“Safe” Binding and Disabled Transition (A Reflection)

Editor's Note: This post reflects the deeply personal journey of one trans disabled individual. It is a powerful reminder that gender transition is unique and deeply personal. The choices described here are not prescriptive, but they offer insights into navigating the intersections of disability, identity, and self-love.

By Lio Carter (he/it/any)

Disabled trans life can be a never-ending series of impossible decisions, and when it comes to binding safely there’s no one-size solution. What feels right for your mind can hurt your body, what mitigates your physical pain can skyrocket your mental distress, and either way you’ve made a painful choice.

For me, a disabled transmasc, the traditional concept of safe binding never quite worked. I’d bind for the recommended 6-8 hours only to feel the strain in my ribs and back for a week or more. I tried sized-up binders and sized-down sports bras, frequent binder breaks and a strict hydration schedule, but I still struggled to balance what felt like a brain and body’s incompatible needs. Eventually, my disability progressed to the point that I was unable to put on a binder at all and I lived t*ts-out and restless until I could raise the money for surgery.

I am content with the choices I’ve made, and I’m lucky to be where I am now, with my disabled flat-chested body and a beard that’s just starting to fill in. Some days if I breathe too deeply I feel a familiar deep soreness from years of compression that I never quite recovered from. I’m grateful for those years, and I’ve made peace with the ways my body will never quite be the same.

But it hurts.

Gender transition is transformation, and like all transformation it is destructive. Childbirth culminates in the rejection of an organ; blackout poetry obscures an author’s words; a pot of soup can’t boil without some of its liquid evaporating. Transition is risky and unsafe and painful for disabled bodies especially, and it is a deeply queer, deeply personal choice.

It came down to this for me: my self –imperfect and baffling and unpredictable– is mine, and it is up to me to perfect and preserve it however I choose. Whether I’m skipping queer game night to rest or triggering a flare by box-dyeing my hair twice in a week, I am affirming my genderqueer self because in that moment, I exist! I’m here, I’m queer, and in my painful joyful existence I am radiant.

My ever-evolving body is mine to destroy and perfect in an infinite series of empowering decisions that I will risk everything to make.

Addendum: My story is not advice, and my particular set of choices can’t transfer cleanly to anyone else’s. I’m a queer disabled twenty-something who would have scoffed at hearing this a decade ago and sought it out a few years later. Here’s my advice: Know the risks of your choices. Consent bravely and wisely. And, whatever it means for you, don’t die wondering.