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What wearing a bra means to me

My bra and my gender identity 

To me, as a “new maiden” (boy who dreams of being a girl), wearing a bra means a lot.
More so than any other garments or things I do, it is the bra that makes me feel like a girl.
It was the first type of lingerie I ever tried on. My mother’s of course.
Then later my own.
I’ve had all sorts of styles over the years, padded and not, wired and not, full cup, balcony, sports, long line. I’ve tried a lot!
Why?
To me, their something special because they are something girls have and boys don’t.
They’re secret but also not: there is an outline of the bra visible through a top, a glimpse of a shoulder strap. And imagining how it feels to be her.
They’re a rite of passage for girls. The first bra a sign of growing into a woman. A journey and experience I dream of but have no experience of.

How does it feel to put on a bra

So what does it mean to me to put on a bra?
It’s a kind of ritual of becoming “me” for a while.
The first stage of the ritual is to hold it up to my chest and feel the cool fabric against my skin.
Stage two is to fasten the chest band. Depending on how tight the bra, I may be able to do that behind my back, or have to put it on backwards and then manoeuvre it round. The band around my chest feels snug and I like the way I can feel it stretch and relax with my breathing. I wonder if “real” girls ever think like this?  Maybe when they first start wearing them I suppose.
The third stage is to pull and adjust it into the right place on my chest and back. I don’t have any actual breasts of my own, but with a tight underwired bra, it shapes and cups the skin and (lets be honest, layer of fat under the skin). With the cups still down, the cupped shape is breast like: there’s softness and movement and my nipples point out. At this stage I genuinely feel like I have breasts, small as they are, but they feel real to me.
The final  stage of the ritual is to cover them with the cups and pull the shoulder straps on. First one, then the other. With the shoulder straps on, my breasts feel secured and I feel, somehow, complete.
So that is what wearing a bra means to me. I feel complete.
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