#i can express myself through my hair tattoos and clothes without the need to conform or hide parts of myself because others won't approve.

[ievani-e]

Body Positivity: What Does That Mean When You Have Body Dysphoria?

I was inspired to write this post after I saw a friend post a new status on her Facebook timeline, encouraging body positivity. Her post read:

“With my body I can do what I want: I can walk; I can run; I can jump; I can swim; sometimes I can fly; I can perceive; I can hug; I can kiss; I can eat; I can dance; I can listen; I can talk; I can think. So why the hell should I care how it looks like?! Standing up against an ideal appearance and resulting disorders!”

I agreed with the general point she was making: our bodies are very useful things! Even if you are disabled in some way, and as such perhaps cannot do all of the things mentioned above, our body is nevertheless the vessel which carries us through this world and allows us to experience it. Whatever our own personal situation or identity, without a physical body enabling us to carry out or actions and exert our will upon the world, we wouldn’t be able to interact with the world around us. It’s important to celebrate all the good things our body does for us, even if we don’t necessarily like each and every single thing about it.

This viewpoint was also shared by Sarah Garone in an article she wrote for Healthline titled How I’m Learning to Make Peace with the One Body Part I Hate. It makes for a very interesting read and I whole-heartedly recommend it. (Click the title for the link.)

However, the idea of “loving your body” and “not caring what it looks like” is a lot easier for some than for others. It’s especially difficult if you are transgender and experience a lot of dysphoria related to specific aspects of your body. So I wanted to expand upon my friend’s post by agreeing with her overall point of encouraging body positivity, love, and acceptance; but also making sure I included a positive message for transgender people experiencing bodily dysphoria. I didn’t want the only take away to be “be grateful for what you have, love your body for what it is, and learn to be happy with it”, because that is not the only interpretation and that is not the only way to be body positive.

Body positivity does mean loving your body — but loving your body doesn’t mean only one thing to everyone, and it doesn’t take only one form. Much like bodies themselves, the approach that you take to your own body is not one-size-fits-all. There are lots of different ways to express positivity about our bodies. We can choose to focus on the things we do like, rather than those we don’t; we can focus on celebrating the utility of the body, instead of putting ourselves down based on the way it happens to look; it can mean accepting things as they are; or it can mean changing or working on the things we don’t like, so that we do like it more.

Learning to love yourself doesn’t just have to mean accepting everything the way it is. It can also mean resolving to make changes to your body so that we feel better about our bodies and more comfortable in and of ourselves. Those changes can be very big, but they can also be very small. Although we might not be able to control everything about our bodies and we might not be able to make them completely perfect in our own eyes, we do at least have some measure of control over our own bodies and our own appearance — and we have the right to exert that control as we see fit.

I believe in the individual being free to express themselves and being free to change their own body/appearance if they want to, in a way that feels right to them: whether that means going to the gym to slim down/buff up; using make-up to change the shape or contour of your face, or get your eyes and lips just the way you like; changing your hairstyle or the colour of your hair to something else you like more; wearing different clothes; getting tattoos or piercings; experimenting with binders or packers to create a different silhouette; or medically transitioning with the help of surgery or hormone replacement therapy. Whatever it is that makes you feel more like you!

The important thing, to me, is doing what makes you happy. That will mean different things for everyone and manifest itself in different ways. Likewise, if people are unhappy with their bodies, I don’t want them to think that they don’t have any choice over their appearance, or that there is nothing they can do to lessen the dysphoria they feel except to come to terms with their bodies just the way they are. I personally know a few well-meaning family members and friends who have expressed views along the line of, “You should just love yourself the way you are!” or “Why can’t you be happy being yourself?” I’m not even medically transitioning myself; but there are other things I want to do to be in control of my own body and my own gender expression, like experiment with hair and clothes and binders. What they don’t seem to understand is that I am experimenting with my gender presentation because I love myself, and want to find something that feels right for me instead of wrong. But I know that that isn’t possible for everyone; I know that the dysphoria runs far deeper for some than others, and a social transition or change of presentation isn’t enough.

