Observation on Chest-Binding vs. Identity

As I recently got a chest-binder, I started to research about the garment online. Through going onto Chinese lesbian forums and reading blogs written by local lezzies, I knew in Asia (well China and Hong Kong are the ones I had closely observed personally) the chest-binders are targeted to and often worn by Ts [1]. However, when I googled through English-oriented search sites and came back with results that originated from Western countries mainly, I found the binders are more likely to be worn by transgender-identified individuals rather. This is really intriguing... I can't stop thinking if this is because most Western societies are years ahead in the LGBT movement, and people had gone way beyond the butch/femme role playing thing back in the 60s? Now there are much more classification on identities, such as futch, bois, etc, with new ones showing up everyday. Also transgender are not to be grouped with sexuality, but under gender rather. On top of that, I notice lots of individual would simply go under the grand umbrella of queer, or in fact they choose to not label themselves at all. I'm wondering if the difference on how people label themselves occured observed between the two cultures merely because Asia is still under development on fully-understanding gender, sexuality and related subjects? Or people in Asia are just more into the butch/femme scenes? And what about Chinese queer people, are they truly enjoying their labels of being either femme or butch?

With these question (and this topic in general) popping up in my head every morning, I can say I'm not happy with the binary classification within lezzies in China. If you must force me into the division of butch and femme, I would say I contain the quality of both yet not really both. I just want to be who I am, and I don't really want to stuck with a label. Life is hard to get by here in Shanghai - you would often get questioning looks, from your lovely group of lezzies themselves, wondering if you are T or P [4] or an alien. If I ever have an eye contact with you, I would silently say f*ck you in my heart.

Note:
1. T = in this context T doesn't refer to testosterone - but tomboy [2], the more masculine role within the pool of lalas [3]; similar to butch in English, yet does not necessary equal to butch in full extent (more close to baby dyke)
2. tomboy = in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, it is a term that's often referring to butch lesbians; unlike its Western definition, tomboy in this context does not hold the simple meaning of girls who dress like boys, regardless of their sexual orientation; it is also known as tb, for short, in Hong Kong culture
3. lala = 拉拉, a more casual word for lesbian in Chinese
4. P = the word/letter for femme in mainland China

* * *

And to treat you for reading the entire article, here's a bonus - 2 digital illustrations dedicated for chest-binding.

traditional way of chest-binding with bandages

relative-newly-developed chest-binding tank tops