Doll Chooses Silicone Bra Inserts: Faking it 'Til She Makes it

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Introducing Doll, Racked's first transgender guest blogger. Always secretly wishing he'd been born a Barbie, Doll was a young army brat who grew up and became a citizen of the world. After landing in Manhattan, he became a New York fashion insider, working in a high-powered industry position, living a life worthy of a feature film.

After mysteriously vanishing from the scene, Doll recently resurfaced and has embarked on a new roller-coaster ride of a journey. Follow his transformation, week by week, right here on Racked.

"At least you guys can wear halters.
I've got man shoulders."—Regina George in Mean Girls

Doll: During my transition, I have become especially concerned about body shape. Since I am only seven months into the process, my breasts have yet to fully develop. Even if I eventually opt for breast augmentation, right now it’s still premature for me to alter my body with surgery. But I wanted to start wearing dresses and see what it would feel and look like so I recently decided to purchase breast forms. You know what they say—“Fake it 'til you make it!”

As I progress in my transition, the fat distribution constantly shifts to slowly morph my body into a more shapely female form. Since I was a very petite boy to begin with, I always preferred buying women’s tops and bottoms because of the fit. So most of the clothes I have in my current wardrobe are all wearable as I transition. However, I would rather hold out on purchasing dresses because I want to get my body proportions looking right and consistent first (especially when investing on designer labels). When I needed to determine the proper clothing size for me I simply measured my waist as a constant. I'm about a 25" waist, and the typical proportions are about 33-25-36 for size 0 or 2 clothing. Lucky for me, I wear the same size as Gwyneth and Cher so I can borrow dresses from them in the meantime.

Finding the right sized breast form will be my next step. Now, everyone has different figure flaws to deal with. In my case, I'm just over 5'5" and weigh about 110, so I am thin enough to carry off different looks. But a problem I have to deal with, one which I think immediately makes me stand out, are my shoulders—they are very broad. I cannot wear certain cuts of dresses/tops to avoid making myself look like a linebacker. I tried on several smaller form sizes, but I found I needed a larger size to make my shoulders seem more in proportion. And so, I purchased three different sized breast forms and put them to the test.

I first asked my heterosexual male friends to see if they can “spot the difference”. Surprisingly the silicone breast forms are realistic to the touch, and they fall rather well underneath the clothes with a bra (even the nipples look very realistic). Men are very visual, so I always need to make sure everything is on point. After countless nights out with the dolls—my fake breasts fared really well! I actually went out on two dates with a guy, and switched the forms from big to significantly small on two separate occasions and he didn’t even notice! But I like to say, passing is primarily from the neck up—“It’s all about face value”.

I don’t know how much breast growth I’ll naturally achieve through the hormone therapy. But I am aiming to be at least a 34B (full cup) with or without surgery, anything bigger would be too much for me. Besides I always want to be able to fit in designer sample size. So I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
· @ratedxx_doll [Twitter]
· All Rated XX [Racked]