Chest Binder Company Partners with Charities That Sends Kids Binders Behind Parents' Backs

gc2b and their 2b.care program

I still have the email address I used when I was trans synced up to my phone’s Mail app, so I occasionally see emails from gc2b, a binder company, floating around when I look at the combined inbox. When I was in my trans phase, gc2b was considered something like a gold standard for “gender affirming” chest binders.

Founded in 2015, gc2b is a trans-owned company based in Maryland. gc2b's founder, CEO, and designer, Marli Washington, saw that the only binding options were uncomfortable and inadequate compression shirts designed for cis men. As an Industrial Design graduate, he used his experience in product design and his background in textiles to provide accessible, comfortable, and safer binding options designed by trans people, for trans people. gc2b binders were the first garments designed and patented specifically for gender-affirming chest binding. 

Lately, gc2b has been sending out “Back-to-School” promotional emails, and one in particular caught my eye. The email reads:

Queer youth deserve a future — and these amazing people are making it possible!

As part of our Back-to-School campaign, we and our philanthropic team at 2b.care are illuminating and donating to students/organizations who work to uplift LGBTQIA+ youth.

Meet Binders for Confident Kids (archive): This Georgia-based non-profit was founded by the mother of a trans child. Since its establishment in 2019, B4CK has distributed over 1200 free binders to kids who could not otherwise access or afford one. Watch an exclusive B4CK video here.

The video linked at the end is an Instagram reel, which you can only view with an Instagram account. I recommend watching it to get the full effect (that inspirational music is really changing my mind!), but for those who don’t have Instagram, I’ve transcribed it and provided some images of the video:

When my son came out to us, we started connecting people who had binders with people who need binders. Parents started giving us money to buy binders for other kids. We held a fundraiser and used that money to create a 501c3 organization called B4CK in December of 2019. We started with about 10 requests per month. As word got out, we grew quickly. We now send over 150 binders a month. We provide chest compression binders to trans and nonbinary people who cannot afford them or safely obtain them on their own. We partner with gc2b to get binders to the people that need them at no cost. We also provide a safe community space in Chattanooga, Tennessee that is entirely run by volunteers who are passionate about helping the community.

86% of our recipients come from homes that are not safe or affirming. According to the 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health by the Trevor Project, 1 in 3 trans kids across the US are not in affirming homes. 50% of LGBTQ youth considered suicide in this past year. Only 6% of LGBTQ youth with parental or community support attempted suicide. By providing gender-affirming garments, we are working to reduce suicide rates.

Their mission is clear: This adult woman and her charity send chest binders to underage children against their parents’ wishes, and without their parents’ knowledge.

Throughout every email, Instagram post, and webpage, gc2b and B4CK promulgate the insidious myth to children that if their parents are concerned about the psychological and physical harm inherent to gender identity ideology, they are then “unsafe” in their own homes and destined for death by suicide unless they are saved by strangers online. The inference made by a child or teenager in this position is that their parents would rather see them dead than let them do something as “simple” as buy a binder, because they’re too young to understand the long term implications of following the magical transgender lifestyle. This leads to an incredible amount of pain, misunderstanding, and division within the family, especially when parents aren’t aware of these influences from strange adults onto their children, and double especially when there are already relationship wounds that predate the trans identity. I myself remember the incredible grief and confusion I felt struggling to wrap my mind around the “realization” that my parents wanted me dead. Believing that for a time is itself traumatic.

On the B4CK website, there is immediately a link to a page where one can apply to receive a free binder (or bra, for boys), along with a Facebook Messenger chat feature where one can speak to a representative of the organization. In the description for the application page for the binders, they make sure to let kids know that if they can’t pay for shipping (because they’re too young to have a bank account, and if they did have one their parents might see the transaction), they can enter the code “NOFEES” and receive the binder in the mail with no financial record or cost.

B4CK is not the only organization that partners with gc2b to send kids their back-to-school breast binders. 2b.care provides a map that shows dozens of LGBT and health related organizations that will “deliver [gc2b] binders to those in need” (ie. children whose parents don’t approve).

Chest binding is a powerful psychological and semi-medical intervention. When I was still in high school, around 2014, a (27 year old) “friend” from Tumblr sent me a chest binder after I had posted that I wanted one but my parents would never understand. This was before gc2b existed, and the binder was of very poor quality. I wore it a few times, but that style of binder was notoriously ineffective for anybody with a bra cup size larger than an A, so I couldn’t wear it under anything but a super baggy and thick hoodie, and I eventually forgot about it. During this time, I certainly was disgruntled with my breasts, as I had a fantasy of one day becoming a stunning and cute trans boy, but my “dysphoria” wasn’t intense enough to deal with the hoodies and mediocre binder, and I had no desire to wear the binder around the house.

