So wrote one girl on receiving her free binder from the MORF Binder scheme:
MORF is a Manchester organisation, established in 2005 for the purpose of helping trans-identified females to support and meet each other. In 2011 MORF started the MORF Binder Scheme ‘which aims to provide free binders to all transmen who request them’. In 2015 their website claimed to have provided ‘over 150 free donated binders’ to applicants.
To receive a binder you simply email MORF and they email you back a catalogue. You choose a binder and if it’s still available they send it to the name and address of your choice, in plain wrapping. You pay only £3 postage.
Of course, binders- always modeled by disconcertingly young women- are available cheaply now on both Amazon and Ebay, although to order one you need an Amazon or Ebay account and a credit card. There are all sorts of reasons why a child might find it hard to order a binder this way. The name of the company would come up on your, or the account/card owner’s, statement or invoice for a start and writing on the parcel might even give away what it contains. Also, and more importantly, these ‘binders’ are pretty crap and ineffective. The MORF binders are the real McCoy.
It struck me as a little unprofessional for an organisation spotlighted by the LGBT foundation to be sending out random free binders to anonymous applicants. What if the recipients were under age? What if they had pre-existing health conditions?
Would MORF send a binder to, for example, an asthmatic trans-identified 14 year old girl whose parents didn’t want her to wear one for health reasons?
I had to find out, so I created Ryan Fletcher and wrote to MORF. (Spelling and grammatical errors are purposeful.)
MORF replied ten days later:
So it seems that being a 14 year old asthmatic would be no impediment to getting a binder from MORF. I wondered if perhaps that part of my email had been overlooked, so when I hadn’t heard back from X I wrote again; this time mentioning that I’d been recently hospitalised for some tests:
I heard nothing more for several weeks and wondered if MORF had rejected Ryan as unsuitable, but on 14th May I received this email & the catalogue. The catalogue was 20 pages long (see 3 pages below); accompanied by a form to fill in and post back to MORF, who aim to post out binders within a week.
The May 2017 catalogue was 20 pages long. Here are the first 3 pages.
In the end, I didn’t follow through with ordering a binder from MORF. I knew I would be writing this article eventually and I didn’t want to use my own address for obvious reasons, or put anyone else at risk by giving theirs. (Thanks to the people who offered, though!) I felt my point had been made.
So what’s the problem with breast binding? When mainstream magazines like Cosmopolitan run articles on ‘how to do it’ and many UK schools have official policies in place to help girls in their endeavours, you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about.
St Ethelbert’s School in Bolton shares a policy which suggests to teachers that if girls who wear binders appear faint ‘short breaks could be offered discretely’. What next? Official bathroom breaks for bulimics and cutters? Bowls to vomit in and fresh blades at the side of the gymnasium? What’s the big deal? After all, it’s all fine if it’s done properly, right?
Schools in Manchester, Brighton & Cornwall all seem to be backing it.
Brighton & Hove ‘Transgender Toolkit’
St Ethelbert’s ‘Safeguarding in Education’ policy.
Cornwall schools Transgender Guidance
In a recent survey involving 1,800 women who bound their chests, 97% of respondents reported at least one negative outcome from binding.
The Top 4 symptoms reported were
back pain
overheating
chest pain
shortness of breath
Some of the other symptoms reported included: posture problems, itching, shoulder pains, rib fractures, spine problems, shoulder joint popping, numbness, headaches, fatigue, weakness, dizziness, heartburn, abdominal pain, muscle wasting, digestive issues, breast changes and tenderness, scarring, swelling, acne, coughs & respiratory infections.
Harmless? It seems not. But the most surprising conclusion of the above mentioned survey was this:
“Commercial binders were the binding method most consistently associated with negative health outcomes”
So. Tell me again about that ‘safe’ binding?
This photo is of an adult woman who has suffered terrible physical deformities from binding. When I posted it on Twitter earlier this year several people responded by saying the damage had only happened because she hadn’t done it ‘properly’. That word again. How can you bind ‘properly’? General consensus seems to be ‘don’t use cling film, duct tape or ace bandages. If you use a proper binder, you’ll be ok.’ The survey suggests otherwise.
But what do I know? I don’t know how it feels. I’ve never felt the need to bind, and I have never bound my rather substantial bosom in anything more restraining than a ‘firm support’ Marks & Spencer’s sports bra adorned with tiny and wholly unnecessary white flowers. (Not my first choice. It was the only one that fitted.)
I wished there was a way to hear what young women and girls who bound their breasts really felt about the discomfort involved. If only there was some way of tapping in to their true feelings, not the usual social media bravado and swagger of the teen & early-20s transmen… and then I thought of ‘Whisper’.
