No more choosing between physical and mental health for some LGBTQ youth in Ontario's north

OutLoud North Bay opened 18 months ago for LGBTQ youth to take refuge and safely explore their identities, but its membership has grown to the point that it's had to move out of its original space.

It's something the centre's founder, Seth Compton, said he never saw coming. 

Today, the former nightclub in the northern Ontario city is buzzing with colourful murals of familiar faces like George Floyd and Marsha P. Johnson, a library filled with books on the vibrant lives and stories of the LGBTQ community and a used clothing closet for children in transition.

The space even has a half-pipe ramp installed, in case they want to try skateboarding.

The community hub is a home away from home to about 300 youth in North Bay and the surrounding areas. On average, about 75 walk through its doors every day. 

Many have been struggling as they search for body binders — undergarments that resemble sports bras or tank tops, and are typically used to flatten breasts. They help to quiet potentially life-threatening mental health conditions like gender dysphoria — a person's unease over their biological sex and the gender with which they identify.

Compton knows that all too well. 

"When I physically came out as transgender, I started looking online for different options to order binders. There's no local resources, so I would have to order out of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, the U.K." 

But even when he found them, he ran into challenges. Compton said his wife would help him measure his chest, but when the binders arrived in the mail, they didn't fit properly. Some of them even restricted his ability to breathe. 

Out of desperation, Compton said, he would sometimes wear them, but often wasn't able to bear them for more than an hour or so. His concern, he said, is that when kids run into similar issues, they'll sacrifice their physical health to quell mental health conditions like gender dysphoria. 

"Some of these kids are wearing them 12 hours a day. They can break out in acne, they can get scars, blisters, have issues breathing, bruised ribs — I've had some kids in here coughing up blood," said Compton, who was a child and youth worker in Hamilton before founding OutLoud. 

"As a parent, that breaks me. As a person that identifies as trans, it's heartbreaking because I know that these kids are not properly fitted."

Now, Compton and his small team are working hard to create their own safe body binders.

Jackson Pauls is 16 years old and will be trying on the prototypes, as the team attempts to perfect a safe design. He said he first encountered body binders on the internet during conversations with other trans people over Instagram when he was about 13 years old.