From what you guys are saying, I'm starting to think that maybe binding isn't something I want to be doing right now after all, or maybe ever. I have terrifically sensitive skin. I'm allergic to all synthetic fabrics, can't have anything rough next to my skin. I can't handle regular soaps, detergents, or antiperspirants--I imagine that Gold Bond would probably give me trouble, too. I'm hypersensitive to my own perspiration. I get eczema--in fact, in the bad old days, I had it all over my body.
That was probably TMI, too, but I was THIS close to ordering a binder from Underworks this weekend. I don't know what else to do about my chest. I feel like I can't stand it anymore. And then I think that I would come across as ridiculous if I actually DID bind because I won't be perfectly flat and my voice is all wrong and everything else. I'm much older than most of you guys who aren't on T. I won't come across as having a delayed or not-yet-completed adolescence. I'll come across as what I've often felt myself to be...an androgynous freak.
I will have a whole new group of students this year, but a lot of the instructors already know me. Maybe I should rethink binding if/when I go on T or if I start teaching someplace I've never taught before.
But then I have to deal with these things on my chest, and everyone else can see them.
GAH.