“A secret is not something unrevealed, but something told privately, in a whisper.” Marcel Pagnol
‘Whisper’ is a completely anonymous social networking app, started up in 2012. Users post ‘confessions’ by writing text on a picture chosen from Whisper’s gallery of pictures, and share them with other users. Whisper is valued at $200,000,000 and has more than 30 million monthly active users, with the average user opening the app 20 times a day. Although users are supposed to be 17 or over, there is no checking process. 90% of users are under 24, it is estimated that 4% are under 18. Founder Michael Hayward had this to say about Whisper’s success:
“You are who you are when no-one else is looking. Anonymity is a really powerful tool.”
Webwise describes Whisper as:
‘a great space where young teens can release their built up emotions’.
and ‘Fortune’ magazine had this to say:
“Whisper became a viral hit in 2013… Young people who felt intense pressure to project a perfect appearance on social media outlets like Facebook and Instagram appreciated that Whisper let them express their true feelings anonymously.”
Fortune Magazine
So what do young women have to say about binding when they have guaranteed anonymity? I spent an evening scrolling through ‘Whisper” and capturing what these young women had to say. Here are 72 ‘confessions’ about the pain of binding. This rest of this article is about giving those anonymous voices a platform.
YouTube is chock-a-block with videos on how to bind ‘safely’; how to make a ‘DIY’ binder… and nestling among them is this. I’ll give the last word to this brave young woman who has dared speak out on YouTube about her relationship with binding. I hope more young women see this: I hope more young women hear her voice: I hope more young women find the strength & courage to destroy their binders.
“I talk about my relationship with breast binding in this video, exploring what drove me to conceal my breasts for years as a form of self-harming coping behavior. At the end I make a commitment to ending my own binding through destroying my breast binder.”
Kat KatKat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5we2DLSAp0
POST SCRIPT 8/11/17
Writing this article was quite emotionally draining, and I forgot to add one last very important thing- this message from MORF, to all those teenage girls out there whose parents want to protect them against the damage binders can cause.
Your parents hate you.
Thanks Lily. Thank you for exposing breast binding for what it is…another form of teen girl self-harm. It is also a required garment to belong to the trans social class. How can you be trans if you’re not binding?
The first time I heard of binders, I thought they were some new type of bra, and that it might be a good idea to try it, since I had often had problems finding good bras in the past. It sends shivers down my spine when I realize what it actually is and does to the body. Thanks for posting this, I hope many people see it
Thank you for another great article and for your work in general.
The transcult is way out of control but everyone is afraid to speak up and speak in hushed tones. You get these young ‘Third Wave’ ‘queer’ girls (most who never seem to have anything other than a boyfriend) scared to ask why there’s some hulking man in lipstick who looks like he’s on a stag do in their Roller Derby team. If they speak up they will be destroyed as a bigot and lose all their ‘queer’ friends.
Gay men that know full well that most ‘trans women’ are little more than cross dressers that get hard dressing up as some caricature of a woman – some are straight (the ones who harass lesbians), while some enjoy being ‘taken’ by another man as part of a submissive fetish and even those that seek drugs and surgery to feel even more womanly are really no different to extreme body-madders that make themselves look like cats. Literal women? No way! But can gay men speak up in the dissent-free world of LGBT? No. In fact, gay drag queens are under attack for ‘parodying’ trans people. It’s crazy.
Wow. I’ve been reading my way through a number of your posts having found your site (I’ve been awakened to the dark forces of trans-activism by a friend who is campaigning against the changes in the GRA regarding self-identification) and this is the first thing I’ve read that really took my breath away. As I’ve been thinking about it, it seems that what is happening, much as it sounds like you experienced with your daughter, is that the “normal” confusion of adolescence, as we quite literally change from a child into a young adult, is being by taken away from our youth by the certainties that are promised by those who have bought into transtopia. I remember my own experience of adolescence well – watching your body change is strange, the urge to be seen for who you are is strong. I would say for myself it took until my 30s to really feel comfortable in my own skin and I think one of the reasons I feel compelled to educate myself on this issue is because I feel there is a part of me who might well have got caught up in this cult myself had my adolescence happened now and not 30 years ago. The idea that girls are being encouraged to bind their chests makes me weep, literally. How do our youth not see this mutilating practice for what it is? I was quite happily just living my life a year ago but now I am really fucking angry about all of it. All of it.
What an excellent article. Thank you.
The video was particularly illuminating for me as an anorexia sufferer. Kat spoke about her body in almost exactly the same way I did/do when I am in the depths of anorexia. The fixation, the hatred, the need to remove the offending parts. My treatment was to get my mind to accept my body as it should be, not to change my body to fit what lies my mind told me. I cannot fathom why the treatment for gender dysphoria is so different from other dysphorias.
Early puberty is common in young women who suffer body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I wonder what it’s prevelence is in these young “transboys”.
No, this is not an informative article she is constantly referring to these boys as girls. If they feel they are boys in their heart they are.
Being a girl or a boy is not a vague elusive ethereal feeling, it is a biological reality.
