Trans entrepreneurs, trans consumers and the emergence of the prosthetics market

Packing is a practice undertaken by some trans men and transmasculine people, involving putting something into your underwear to provide the feeling or impression of a bulge or to emulate the shape or function of a penis. While there are DIY solutions to this, a niche industry has developed around the commercial provision of devices for this purpose, ranging from foam padding to highly detailed multi-functional prosthetic penises. Drawing on historical community newsletters, and archived and contemporary brand websites I analyse the development of this market from the 1980s through to the end of 2022. Taking an actor network theory informed perspective on market emergence, I centre the devices themselves to ask what makes a prosthetic intended for trans consumers different to materially very similar objects like dildos. Through attending to the development and organisation of this market, I argue that the diverse networks of discourses and material relationships that make up the market for prosthetics enact them as specifically trans products, and thus as distinct from closely related objects like dildos. In doing so I attend to how the prosthetic market historically helped to solidify a trans male subjectivity, as well as to constitute trans people as consumers of specifically trans products.