hey all you lovely readers! This post is a bit longer, a bit more serious, and a bit more intense than usual. It is just as much, if not more, important than each of my other posts and I really, really…reeeaaally, want you to read it all the way through. Here goes nothin’…

Last week I wrote about growing up androgynous and changing my expression to fit into binary-gendered environments. Tonight I’m finishing the story of how I came to understand my gender, focusing on the events of the past year of my life. I’ve changed a great deal in a short amount of time, so this post will begin with my hair cut in June of 2015 and end in the present moment. But before we get into that, I need to show you something…

These are my binders. 

“Wait…Where are the three rings? How do you fit all your papers in there without them falling out?!” Oh, Helga! These are chest binders. I wear one every day underneath my shirt and they compress my breasts to make my chest look flatter. There is SO MUCH important information I have to share with you about binders and binding and how it all works; there’s just no way I could fit it into one post! So, I’ve created a “Binding 101” page underneath the Resources tab that gives all the juicy details. I recommend at least glancing at that page before reading on, because I’m about to talk about binding…a lot…

…Now where were we?

Young Laila wore boy clothes! Middle school Laila reluctantly wore girl clothes AND realized she liked girls! More girl clothes, Laila–you can’t let anyone know you’re gay! High school Laila blew it and told everyone she was gay, so she started wearing boy clothes every now and then because who gives a shit! College freshman Laila started wearing sports bras most of the time because they’re just more comfy and they don’t make her boobs look so big!

~Laila gets her hair cut short~

Perhaps it’s a bit narrow of me to declare this particular moment as the inception of my current transition. Looking back I’m inclined to think I’ve been transitioning since I started shedding my feminine layers back in high school. Rather, I’m focusing on this experience because when I cut my hair I finally became aware of my transition. This realization was terrifying.

As long as I can remember I’ve had a small, quiet thought, sometimes just a feeling, poking in the back of my head: “What if I’m a boy?” When I got my hair cut like a boy last summer it felt so right and comfortable. I was delighted and horrified. Admitting that I liked my hair that way felt like–after all the years of questioning–I’d silently, irrevocably affirmed that, yes, I am a boy.

“I don’t know if I’m trans,” I confessed in tears to a group of classmates, “I feel like I’m moving towards a more and more masculine gender and I just want to know if I’m trans or not so that I can move on with my life.” This was September of 2015, no more than 8 months ago. Why did suspenders and dress shirts and loose-fitting pants feel so good and look so right? Why was I wearing sports bras every day–why did I want my breasts to look flatter? Were my outfits suggesting something deeper and more intrinsic about my identity? I didn’t know where I was going, I only knew I was becoming more masculine by the day, and I deeply feared I’d end up a boy. This fear was the product of internalized transphobia that ate away at my peace of mind.

When sophomore year entered full-swing, I found myself becoming close with more queer friends. It was through these friends that I was introduced to the concept of chest-binding. Being the brilliant, beautiful people they are, they gave me the name of the website where I could purchase binders, but didn’t force me to try binding. They gently, generously, nudged me in the right direction. Meanwhile, I continued to wear sports bras every day–sometimes two at a time for an even flatter chest.

Come November I was in a great deal of pain from the sports bras. The tension in my shoulders and back was in many ways a physical manifestation of the tension from feeling a different gender than I wanted to be–and I still wanted my chest to look flatter. I finally caved and bought the damn binder.

If there is one thing I want you to read in all of my posts so far, it is the following story:

I arrived home for winter break (December 2015) to find a package waiting for me in my room. I anxiously opened the envelope, removed the binder, and felt the surprisingly soft material. I pulled it over my torso and looked in the mirror.

I am, and always will be, at a loss for words when describing this moment. The common term used for instances like this is “gender euphoria,” only this was an extreme case. The tension in my shoulders and upper back vanished immediately; I felt this sense of lightness and weightlessness, not just in my torso, but in my whole body; I suddenly felt and looked so right; I felt as though this is what I’d been wanting all this time, as though for years since I started wearing bras something was off every time I looked in the mirror and for so long and I didn’t realize that what had been wrong looking in the mirror for all of those years was my chest……

 

Hey, I just had a panic attack. Like right now, writing this post I just had a panic attack.

I was thinking about binding for the first time and suddenly was hit by the magnitude of the dysphoria I’d experienced every day of my life spent wearing a bra. Since the day I grew breasts, hips, and thighs, I’d woken up each morning and felt uncomfortable in my clothes, uncomfortable in my body. Every time I looked in the mirror I was unhappy.

I just described it to my friends this way: When someone has just gotten their hair cut and you’re looking at them and something looks off, but you can’t quite put a finger on it. That’s what it felt like every time I looked in a mirror, only it didn’t just look off, it looked wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but every time it looked wrong. And when I put on the binder, I realized what had been wrong the entire time–because I finally looked right. My panic attack, just now, was caused by the sudden and overwhelming understanding that I lived for so long with so much pain, and all I ever wanted was a flat chest.

I have worn a binder every day since this moment. That night I was so excited I stayed up for hours trying on each of my shirts just for the sheer joy of seeing myself looking right for the first time. I felt healed.

I’m crying again now. It feels good.

Binding has changed everything. The euphoria I experienced in that moment forced me to accept that I just need to trust my gut, and be ok with whatever outcome–even if that means I eventually transition to be a man. I wonder how many more moments of gender euphoria await me; I don’t want to keep them at bay.

I’m going to end here for today, even though I’ve promised twice now to write about why I want top surgery. That story deserves its own moment; this story deserves its own moment as well. As a preview, I’ll say that my realization around binding paved the way for my realization that I wanted top surgery. After binding, top surgery for me is the obvious step forward.

But more on that in a few days…My last bit for this post is a slide show of photos that highlight my gradual transition over the last two years–so you can put an image to what I was saying about dressing more and more masculine. The changes in my appearance are subtle, but intentional, and build up over time.

Thank you for reading today. This was a big one, and I’m glad to have the space to share.

Laila, aka “Optimus ‘Criy’me” (get it? because he’s a transformer)

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