Later, in 2016, a friend told me about gc2b. Her chest was completely flat, and I wondered how she had achieved that look. I ordered a gc2b binder immediately. When I tried it on, I was shocked by how well it compressed my chest, and that I could even wear t-shirts without having a super obvious amorphous lump bulging out. I started wearing it every day, and I became so accustomed to my upper body looking flat that any time I took it off, I was overcome with anxiety and shame. The disgruntlement I felt about my breasts in the years before I got a gc2b binder became an acute, exaggerated, and urgent distress. Soon after purchasing it, I was wearing that binder from before I got out of bed to once I was safely concealed under my covers in the night. Even trans-affirming sources will tell you that you shouldn’t wear a binder for more than a few hours at the time, and within a few months I started suffering intense upper back pain (that I still have, by the way). In my confused mind at the time, that just played into my romanticized narrative of suffering in the name of eventual salvation by the surgical gods.

Eventually, the pain got so bad that it was affecting my ability to focus or communicate effectively at my food service job. One day, I went to the bathroom, removed the binder, layered several work shirts and a hoodie, and went back to work. The physical relief was undeniable, and from that point on, it became harder and harder to mentally hype myself up to wearing the binder. That was one of the things that eventually got me to question if I even wanted to do the whole trans thing in the first place, but for the year and a half that I wore gc2b binders, they absolutely reinforced my trans identity, and negatively impacted my mental health. At the time, I would have said they improved my mental health, because I felt okay when my chest was flat, and distressed at my natural chest. But in retrospect, its so obvious to me that wearing those binders made my overall distress towards my natural body much more intense.

I got my first binder when I was about 16, but I only started wearing them regularly at 18, because that’s when I could buy one that actually worked. I do think those years I spent feeling vaguely disgruntled with my chest taught me distress tolerance. It was temporarily wiped away by the new binders I got as an adult, but by the time the discomfort with the binder and my usage of it got bad enough, I was able to tolerate not wearing it if it meant that I wouldn’t have to be in pain.

Its very concerning to me that teenagers are being given these powerful interventions by strangers online in an organized, well funded way. It’s doubly concerning to me that these strangers are portraying themselves as saviors to these kids, when in reality they do not know them and do not truly care about them. If this had existed when I was 15, I would have seen the woman who runs B4CK as a savior, but I don’t think she would care very much about me and my problems now that I’m not trans anymore.

These people are using impressionable kids who they convince their parents want them dead for their own personal gain, both psychologically (because they get to feel like saviors and the bestest tranz kidz mommies ever) and financially (kids who get a free binder at 16 will get “hooked” and become repeat gc2b customers — its like a dealer giving out free drugs the first time you meet him!). They portray themselves as the morally righteous, the saviors, the maternal, but what they’re doing risks causing serious psychological and physical harm to these young people and their families. Even if you take them at their word that they truly believe they’re sending life saving binders to kids in abusive homes, what do they think is going to happen to that kid if an abusive parent finds out their kid has been doing this behind their backs? Some of the parents of these kids might very well be truly abusive. Parents who are not abusive, but terrified when they find out strangers online are sending their kids things behind their backs, may react poorly and further stress family relationships, leaving the child feeling hurt and confused. Not to mention what happens when these kids go on to undergo permanent medical interventions because of the psychological reinforcement caused by these interactions with manipulative, savior complexed lunatics and their free breast binders. There is no sense of responsibility for what happens to these kids. It’s disgusting.

Angsty teenagers do not need crazy women on Instagram telling them that their parents want to kill them and that they need gc2b products to stay alive. They need their parents. So many parents are working hard, combing through their relationship with their kid to figure out where they went so wrong. They have no idea how many outside influences are inflaming or even downright causing dramatic issues at home. Certainly, many parents do regrettable things and struggle with their relationship to their child, but any person who truly cares about the mental health of a young person would value connection and trust between young people and their families. We have plenty of people on “our side” who do just that — help the struggling kids by helping their parents. But these people are doing the exact opposite.

They’re making kids more vulnerable. More anxious. More lonely. More desperate. More insecure. More likely to go on to cause serious damage to their health and futures. They’re causing or exacerbating attachment wounds that these families may have to suffer with for a long time. It’s inappropriate and predatory, and parents need to know.