Writer calls chest binders from Renton library ‘barbaric’

A writer for the Federalist is calling the raffle prizes being handed out by the Renton Library at a Teen Pride event next week “barbaric” and likening them to female genital mutilation. The prizes? Chest binders.

Libby Emmons studied the practice for a Federalist piece, in which she examined the harmful medical issues associated with binding, such as shortness of breath, back problems, overheating, and chest pain. In the story, Emmons referenced a 2017 article by the New York Times on the links between health problems and binding.

Chest binding is the practice of wearing a tight garment to constrict the breasts so that a flat-chested appearance can be attained. They are sometimes worn by transgender women or by women who wish to present in a masculine way.

Emmons described chest binders as an extreme, “very restrictive sports bra.”

Renton Library to hand out binders to teens

“In repressing the chest tissue, what it also does is, it pushes back in, it messes up the breathing capacity of the young woman’s lungs, and it’s very restrictive and can lead to all kinds of respiratory problems,” she told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “And it’s done strictly for appearance.”

She compared chest binders to historical medically harmful practices done just for a certain physical appearance, such as binding feet and wearing corsets. While corsets were worn for the opposite purpose of binders — to enhance a woman’s hourglass figure — both articles of clothing prevent a person from breathing properly.

“Even high heels are dangerous to people — I don’t think that if the library was raffling off a bunch of stiletto heels to 10-year-old girls, we’d all be thinking how inclusive and wonderful that was,” Emmons said.

The binding issue, she said, is part of a larger problem of females not getting the facts when it comes to their health care.

“In our country, we certainly have a medical culture that does not keep women informed adequately enough to make medical decisions,” she said. “With regard to women’s reproductive health and pregnancy, with hormonal birth control, women are treated as though they don’t need to know what’s going on with their own bodies.”

Navigating puberty

Puberty is an “excruciatingly difficult” time, Emmons said, and many girls may want to hide their breasts not necessarily because they identify as male, but because they are uncomfortable with the new body parts due to the way that society sexualizes and objectifies women, and holds females to different behavioral standards than men.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there are lots of young girls who don’t have any idea of what being male is, other than to say that boys are allowed to do more stuff, they have more freedom, typically, they’re allowed to go wander about,” she said. “They’re allowed to not have people stare at them and ogle them. And this is a huge thing, it’s been a huge thing for a long time.”

Furthermore, she said, the idea of having to hide one’s breasts goes against transgender ideology, which holds that gender has nothing to do with biological traits, but with how one identifies.

“If women are not to be defined by their bodies, such that female-bodied persons can be considered male, and male-bodied persons can be considered female, then what makes breasts so inherently female? … Why do they need to be destroying their bodies?” she asked.

Regardless, she said, the binding conversation is one that should happen between parents and kids, not between a library system and kids.

“There has been a big push to remove parental consent from a lot of aspects of young girls’ lives … and there’s this kind of assumption that all parents are these horrible ogres who are just going to get in the way of their daughters’ liberation,” Emmons said.  “And I think that does parents and children a disservice because parents and kids need to rely on each other.”

A representative from the King County Library System will join the show on Monday to discuss the library’s perspective on this issue.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.