Okay, so this is extra motivation for me to actually make a proper binder giveaway post, so probably in the next few days.

I don’t want to give any one person priority or whatever - really sorry - I decided it’s going to be raffle style so sometime soon I’ll post a list of the binders I have, along with pictures, so you can decide which binder might be best for you. Then I’m going to make a separate post for each binder and catalog all the likes and then at the end of the time period (probably a week) randomly select one person. You can totally enter more than once btw. There’s six binders total so your chances aren’t horrible. (Also binders101 is doing raffles too for the next few weeks and the binders are all small or xs sizes too so go check those out as well.)

Good luck and stuff!

Actually I do because Bartlett actually does measure!

My first consultation (in August), they were about 30 mm in diameter, and it was kind of funny because Bartlett was like “we might have to resize, male nipples are usually 20-25 mm in diameter” and I was like “bro let’s measure my dad’s” and my dad’s were like 35 mm and I laughed a lot

By the second consultation though, which was only a month before surgery, I don’t remember precisely what Bartlett measured my nipples as, but it was a couple millimeters smaller than 30, I guess? I vaguely recall him saying something like “your nipples are 25 mm!” and I’m pretty sure that can’t be right because I just measured now, and my nipples are still just around 30 mm in diameter. Maybe it was cold?? Who the heck knows.

Basically: I don’t think they look much smaller post surgery. Their shape is different though, they’re more oval/compressed vertically, rather than round like they used to be. I was just really not bothered by their size since like I said, my dad’s nips are larger, which might just be an Asian thing but there’s plenty of variation around town.

Also I’ve been talking about the areola for this whole thing but if I can say something about the sticking-out nipple bit specifically, mine were and are also very small. They are essentially the same size as they used to be.

I do not have very intimate experience with making my own but I did resort to sports bras quite a lot before binders (but I was pretty tiny) anyway there’s a few methods I found here and here but I can’t speak to their effectiveness, worth a shot though I guess?

Also there’s sometimes people giving away binders or raffling them off, often in the ftm or the havebinder tag, and I’m still trying to figure out a good way to give mine away so if you’re a really small-chested individual watch this space I guess?? Also if you’re in the US, there’s a thingy called the In a Bind program, dunno how good it is and apparently the waiting list is huge but yeah

ALSO if you do come into some cash and want to order from Underworks, the coupon code under10 takes 10% off your order if you enter it during checkout

So right now I’m not actually back to doing full workouts yet, but what I was doing pre surgery was like what I think is called a three-day split? it’s like an alternation between “push” exercises (pecs, triceps, shoulders), “pull” exercises (biceps, back) and a day when I do a little of everything but concentrate on my core (abs, obliques, lower back.)

So my weekly schedule is like Monday “push”, Wednesday “pull”, Friday “push”, Sunday abs/everything, (next week) Tuesday “pull”, Thursday “push”, Saturday abs/everything, CYCLE. If that makes sense.

Additionally, I’m in weight training PE at school, which also alternates days - so I try to set it up so pretty much every day I’m working out. Generally at school PE I take it kind of easy and do an exercise I didn’t get to do at the gym because someone was using the machine and I was in a hurry or something.

Rest of this is under the cut.

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I’m assuming you meant why I don’t put my face on here

basically, I do have another blog where it’s mostly just your standard teenager faffing about being an idiot tumblr, where I do post pictures of my face on rare occasion because vanity is awesome. However, I’m still not sure how stealth I want to be for the rest of my life, and that blog does have a lot of trans stuff and personal stuff on it, which I’m fine with - only thing is, in the event that I have to delete my main blog for whatever reason, so that people don’t connect my face with the trans stuff or whatever, I want to have this blog up to serve as a resource.

Did that make any sense at all?? idk, I also feel uncomfortable about the tumblr culture of attracting people to your blog with pictures of yourself, as if whatever I might have to say is more valid because I’m now passable or whatever. I mean that’s a vastly cynical and probably inaccurate view of things, and I know that it can be really helpful to see how testosterone affects one’s face or whatever, but it just ???? I don’t know.

Essentially: Reasons, which are probably not going to change, since I feel like my face is more suited to my personal blog than here.

I just did a lot of pushups of various styles - normal, wide hands, close hands, diamond, etc. Also I did seated chest presses and pec flies but that was mostly because I was too scared to try the actual bench press and stuff. Really though, I don’t think I did anything particularly special, and you might be different in terms of what builds up your pecs more. But yeah, pushups are extra great since you don’t need a gym for that.

edit to add: This might not automatically reduce your chest; lowering body fat overall can do that too, and testosterone does distribute fat away from your chest sometimes. But! Also! Even being a small B can still qualify you for at least periareolar and sometimes keyhole, depending on your skin tightness. But I mean the more you do is totally great and I personally really enjoy doing pushups since it helps me concentrate so yeah

In my school’s weight training gym. I can still do just about everything that I could before, same weight and stuff - but like I expected, my endurance is fucking SHOT.

Pushups I can still pound out 20 of, no problem, but I’m really shaky afterwards basically. Same with biceps and deltoid workouts.

I had been thinking about how it would possibly feel to work out post op without a binder and how great that would be but honestly the annoying things about working out with a binder were the sweatiness and the restricted breathing, and since I wasn’t working out nearly hard enough to even break a sweat or breathe heavily, I couldn’t really appreciate it? lol

But I’m thinking of going for runs in the morning now that it’s getting warmer, and that’ll be cool.

Chest is still tender so I can’t do those seated rows on the machine where you have to brace yourself against this pad against your chest. Pullups also were kinda tough not only because of how I haven’t worked my back for six weeks, but also because of the stretching I felt around my chest - it wasn’t horribly painful, but it was startling and I figure I should give it a little more time maybe. I could only manage like one pull-up unassisted but did a few with assistance.

Holy hell exhausted afterwards. My arms still feel a little shaky. But I feel kinda confident that it won’t take much more than a couple more weeks to get back into the swing of things.

Hahah awesome. Yeah, but no, the stuff you were writing about really did resonate with me especially with regards to the whole body acceptance thing and how you feel like they are kind of a part of you and stuff, because I was like that a lot before surgery, I wrote a post about that actually since I sort of lost my shit a little bit and freaked out about whether this was the right decision or not, etc. I was definitely in the same boat in regards to knowing I’d be happier in the end, but was a bit ???? about how my initial reactions might end up being.

All I can really say though (now that I’ve sort of got my thoughts together) is that even though it was weird initially to look down and have there be no boobs, for me personally it wasn’t nearly as weird as it could have been because of how many OTHER unusual things were happening at the same time - like, I didn’t even have a chance to be like “wow, no boobs” until I didn’t have to think about “wow, I have tapes on my nipples/I can’t feel my nipples/I can’t put on a t-shirt.” Once I could do all those things, and once my nipples started looking kind of normal-colored and the swelling went down, it became a lot easier to realize viscerally “yeah wow I don’t have boobs” and by then, it had already hit me on an intellectual/factual level…So it all kind of broke through to me slowly, and it wasn’t as startling as I had thought it would be.

atypical-dino:

So I decided to compile the multiple posts about my feelings/emotions in general and regarding surgical stuff.

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because it’s worth reblogging since I had some fairly similar feelings pre-op and I have 0 advice, not that I think you really need advice since you seem to be thinking about this a lot, only that yes, good, thoughts.

WHAT REALLY hhhahah I’ve actually watched some of his videos haaaaaa

yeah I don’t know how much interaction I can do on youtube considering that I don’t really want to put my face in my videos but yeah this is cool shoot me a message yup