I'm starting to sympathize with cis people who hate their bodies

[GothicLucas]

First of all, I know that many cis people like to think of our transitions as overcompensation for low self-esteem, and I find that as ignorant and infuriating as most of you probably do. We all know that being transgender is about an internal sense of self and just feeling right in your own body.

 

It gets to a point, though, past that initial identification, where I feel like the lines are blurred, specifically for me and many others like me (nonbinary).

 

I've been reminded that my cis boyfriend has really low self-esteem, and in googling resources to help him, I came upon this one article about bodybuilding as overcompensation.

 

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2300-swole-culture-perils-my-bodybuilding-addiction.html

 

My boyfriend hates his physique and not only does he wish he looked more like the men he sees in MMA tournaments, but he also feels that due to genetics and ethnicity that he would never attain that ideal no matter how hard he tried.

 

It dawned on me that we both seem to share similar thoughts: "I am (wholly/partly) a man. But I don't look like what I think a man should look like. It's frustrating/embarrassing that people look at me and don't see who I want them to see. I can exercise and work out, but without adding the testosterone that my body is lacking, I can never attain my goal."

 

Some things between us are very different--I don't hate my body/self, and am well aware that the desire to be gauged as "man" when I am typically forced into the "woman" camp makes my situation quite different. I also legitimately do not have close to the amount of T that a typical cisman has, but my boyfriend has a baseless, anxious fear that he doesn't have the right amount, either.

 

But after those things, where is that line actually drawn? It just makes me wonder, how far can I go in my transition before it stops being a transgender transition and turns into a plastic surgery type of deal.

 

Since I'm nonbinary, I don't think I have the same emotional distress or level of dysphoria that a transman might have over being gendered female. It feels like for us, there is more choice involved. I see nonbinary people grappling with indecision all the time regarding what medical procedures they should or shouldn't get, and exactly what results they'll accept. "Will any surgeons perform my specific request?" and "Has anyone else ever done this, or is it just me?" Of course I have my own fantasies about exactly how I'd like to look and sound and come off to other people, but I'm well aware that there is only so much control I have over those things, and try to make peace with that now, before those changes happen.

 

There is such a delicate balance between gender dysphoria, internalized transphobia, and legitmate self-esteem issues...where do we draw the line? Not just for trans people, but for everyone, because shouldn't anyone be allowed to use modern medicine to their advantage if it will truly make them happier? When you're trans, at what point and how do you make peace with your body and the parts of it that you can't change, or can't control how they change?

[VickySGV]

One of the things that happens to too many of us early in our Discovery and Pre-transition stages is that we let the opinions of others who are in the Cis range direct our lives.  We accept their notions of what our target gender/agender should be and make that our ideal that we get hung up on and will not let go of for some time.  It does however mellow out over time if we have help and validation that our unique selves are really our goal, and opposed to "Standards of ___<looks>______!"  While I have had GCS and have no regrets, I know what it does  not do and will not suggest that another person take that route as a sure cure.  The best resolution to GD was to accept my own singular outward look, and concentrate on my outlook on life and its direction.  At one of my support groups last night, another girl pointed out that her external transition was NOTHING compared to her INTERNAL transition which she after three years and I after 10+ years still go through.   

[Jani]

6 hours ago, VickySGV said:

At one of my support groups last night, another girl pointed out that her external transition was NOTHING compared to her INTERNAL transition which she after three years and I after 10+ years still go through. 

Amen to this!

[Rachael]

I agree the mental and emotional changes are worth the effort alone the physical changes are just a fantastic bonus. 

[GothicLucas]

I don't have anything useful to add, but wanted to thank you all for responding. ?

[jae bear]

I have to agree with some of the things spoken here about Internal transition, this can be the hardest part for many of us, and I know it was with me as well. I often bemoan the fact  that I wish I had started this process when I was 17, that time I told my mother I needed to transition, or when I was 29 sometime after my first divorce and had lined up all those bottles of spiro and Premarin... I knew who I was then just as much as I know who I am now, the difference was acceptance. Now I accept myself for who I am, I don’t have a problem with the person I am now, but back then I did, I was trying to transition externally without transitioning internally first.

 I definitely have some issues with my external looks, all the same trappings that CIS gender females have to deal with as well. I’m worried about my aging face, my wrinkles, my belly flab and how much I weigh.  Oddly enough these compulsory worries just make me fit in better with the rest of the girls. ?

 Hugs,

Jackie 

 

[GothicLucas]

I think I may have downplayed my own feelings of dysphoria in the beginning. I do hope to look a certain way when I start hormone therapy, but it's my ideal for me, it's not something I want in order for other people to like me. It's very much against the commonly accepted idea of what a man should look like, actually--just my tiny frame minus boobs and curves. "Men don't have those...I want a masculine body." It is a truth that I don't have a masculine body. It is not a truth that my boyfriend doesn't have a masculine body. He absolutely does, it just doesn't fit his ideals. (I'm using him as an example--sorry, honey--but I don't think he's the only cis person with these feelings.)

 

I was wondering what the difference was between someone like him and someone like me, and I guess it's that. And everyone talks about that, too, so I should have known better--that there's a difference between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria. There are truths about my body and my relationship to my apparent gender that will be relieved with medical intervention. With body dysmorphia, no matter how much of a  body you change, it's just compensation for something that needs to be mended on the inside. Since anyone can have even mild insecurities, though, I think the idea of an internal transition as well as an external one makes sense

I think I had just worried that my transition goals were too specific to "count" as transgender. Did any of you start off with ideas of what you wished you looked like, or was it just "I'll take any changes as long as I'm read as the correct gender?"

I hope I haven't bothered anyone with my rambling thoughts. I came out in 2015, but I think I've spent awhile putting a lot of thoughts and feelings under the rug instead of processing them.

[Jani]

9 hours ago, GothicLucas said:

I think I had just worried that my transition goals were too specific to "count" as transgender. Did any of you start off with ideas of what you wished you looked like, or was it just "I'll take any changes as long as I'm read as the correct gender?"

I believe we all start with goals and visions of what we would like to be and look like.  As time moves on and some of the excitement is rubbed off we may get a bit more practical in our views of what can happen.  I am happy with the results I have attained.  I hope you will be too.

 

Jani