CW: food, discussion of weight and harassment, homophobic slurs
I actually wrote the title to this post like a week ago and saved it as a draft because I didn't have time to write.
But anyhow, I have shaved my head. Or like...not completely. It still has hair on it. It's a buzz cut. Which, as the title says, I was absolutely petrified of. I like it now though. I'm keeping it this way.
Those of you who have been here longer probably know by now that I was fat for most of my life thus far. I was medically overweight from around seven or eight years old to almost twenty.
My highest weight was in the 190s with very little muscle mass when I was fifteen. Then I realized I was bi, that I could get away with being gender nonconforming (and therefore stay closeted) more easily if I was thin, and that I was also just sick of constantly being harassed. So I lost forty pounds by my seventeenth birthday, then gained about 20 or 25 the summer before my senior year of high school and couldn't seem to lose it again no matter how healthily I ate or how much exercise I did.
Full disclaimer - I eventually made my peace with my 170-something-pound body. There was nothing wrong with my body (besides the blood sugar, eye, and pain issues). I get that. And I'm trying to be that okay with myself now too, at 140.
But even with my insecurities, I recognize that I am privileged because I no longer experience fatphobia.
Like I was saying, though, I'm technically thin now for pretty much the first time since my dad died (I tend to eat my feelings). And even though I've lost weight and recognize that I'm treated very differently now, I still have a lot of residual insecurity about my body and my femininity - or lack thereof.
I don't feel thin, basically. I don't think of myself as thin. I still have a lot of the same body image issues as I did when I was fat.
GNC women who are thin are able to get away with a lot more in terms of their gender nonconformity than GNC women who are fat. Sure, there are other factors at play like transgender status, class, disability, sexuality, and race, but I'm not talking about those other factors. I'm talking about weight.
Fat women who don't wear makeup, who don't shave, who shave their heads, who don't wear feminine clothing, who are generally perceived as "unfeminine" and "not caring about their appearance", are seen as sloppy and ugly. If I were still 198 pounds, there's no way I would be able to look the way I do without being sneered at and lectured and told that I should at least try to look feminine and fuckable and straight if I'm going to dare to exist as a fat woman.
If my hair was longer, I could pass for a tomboyish cishet woman today. But I wouldn't be able to do that if I were still fat because I would automatically be perceived as less feminine, no matter what I'm wearing, and I know that and part of me still feels like that fat, insecure fifteen-year-old girl who just doesn't want to be harassed.
That girl never would have gotten her hair buzzed. That girl certainly never would have dreamed that she would be a he instead of a she. She would have wished it, quietly. Would never have voiced that desire or any other that expressed her alienation from girlhood, would never have called it dysphoria, would never have dared daydream about loving women. She never would have known any of that was possible for her. I'm glad I'm not that girl anymore, but at the same time all I want to do is protect her.
That part of me, the part of me that is her, almost cried when I walked out of that beauty salon with my hair shorn so close to my scalp that I couldn't even grab a shock of thick honey blonde waves between my fingers. I felt and still do feel like I have to compensate for my gender nonconformity and my bisexuality by being feminine in some way.
I've changed a lot, but she's still a part of me. And sometimes...I forget. I forget how much I've changed and all that old toxic shit comes back and I feel a rush of shame, of internalized homophobia and transphobia. I feel the need to tone down my masculinity so I still look like a woman. As if there's only one way for a woman to look.
I feel that way about my hair. I feel that way about my clothes. I feel that way about my sexuality. I feel that way about my gender, about my pronouns. I feel that way about going on T and getting top surgery.
I'm not wholly a woman, and other than through the lens of being a gender nonconforming woman who loves women, I'm not a woman at all internally. But I'm not a man either. I don't want to be one and I don't want to look like one.
I don't want to date gay men or straight women. But who would date a woman who looks like a man, and if I choose to medically transition is just going to look even more like a man when he's older? I've never even heard of a GNC bi woman or of a tomcat, besides me, going on T or having top surgery. Especially not while using he/him pronouns and being nonbinary. What is my future going to look like? What is my body going to look like? Is it possible for someone to love me the way I want to be loved?
I feel years of psychological burden, of emotional trauma, coming back sometimes, when I think about gender nonconformity and transition. I used to be a fat girl and part of me will always feel the need to compensate for that. Part of me will feel like an imposter. Part of me will feel the need to apologize when I did nothing wrong. Part of me will always be afraid.