Because of this, rather than ask everyone to love their body for all the good things it offers and to only focus on the good instead of the bad (which nevertheless still is a valid approach; it’s just one of many, and if it works for you, I’m glad!), I favour a more nuanced approach. I favour focusing on your own relationship with your own body, and doing what is right for you to feel happier, healthier and more comfortable in your own body. Whether you decide to embrace your body as-is, adopt a different mind-set when thinking about it, or want to make changes, it is something you should do for you; not for anyone else. Just as long as it’s what you want to do — not what you feel you “should” do or “have to” do for any other reason, or for anyone else’s sake but your own. This applies to everyone — not just transgender people.

Obviously, there are positive, healthy and constructive ways to go about seeking to alter your appearance; and some negative, unhealthy and destructive ways to go about it as well if you are doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. That is when it becomes disordered. The examples I mentioned above are all low-impact, constructive, and could be adopted straight away (with the exception of medical transitioning, which is more involved); but if you take more drastic approaches, such as depriving yourself of food, engaging in excessive exercise or causing yourself harm, that is a lot more destructive and not what I am advocating for here. The difference between the two (positive vs negative; healthy vs unhealthy; constructive vs destructive) is whether what you’re doing is rooted in love and the pursuit of well-being for yourself and your body, or if it’s rooted in hatred or disgust for yourself and your body. But, assuming you do love yourself and want the best for yourself, then what that means or what form it takes should be something you are able to decide for yourself.

Riley J. Dennis has a great video about body positivity and the things you can do to increase your own sense of comfort and well-being within your body if you want to, and she makes the point much better than I do. Her video, Are trans people allowed to be body positive?, does approach body positivity from a transgender perspective, as I am doing here; but I think the take-away could equally apply to everyone. (Click the title for the link.)

Whatever form body positivity takes for you, love should always be what guides our way. I agree with the general premise of my friend’s Facebook post that there is no one “right” way to look; there is no “universal standard” that every single person should, or even could, conform to. Additionally, our appearance might disappoint us sometimes. Our body itself might let us down or hold us back in some way, be that due to our biological sex, mental or physical health, disability, or other conditions. But even so, body positivity is a concept we all can practice. We are all different; we are all beautiful; everyone is unique and worthy of love and acceptance. We would all benefit if we strive to love ourselves for ourselves, rather than comparing ourselves to others or to some imagined “ideal”. We would all benefit if we strive to accept those things about ourselves we cannot change, and aim to change those we feel we can. Everyone’s needs are different, so there are no absolutes here; we need to take it on a case-by-case basis and do what is right for ourselves.

It’s also worth pointing out that, a lot of the time, the “others” we’re comparing ourselves to don’t like the way they themselves look, either! There’s bound to be something they don’t like about themselves, too. We are each always harshest on ourselves most of all; yet are more open to accepting others exactly the way they are. We don’t tend to critique others anywhere near as much as ourselves. Even those we idealise are guilty of this, and they, too, think that they themselves are ugly while everyone else is beautiful. According to this line of thinking, everyone thinks everyone else is beautiful and fine the way they are while thinking themselves ugly and lacking in some respect — which means no-one actually feels beautiful and “enough”, despite being thought of as beautiful and enough by others.

So if, recognising that, we could turn that same acceptance and positivity we bestow upon others upon ourselves as well — if we could love ourselves, the same way we love our own friends and loved ones — that would go a long way towards finding happiness within ourselves, and making peace with our own bodies; which, as I said at the start, may not be perfect, but… they do do a lot for us, and they deserve some credit. With that in mind, let’s focus on the things you can do; not the things you can’t.

Laverne Cox has said it, and I’ll say it again: “You gotta be your own best friend and treat yourself with respect!”

(Art by chibird. Link to the original post here!)