Biology at a chromosomal level determines whether you are of the male or female sex for the overwhelming majority. Yes there are some for whom epigenetic factors have lead to bodies which are atypical in terms of the expression of their sexual organs and some having three chromosomes. At present, however there is completely no scientific basis for saying that there is such a thing as a male mind in a female body or vice versa. In particular, for post pubescent girls experiencing gender dysphoria, who have been happy identifying as girls pre puberty, this is an obvious nonsense.
This is not to minimise the anguish and confusion caused by gender dysphoria. It seems to me that much research is needed. This is made more difficult when academics that hold views that differ from the trans narrative are hounded out of post. If we have a genuine concern for helping young boys and girls in this situation then we need to depoliticise the issue. It is precisely trans activists demanding recognition as members of the opposite sex in every respect that appear to have created this myth of the gendered mind to serve their aspirations.
I don’t hate trans people. Society needs to move a long was to accept everyone for who they are and in particular to treat women as full equals (I say this as a feminist man). From my pov, Trans women and men, however are just that, and until there is some good scientific evidence to the contrary my view will remain so. We respect and tolerate many different groups in society without changing laws or norms to avoid challenging their delusions (don’t get me started on religion).
For me, promoting binding is encouraging vulnerable young people to self harm. They may be self harming already, due to dysphoria, but replacing one form of self harm with another seems to be overlooking the root causes. Professionals should be supporting these boys and girls with coping strategies, rather than unqualified activists promoting self harm. I appreciate it may be done with good intentions, that doesn’t make it right.
There is a vast difference between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria.
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This article was awful.
You can’t write an article about trans people while continuously misgenderinh them. These aren’t ‘young girls’ they are trans guys or in other way trans people. This article was filled with so much ignorance I barely got through it. Yes, there are a lot of dangers with binding. But gender dysphoria, that you apparently didn’t even think was important enough to mention even tho it’s the number one reason for binding, makes these kids suicidial. Yes chest binding might hurt their ribs – but they’re alive.
And it’s scientifically proven that these ‘girls’ you’re talking about have a brain that resembles the biological male brain more than biological female. Being transgender can be explained with biology.
Gender dysphoria is an awful awful thing that kills thousands of trans kids every year. You should be ashamed of this article
This article was researched very carefully. Thousands of trans kids do not die each year. There is no such thing as a male brain in a female body. I do not ‘misgender’ a female by calling her female. Being transgender cannot be explained by biology, that has not been ‘scientifically proven’. Perhaps you should do some proper research. If you can show me an actual study proving that thousands of trans kids kill themselves (they don’t) then I’ll link to it. Otherwise I think you need to have a good think about the sexism and stereotypes surrounding this form of self-harming.
It has been scientifically proven, and clearly you fail to recognize the difference between biological sex and gender.
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That last notice from Morf beggars belief. Morf should be shut down. Morf should realise they are enabling 12 year old girls who need professional help.They are the ones who should be ashamed. How many loving, intelligent, questioning parents have been damned as unsupportive bigots and even threatened. We’ve been on quite the ride with our gender dysphoric child but we will not be cowed. There’s the thing; we have no ideology, the activists do.
I cannot imagine how heartbreaking it must be for the parents of a young girl who has suddenly announced that they’ve realised that they were “born in the wrong body”. As yet, I’m not a parent, however I agree with you that Morf and indeed any company behaving in a similar fashion are in fact guilty of both grooming and flagrant child abuse.
It is also a monstrously unethical manner in which to seek brand loyalty! I’d argue that it should be illegal to seek it in such a brazen manner from those who are underage. The people running the company must surely realise how creepy they seem? It is vile – even without the final twist of the knife that is the lie that those who care about their daughters’ long-term health and wellbeing “hate them”. This is possibly the nadir of the trans cult’s public behaviour with regard to young people, although I’m aware that I’ve opened myself up to further disappointment by saying as much…
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You wanna talk about the amount of transgender people murdered every year? Let’s talk
https://unherd.com/2022/01/the-truth-about-trans-murders/
Here’s your science behind being transgender, you have actually clearly not researched enough about being trans and this horrible transphobic excuse for an article clearly shows it.
No one is encouraging anyone to be transgender as clearly, you are proof of that. Being transgender is biological and you are the vile one to try to invalidate and take away the right trans boys have to bind. Yes you can be prone to injury by binding but these kids are desperate because of their gender dysphoria and instead of misgendering them and calling what they identify as to be a cult. You could try to find alternative methods to help them bind safely or find some other form of flattening the chest to be safer. Because you trying to stop trans boys from binding is only going to make them more suicidal.
This article managed to be both critically uneducated and disrespectful. Your underlying maliciousness is so thinly veiled it’s laughable. Get your facts right and your head checked.
this article is awful and fearmongering, i’m binding safe and living it up
stop trying to make trans kids life hell