I actually wrote the title to this post like a week ago and saved it as a draft because I didn't have time to write.
But anyhow, I have shaved my head. Or like...not completely. It still has hair on it. It's a buzz cut. Which, as the title says, I was absolutely petrified of. I like it now though. I'm keeping it this way.
Those of you who have been here longer probably know by now that I was fat for most of my life thus far. I was medically overweight from around seven or eight years old to almost twenty.
My highest weight was in the 190s with very little muscle mass when I was fifteen. Then I realized I was bi, that I could get away with being gender nonconforming (and therefore stay closeted) more easily if I was thin, and that I was also just sick of constantly being harassed. So I lost forty pounds by my seventeenth birthday, then gained about 20 or 25 the summer before my senior year of high school and couldn't seem to lose it again no matter how healthily I ate or how much exercise I did.
Full disclaimer - I eventually made my peace with my 170-something-pound body. There was nothing wrong with my body (besides the blood sugar, eye, and pain issues). I get that. And I'm trying to be that okay with myself now too, at 140.
But even with my insecurities, I recognize that I am privileged because I no longer experience fatphobia.
Like I was saying, though, I'm technically thin now for pretty much the first time since my dad died (I tend to eat my feelings). And even though I've lost weight and recognize that I'm treated very differently now, I still have a lot of residual insecurity about my body and my femininity - or lack thereof.
I don't feel thin, basically. I don't think of myself as thin. I still have a lot of the same body image issues as I did when I was fat.
GNC women who are thin are able to get away with a lot more in terms of their gender nonconformity than GNC women who are fat. Sure, there are other factors at play like transgender status, class, disability, sexuality, and race, but I'm not talking about those other factors. I'm talking about weight.
Fat women who don't wear makeup, who don't shave, who shave their heads, who don't wear feminine clothing, who are generally perceived as "unfeminine" and "not caring about their appearance", are seen as sloppy and ugly. If I were still 198 pounds, there's no way I would be able to look the way I do without being sneered at and lectured and told that I should at least try to look feminine and fuckable and straight if I'm going to dare to exist as a fat woman.
If my hair was longer, I could pass for a tomboyish cishet woman today. But I wouldn't be able to do that if I were still fat because I would automatically be perceived as less feminine, no matter what I'm wearing, and I know that and part of me still feels like that fat, insecure fifteen-year-old girl who just doesn't want to be harassed.
That girl never would have gotten her hair buzzed. That girl certainly never would have dreamed that she would be a he instead of a she. She would have wished it, quietly. Would never have voiced that desire or any other that expressed her alienation from girlhood, would never have called it dysphoria, would never have dared daydream about loving women. She never would have known any of that was possible for her. I'm glad I'm not that girl anymore, but at the same time all I want to do is protect her.
That part of me, the part of me that is her, almost cried when I walked out of that beauty salon with my hair shorn so close to my scalp that I couldn't even grab a shock of thick honey blonde waves between my fingers. I felt and still do feel like I have to compensate for my gender nonconformity and my bisexuality by being feminine in some way.
I've changed a lot, but she's still a part of me. And sometimes...I forget. I forget how much I've changed and all that old toxic shit comes back and I feel a rush of shame, of internalized homophobia and transphobia. I feel the need to tone down my masculinity so I still look like a woman. As if there's only one way for a woman to look.
I feel that way about my hair. I feel that way about my clothes. I feel that way about my sexuality. I feel that way about my gender, about my pronouns. I feel that way about going on T and getting top surgery.
I'm not wholly a woman, and other than through the lens of being a gender nonconforming woman who loves women, I'm not a woman at all internally. But I'm not a man either. I don't want to be one and I don't want to look like one.
I don't want to date gay men or straight women. But who would date a woman who looks like a man, and if I choose to medically transition is just going to look even more like a man when he's older? I've never even heard of a GNC bi woman or of a tomcat, besides me, going on T or having top surgery. Especially not while using he/him pronouns and being nonbinary. What is my future going to look like? What is my body going to look like? Is it possible for someone to love me the way I want to be loved?
I feel years of psychological burden, of emotional trauma, coming back sometimes, when I think about gender nonconformity and transition. I used to be a fat girl and part of me will always feel the need to compensate for that. Part of me will feel like an imposter. Part of me will feel the need to apologize when I did nothing wrong. Part of me will always be afraid.
No comments:
Post a Comment