#body positivity #dysphoria #be your own best friend #do what feels right for you #queers on tumblr

[danny-redbard-blog]

I don't eat food on Mondays. There's always been this fire in me to question the narrative when it feels like bullshit to me. From the moment I asked myself, "I wonder if I can go a week without eating meat?" I was genuinely under the impression that we die without eating meat. Then my mind wandered back to the world wars, where prisoners of war survived in death camps by eating a slice of mouldy bread per week. I remember hearing that in high school & everyone expressing, 'Oh, so cruel. So sad.' My mind went, "People survived off 1 slice of bread a week?! What the hell is all this, 'must eat 3 fruit & 5 veg, can't survive without meat protein, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, garbage then?'" "Can't gain muscle on a vegan diet." Bahh. "We need red meat for our brain function." Hah! What's the agenda here? The Vedas say that fasting helps meditation & makes us live longer. So now I don't eat from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon. 40 hour fast each week. I shake myself up like this so that my willpower is constantly prepared for new challenges. I do this to hone the sharpness of my internal bullshit-o-metre. When someone says something has to be done a certain way, I open up to the opposite end of the spectrum. Have you explored this way of thinking? I ask you, what's bullshit in this society that you've always averted? And have you conformed to it because everyone else does? Sitting watching Netflix even though you know the powers at the top want you dumb & lazy. Drinking the coca-cola even though you know it's poison. Wearing the boring clothes, stock-standard tattoos, hair that's in fashion, because you don't want to stand-out & have people talk behind your back. Aren't you bored? Is anyone else bored of this monotony? Can we all deliberately shake up? Completely change what we look like, eat like, express like, just to remind ourselves that we aren't these skin-suits. No matter how much they want us to be. This life can be heaven if we step through the discomfort of the narrative. Our inner-compass is screaming at us to explore & experience the range of being a human being. Are you listening? 🌹 https://www.instagram.com/p/CAoRWHkHRDe/?igshid=kcj353mil6o9

[lareporteragonzeauxblog]

This is why I strike

I dress in black today to stand in solidarity with women striking across the globe for the first International Women’s Strike. 

Today, March 8th, 2017, marks the inaugural International Women’s Strike. Though I’m not technically striking because I’m not technically working today, I am taking the time to pause, reflect, and share, which is precisely what this organized movement aims to do: create a space for women to speak in order to bring awareness to the continuing struggles that are unique to our gender identity that we face on a local, national, and global scale. For me, then, striking means refusing to be silent. For other women, striking means taking the day off work. For others, it means leaving work for an hour or so. For others yet, it means wearing black or purple in protest. And for many, striking of any sort is not a possibility. 

I am in Huacachina today, a desert oasis seemingly light years away from any place I’ve ever been before. But, despite the overwhelming newness of this place, I was quickly reminded that the obstacles placed before women in our fight for dignity and an equality that respects our uniqueness are ubiquitous.

Sitting down to breakfast at our hotel, for example, I witnessed the male front desk receptionist come upstairs and greet the young woman preparing breakfast by saying, “Today is women’s day, isn’t it? But only for working women, not for idle women.” He chuckled as he said this, and the young lady in the kitchen replied with a wan smile as she continued to blend smoothies and brew coffee.  

The emotions that ran through me when I overheard this, the emotions that are running through me, that have been running through me for years, cannot and will not be silenced any longer. The following is my best attempt to capture in words what it feels like to be a woman and why I feel the need to express myself on this exciting and powerful day.

