To breathe or to bind

How would you choose to bind? Pick between duct tape, electrical tape, K-tape and a binder. One will put you in temporary debt, one will give you blisters and scabs and one will restrict your breathing. You stand at a crossroad – physical health or gender euphoria.  

Chest binding can be used as a way of elevating gender dysphoria by flattening the chest. I spoke to two trans men who bind, interested in hearing their experience.

I met Willem Koller in the Massive office, nervous to have such a deep conversation with a stranger. But he walks in with a bright energy, speaking with expressive hand gestures, telling me how he first learnt to bind their chest — using good old duct tape. "I originally learned how to bind from watching YouTube tutorials of drag kings getting ready.” Soon after coming out as trans, he started performing as a drag king, under the drag name Amoeba Geezer.  

But as his drag career progressed, he learnt a lot about binding from other dragsters. Duct tape is the secret behind the best drag looks — holding together last-minute costumes and body padding foam, and also used for tucking. However, Willem says duct tape can be temperamental, as it doesn’t stick to the sweaty skin of a drag performer very well. He had a bad experience at the start of his drag career where one side of his chest came out. “When I first did drag, after my first show minutes after I got off stage, one popped because duct tape is just so bad at sticking to skin.”  

Electrical tape was introduced to Willem by accident, after he forgot his duct tape for a performance. Another drag performer lent him some electrical tape, and he realised that many drag kings use it for binding. Willem now uses electrical tape for his drag performances because, unlike duct tape, it has better adhesive and is stretchier. Willem says putting on electrical tape is "the last thing I do getting ready and the first thing I take off getting out of drag”. 

I assumed Willem must use electrical tape on the daily too, but upon asking he quickly says, "Oh, definitely not”. He only uses it for performances, calling it an "unsafe binding technique" due to its lack of stretch and restriction on chest expansion. He explains that electrical tape should not be used for everyday wear because it can restrict breathing.  

YouTube videos are not the only source of education for Willem as his good friend Murphy Cody – who he calls the “blueprint” – has taught him a lot. Murphy joins Willem in our interview, jumping in to address the dangers of electrical tape binding. He asks Willem “doesn't it rip your skin to shreds?” Willem replies, "I get scabs and blisters pretty much every time I'm in drag.” Willem prefers wearing a binder daily because it works better for him and is less restrictive compared to frequent taping. 

Murphy tells me about another binding option: K-tape (aka kinesiology tape). This is an elastic cotton tape with an acrylic adhesive which is normally used to ease pain from athletic injuries but has been adopted by the trans community for chest binding. I asked why many prefer K-tape over electrical or other types of tape. They both tell me that it is much less destructive to the skin and sticks better.  

I ask if it's harder to tape if you have a bigger chest. Murphy says, "You can't really tape if you have big boobs – even I am towing the line a little." While some with a smaller chest may only need 1-2 strips of tape to bind, a bigger chest may need 6-7. Murphy explains that if you're a bigger guy, you're not going to have a flat chest, even as a cis guy, and it can look disproportionate if you have a really flat chest.  

Willem makes it clear to me that “completely flat isn’t always the goal”. Many YouTube and TikTok tutorials on binding feature skinny white bodies as the models. “When that's the resource people see, that's what they expect from binding.” But this doesn’t always look proportional to everyone's bodies. 

However, using lots of K-tape comes at the downfall of your bankaccount, with it costing $15.49 from Woolworths. Murphy says their friends treat K-tape like a communal resource among their friends who bind – if any of them have it, they all share it. While there is Transtape which is a brand with trans bodies in mind, it is very inaccessible in New Zealand, and costs at least double the cost of K-tape. Not to mention it is often sold out.

I left the interview with Willem and Murphy wanting to know more about the world of binding, something that is so foreign to many of us. While making binders and transtape more accessible is the first step, having more public funding for gender affirming healthcare is the end goal.