It's already yours if you want it.
Maybe you know the feeling. You scroll past a binding product and think: that's not for someone like me.
For years, that was me. As a teenager, I'd stand in front of the mirror with my arms up, so my chest would look flatter. I didn't have words for it. I just knew what I wanted to see.
At 18 I came out as a lesbian, and for a while that explained everything. But the wish for a flatter chest never left. I just didn't listen to it. I wanted to be liked, and to be attractive. I thought girls wanted boobs. So I wore bras I didn't even like. Sometimes two sports bras at once. It was suffocating, and it wasn't me.
After a while, I started experimenting. Open shirts. Swimming without a top. I loved the freedom, but I hated feeling my chest move. I saw binders and tape online, but they all felt made for someone else, like I had to fit a label before I was allowed to use one. So I waited. A long time. I wore a lot of baggy shirts and hoodies. (I stole way too many of them from my older sister. Sorry, sis.)
The edit
Until one day I was just fed up. I thought: you only live once, so go after what's yours. I asked a friend to edit a photo of me with a flat chest. When I saw it, I felt euphoric. I even posted it on my Instagram back then.
From that moment I knew, 100%: I wanted a flatter chest.
No big deal. Just me, being myself.
Then came the wind
I tried a binder first. Some days I had to choose between binding and breathing. Breathing usually won.
So I finally tried binding tape. Putting it on wasn't as easy as I thought. When I finally walked to the mirror, I felt free and weird at the same time. I analysed everything. Left, then right, then left again. In my head: what will people think? Will I still fit in? But I knew I had to stop fighting myself.
I put on a t-shirt and walked outside, and the wind hit me. You know the kind: the wind that pushes your shirt flat against your chest. The moment I always hated.
But this time it was flat. Best feeling ever.
It felt like mine, without putting a label on myself.
I tried lots of different tapes after that.
Maybe you're wondering
Yes, my path later led me to transition. But that's not why this tape mattered to me.
I wanted a flatter chest long before I knew where my path was going. Back then I was just a masc-presenting person who wanted to feel good in a t-shirt, or a nice button-up shirt. Who wanted to go without a top sometimes, in swimming trunks at the pool or just in joggers at home. No plan, no label. Just that wish.
Wanting a flatter chest didn't make me anything. It just made me want a flatter chest.
Your path is yours. You don't need to know where it's going to deserve that feeling.
What I kept seeing
Over the years, I noticed something. I have a lot of masc friends, and I keep meeting more. Masc lesbians, studs, butches, non-binary and queer folks who wanted a flatter chest sometimes or often, but didn't feel at home with the brands out there. I still feel queer, this is still my community, and I wanted to help them.
Getting good tape here wasn't easy either. The shipping alone was really expensive, and there was no binding tape brand in the EU that really hit the sweet spot.
So I'm making one
I started making it for my friends, and for our whole queer masc community. Tape4Masc is for anyone who finds freedom in a flatter chest. After trying so many tapes myself, I know exactly what I want ours to do better. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone, and certainly not to a piece of tape. Lol.
Trans guys, you're so welcome. This is for you too. At the same time, queer, masc-presenting folks are so often overlooked, in fashion and in binding products. This is my way of saying: I see you. And you look absolutely smashing with this tape on.
And I'm not making it alone. Real people tested it on real bodies and told me honestly what worked and what didn't. Thanks to them, I found the tape I'm going with. Now I'm working with the supplier to make it even better. That's what "from the community, for the community" means to me.
We're launching in the Netherlands first, and the rest of the EU comes after that.
You don't have to label yourself first. It's already yours if you want it.
You made it! Here's your invite
Join the family at Tape Talk and come behind the scenes with me. I share the whole journey to launch there: the wins, the messy bits and all the news as it happens. Vote in polls, share your ideas and help shape what Tape4Masc becomes.
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