Today, I strike because: I identify as a woman. Because as a woman, I have features that comprise my physical body and cause me great discomfort. Not because I feel uncomfortable with them, but because society cannot handle them. I have hair that has been stroked without my permission. Hair that I’ve worn short by choice, but not without insult and criticism. I have lips that have been kissed without consent. Breasts that want to be freed from the constraints of an ill-fitting bra, but are subjected to uninvited stares and comments when I give them permission to breath. I have nipples that harden easily, and I am extremely conscious of their perkiness – me and everyone else on the public bus. I have armpits that grow hair, a biological phenomenon that seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable if I choose to forego shaving. Shaving, in fact, is something I struggle with greatly: to shave or not to shave is always the question. If I shave, I feel afraid that I’m conforming to an aesthetic that has been put in place by a patriarchal, capitalistic order seeking to sell me products to alter my appearance and urge me to embrace a look that defies nature. If I don’t shave, I am constantly fighting the little voice in my head that tells me it’s not sexy to have leg hair, or that I don’t deserve oral sex if my pubic hair is too ample. Because that’s actually something partners have said. 

I have a stomach that gets full when I eat food and bloats when I have menstrual cramps. 

Oh, yeah: I have a menstrual cycle. I bleed, I ache, I crave, and I embrace my body’s healthy expression of womanness. I wear reusable pads that I wash each menstrual cycle, pads that are stained with the blood of periods past. I have a pair of THINX underwear that is designed specifically to absorb a great deal of my menstrual blood. I’m not ashamed to bleed, and I’m even less ashamed to prevent unnecessary waste as a menstruating woman, though my choice to do so is considered ‘disgusting’ and ‘foul’ by many. I guess I should discard all evidence of my bleeding self, according to that doctrine. 

I have a back that has one tattoo, a part of my body that countless people have felt the right to trace or touch. I have an ass that has cellulite. An ass that many people have touched or slapped in passing, because they felt they had the right to do so. I have legs, strong legs that have supported this body, but legs that have elicited derogatory remarks such as ‘thunder thighs’ when I refused to give someone my phone number. Legs that have been opened against my will, and legs that, when opened according to my will, have been judged and criticized for doing so. I have feet that have taken me all over; feet that I’ve used to walk as quickly as possible down a street late at night when I feel afraid; feet that I’ve used to help me crouch and hide from perceived danger; feet that I’ve used to push somebody off of me or pull somebody into me. 

I have a body, and it is mine. Not yours or anybody else’s.

I strike because:  I’ve been traveling and living outside of the United States for over two months now, and I’ve met and spoken with more than one woman that has been physically and verbally abused by her intimate partner. Different women from different countries that have all experienced the same inexcusable violence and disrespect.

Because I saw a young girl with finger prints on her neck and bleeding scratch marks on her chest right down the street from my house, and I listened to the perpetrator laugh in her presence. And I watched the police accuse her of destruction of property (she had torn the wing mirror off his car during the struggle) as she cried silently, fearfully, knowing that her wounds came second to the value of his ego and his vehicle.

Because thousands of women were subjected to a brutally waged sterilization campaign in this country during my lifetime. And many of those same women had been violated or knew someone that had been violated during the years of violence in Peru, 1980-2000, by actors on both sides of the internal armed conflict. 

Because I have a sister who is living with me in Peru, and because she has told me that, some days, she prefers not to leave the apartment because she doesn’t want to face the cat calls and whistles and unwanted attention directed at her because she has a pretty face and a lovely body and likes to wear clothes that don’t suffocate her in the sweltering heat of Lima summer. 

As women we are often told to smile, to relax, to do anything that masks our discomfort with the current situation. 

Because that same sister has taken a taxi home late at night from a bar, and because the driver of that taxi began to ask her questions, personal questions, that he had no right to ask: Are you drunk? Are you really drunk? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have sex with him? No? So you’re a virgin? Can I see if you’re a virgin? Because, while this experience is terrifying, it is not by a long shot unique to my sister: I, too, have found myself in a taxi with a driver that asks me deranged and unbelievably inappropriate questions.

Because my sister and so many other women feel the need to lie and say they have a boyfriend to protect themselves in such situations.  And because I often lie and say I have a boyfriend to protect myself.

Because when I do protect myself by expressing genuine emotions like stress, discomfort, or uneasiness, I am told to ‘relax’, ‘be chill’, ‘calm down’, ‘smile!’. 

Because I feel like I have to protect myself. Because I do.

This is why I strike.