Physical dysphoria: a journey
4thwavenowFirst of all, I want to thank some folks who have been talking to me behind the scenes, redressalert, twentythreetimes and especially atranspaige, who encouraged this specific post.
I’m demographically old for Tumblr, so my outlook on gender issues is somewhat different. But I want to make a few things clear: I have experienced fairly severe dysphoria - to the point where I asked to have “everything cut off” when I was 17 and discovered breast reduction surgery was even a thing. That’s coming up.
I was raised in an intensely Christian community. I knew the word, “Faggot” well before I knew what it meant - and had heard it linked with atheism. I frequently wished I could somehow trade lives with my brother - and frequently took things he was given to indoctrinate him into masculinity. His barbells? Mine now. I whined and fussed to go on Boy Scout hikes and turned my nose up at FHA and Girl Scouts alike.
And around about 5th grade, my world came crashing down. Suddenly, I had hips, breasts, stretch marks, cellulite, a rounded tummy (but still a slim waist - I was shaped like Mae West when I was barely recovered from my obsession with dinosaurs.) I BLED. It felt like I was living in somebody else’s body -and I hated that body and hated myself.
Any woman can tell you what came next -public harassment - even rape threats. From grown men. Strangers, even. At 10 years old. And school went from a struggle - most of my teachers already considered me too “forward” for a girl, especially an Appalachian girl - to a nightmare. I still remember the rape threat from a classmate who included graphic detail of what tortures he wanted to inflict. I remember the names they called me for daring to be the first girl to hit puberty. And worse, for developing into such an exaggerated shape.
Reporting was useless. Teachers told me to ignore it, to be more modest, to be quieter, more proper. By seventh grade, my anxiety was so bad that my parents took me from doctor to doctor looking for a cure. But nobody asked me about the hatred that curled within for my body. By 8th grade, I convinced my school to require very few classes of me -I spent most of my time, including recess and often half of lunch in the library where I felt safe.
In high school, despite my dearest hopes, it didn’t get better. I was frequently suicidal, and when I tried talking to a preacher about it, he blew me off. Then - remember how I felt “safe” in libraries? Yeah, right up until a classmate sexually assaulted me in the stacks. I had been taught well - I knew exactly what to blame - that horrible body. It had to go. Boys pinched, shoved, grabbed, ignored every boundary but one. The girls restroom was safe. Until a pedophillic coach invaded while we were changing. And every indignity only further encouraged my body hatred.
I would wake up at night, unable to understand why these slabs of meat were attached to my chest. I fantasized about stealing my father’s chainsaw to cut them off. I wished I could get rid of my hips as well, remold my body into a different silhouette. As I was considering college (and being told by the same preacher who blew off my suicidal ideation that I should avoid secular colleges as they would make me an atheist) my parents told me about a surgeon they had heard about who could make breasts smaller.
I was so incredibly excited. I wanted them gone and this surgeon would do it in a way that my religious community wouldn’t object to - from the moment I entered the surgical area, there would be no men. (When you think about preserving safe spaces for women, remember that many women are religiously required to be modestly separated from men, and when you allow male bodied persons into those spaces, you exclude many, many women.) I would be allowed to do this! And then I could be modest and men would stop wanting to rape me! Hallelujah!! Even if I still had hips and stretch marks and small hands and feet, at least one of the things I hated would go away!
I went to talk to the surgeon (with my mother in the room, of course.) And I got up my courage. I asked her (even with my mother in the room!) to cut everything off. All of it. Gone. Please. She acted like she hadn’t heard anything, but told me that some people had unrealistic expectations of surgery and were a bad risk. She went on to tell me that her method, which was brand new would mean I could probably breast feed my babies and my husband would still be happy with my breasts, though part and possibly all of them would be numb.
After my first request, I didn’t have the courage to tell her I wanted neither husband nor babies.
I went through surgery, and she removed over 2 liters of tissue, but had to stop when my body betrayed me once more by going into shock on the surgical table. I was still a D cup. I recovered from the surgery and went to a secular college, where I discovered that men still wanted to rape me. I attempted suicide a couple times, rescued only by my own ineptitude. I went to make another attempt, this time by a more definitive method, only to have what I can only describe as a moment of spiritual epiphany at the last minute. I turned myself in to the student health center and informed them I was suicidal.
I wound up going back home and spending a couple years working and getting mental health care. During that time, I “discovered” feminism was more than a curse word in the mouths of the preachers. I went to community college. I realized I was bi, and my first friends in the community were lesbians. I left the church and left off calling myself a Christian. I eventually tried college again. I shaved my head. I gave up on female expectations for clothing and behavior. I learned martial arts: karate, judo, fencing. I learned to ground myself during depressive and dysphoric episodes. I accepted that no matter what I did to my body, none of it was changing the problem of males feeling entitled to my body. So I decided to fight the problem instead of my body.
I learned that I could be a woman who likes math and science. I could be a woman who is not submissive. I could be a woman who is strong, with broad shoulders and muscular arms from weightlifting and martial arts. And that womanhood was going to have to accommodate me. Because people will never stop assigning me to that category.
Which is why I find the concept of calling myself ‘cis’ ridiculous. Of course I don’t identify with the idea of womanhood as presented by our culture. It is absolutely toxic. But neither am I ‘trans’. I have not transitioned. Could not when I wanted to. Feel that it only encourages my body hatred to dwell on it. I am me.
this is something more of my story if it will help your anon. I utterly empathize with being unable to transition. To the anon: feel free to hit up my ask box if you have questions for me.
Thank you so very much for sharing your story, radwitchescauldron.
