Sunday

Ahoy! It's Sunday, the lazy day of rest. Sorta. I've been rooting around online and have found a very informative site that also has a listing of trans conferences for the year.                            2014 trans conference guide
Also, last year, the Kinsey Institute received a grant to study transgender issues in the US military. 

I ordered a few Transgender books from Amazon a few weeks ago and finally got them yesterday. I've finished one already. Ha. It was short. Helping Your Transgender Teen
I would recommend it to parents that are new to the transition process. I'm a bit farther along so I already knew most of the content. I will definitely pass it on to newer parents though.

I also received The Transgender Child and The Transgender Guidebook. I'll post reviews of those once I've read them.

Xander has had a difficult week off from school. Depression and feelings of worthlessness are always right under the surface. Boredom does not help either. As much as I try to keep things busy around here, I have my own responsibilities and cannot be the constant cruise director. He has a hard time self-soothing and tends to make terrible, impulsive decisions when left to his own devices. Determining which is normal 16 year old behaviors and which is not.......almost impossible sometimes. School starts again tomorrow, thank goodness. 

How to Chest Bind Safely

The first step in learning how to bind safely is finding about what’s not safe to do. Don’t use Ace bandages or duct tape—they aren’t meant for binding, don’t move with your body, and can cause physical harm. They can seriously restrict breathing, cause fluid build-up in your lungs and other serious injuries, such as broken ribs. There have been numerous cases of trans men who’ve acquired permanent scars and other injuries from using Ace bandages or duct tape to bind. Don’t do it.

Even with the right binder product it’s still possible to bind unsafely. Despite what you may have been told, don’t buy a binder that’s too small for you. Wearing an ill-fitting binder puts you at risk of the same problems as those who bind with Ace bandages or duct tape. Another piece of bad advice floating around out there is to wear tape and/or another binder on top of your binder. This too can cause restricted breathing and physical injury.

Lastly, give your body a break: don’t bind 24/7. In fact, don’t bind for more than 8-12 hours at a time. Suppressing dysphoria can’t come at the expense of your health. Even high quality binders can cause bruising. Use the times that you’re not binding to wash and air dry your binder, which will help make it last longer.