My Relationship with my Chest

Today I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a while: my chest.

When I was a few years younger, before any sort of gender struggle, I only ever had one thought about my chest: that it was too small. At the moment, I’m grateful for the fact that I don’t have a large chest, but my relationship with it is a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be.

First of all, I think I should talk briefly about how my relationship with my chest used to be. When I was younger, I was self-conscious about my bra size. All the girls I went to school with had significantly larger chests than I did and I always viewed it as something inherently important in deciding how attractive I was to people; which, apparently, was the most important thing to me. But I did go out and buy nice looking bras, and as I got older I would look for matching underwear as well. I put a lot of effort into how I looked underneath my clothes- I bought pretty bras and underwear, and I shaved my legs almost every other day. But in this last year alone, that has changed so drastically.

In the recent admittance to myself that I am in fact transmasculine and genderqueer, I’ve been a lot more aware of how I present. I recently cut my hair to a super short length that I am so happy with, and have also started to shop for clothes that I’m comfortable in. I dress generally very masculine, and tend to present myself very masculine as well. In addition, I’v stopped caring so much about being “pretty” and “feminine.” I switched to sports bras and boxers and have stopped shaving entirely. But the thing I want to draw attention to right now is the sports bras.

I switched to sports bras because of the way it hides my chest under t-shirts. But, this is where the relationship I have with my chest gets complicated. Because although I want my chest to be hidden, I actually don’t mind my chest. I like my chest. At this point in my life, top surgery isn’t an issue, because I don’t want to get rid of my chest. The only issue I have with it is the way it looks in public. When I’m out, I don’t want to be seen as a girl. But because my chest is even remotely visible under my t-shirts, I’m read as female. And that isn’t what I want. I like my chest, but it interferes with my gender presentation.

Because of this I’ve been considering getting a binder to wear when I go out. But again, this comes with a few problems. I know they can damage the breast tissue and cause them to change, but like I said, I like my chest; I don’t want anything too drastic to happen to the way it looks. And I’m also aware of the consequences of wearing a binder too often and too long; but I’m still looking into it. And anyways, that’s my problem, not yours.

Anyways. I just wanted to get this off my chest *finger guns*

But seriously, this is something that has been weighing on my mind for a while. It feels good to write it out. So thank you for taking the time, if you did, to read about my experiences, and I hope that this could have helped some of you. Next time, whenever that is, I’ll be talking about clothing and my recent experiences with shopping and packing for university.

Thank you all. Good night

-Max