One of the reason I haven't been writing in this is that I'm too much of a perfectionist. My anxiety induced writer's block stems from the need to met a likely unreachable standard that I have set for myself. What I need to realize is this is a blog not an academic journal. It's where I air my thoughts not propose game changing theories in gender studies. If I manage to do that then cool but setting out to do it dooms me to not finish anything I start.
Case in point, I started a piece on body image and gender identity, the crossover place where the obsession with weight and size smashes into peoples ideas of male and female. It was wordy and full of literary references and likely unfinishable. But you know what? I lost it. Somewhere in my paper eating mess of a desk/messenger bag/black hole it sits but I don't know where. So screw it. I'm just gonna talk about the idea and see where it gets me.
Google "transmen eating disorders" and you get a lot of hits. From online support groups and discussion boards to Wikipedia articles about transmen activists who lecture on eating disorders and body image. And yet, this is a correlation that tends to illicit a 'huh, that's weird' response when you mention it to folks. Maybe this is in part because eating disorders are so coupled with femaleness in our psyches. It's hard enough to get people to acknowledge that cisgender men can develop such disorders. Sorry folks, those high school wrestlers wearing sauna suits and starving themselves to make weight? That sounds like symptoms to me. I remember seeing guys in my high school in shiny, silver outfits not having lunch or only having a Slimfast or other liquids looking like they about to pass the fuck out.
The motivation for transmen is similar, they are trying to "make weight". Look at any picture of an anorexic woman in advanced stages and you'll note that her breasts and hips have shrunk. So starvation becomes a form of body modification to mold themselves into a more masculine appearance. This is likely compounded by starting on testosterone which can cause weight gain.
I get it. I see skinny little genderqueer bois and envy them their androgynous appearance. It's a lot harder to pass or be acknowledged as male/masculine-identified when you have breasts larger then an A-cup and wide hips. There are outfits and looks I'll likely never be able to pull off because of how my body is shaped. And yet I am not compelled to stop eating or start barfing or compulsively exercise to deal with it.
Truth be told I should exercise more. I know I'm overweight and it takes a toll on both my bad back and the arthritis that has recently been diagnosed in my knees. But even once I do start getting more active I can't see myself exercising to dangerous levels. Part of that is sheer laziness.
As for the others, I love food and I really hate barfing. Barfing intentionality, unless I've been poisoned, just sounds stupid. I've been known to forget to eat when left to my own devises but again, laziness is the culprit not a desire for starvation. And even at my lowest adult weight, I still had wide hips and big ass. They ain't going anywhere.
This overlap of gender variance and body image isn't solely a FTM thing. I have at least one MTF friend for whom losing weight is part of her desire for femininity and a more female appearance but since her starting point is an overweight 'male' body, a smaller waistline is an understandable goal. I do think that some of her methods are iffy, meal replacement shakes should ideally only replace one meal a day if they are going to be used at all. There are fewer hits on a Google search for "transwomen eating disorders" but there are still a bunch.
Even for cisgender folks there seems to be a connection here. I heard a friend in a book discussion group actually say that she would dress more femmy if she could lose weight. I had to ask what that had to do with anything and cited my wife who is both zaftig and femme. A granola femme who lifted weights and played hockey when she was younger but still femme.
So what's the deal here? What does your weight/shape have to do with your gender identity and/or presentation? Discuss!
Well, I'm a cis bi female, was skinny as a stick when I was a kid and teenager, started gaining weight when I got pregnant with my first child, and never was able to get rid of it afterward. These days, I think that was a subconscious defensive reaction; my first husband was an abusive, alcoholic asshole, and the extra weight gave me at least a little bit of padding between my breakable bones and his fists. It also kept me from having to deal with his sexual demands; he didn't find me attractive, and I didn't want anything to do with that. So, in a way, my weight and shape then was a way of denying my gender identity (cis female), but it was a protective move rather than a dissatisfaction with what I am and how I perceived myself to be.
ReplyDeleteI've lost a lot of weight in the last two years, and I think that finally started happening because my mind FINALLY realized it didn't need that "armor" any more. The outside matches the inside, and I'm both pleased and lucky that this is so.
~Jennifer
Good point Jennifer. The fact that weight can be used as a defensive de-gendering tool as well.
ReplyDeleteI had a further thought too. Along the lines of what my one friend said about her weight keeping from dressing more femmy. One assumes under that logic that there are basically cisgendered lesbian/bi women who present as butch because they think they are too heavy to be feminine. On the flip side one can imagine that there are men who want to do drag but think they can't because they are chunky. It's interesting to speculate all the ways that our body image can influence our gender identity/presentation.