Learning to Love Your Transgender Body

Transgender Body Image: Learning to Love Your Transgender Body [Transcript]

In this blog, we will be talking about transgender body image issues, specifically, learning to love your transgender body. Many people face body image issues. Some of the topics discussed here today might be generalizable to the general population, but we are going to have a specific focus on learning to love your transgender body and transgender body health.  

Passing

First, we will be discussing and addressing the real pressure that transgender people face to “pass.” This idea of passing is that people will see you, respond to you, and act toward you as your gender identity. There is a real safety concern for passing. Many transgender people face harassment when their outside appearance may not look like it matches with their gender identity. People can be cruel and can physically, verbally, and emotionally harass trans people. Often, trans people will report that the more they “pass,” the less harassment they receive. In turn, they may then feel safer in the outside world. There can be an incredible pressure to make our transgender body and outward appearance fit the societal standards just to feel safe enough to go to the corner store or go to school. This can contribute to our transgender body health and body image issues.

 Read more about body-image and mental health here.

Working With What You’ve Got

Now that we have addressed the real concern and acknowledgment of living in a transphobic society within a transgender body, it’s time to move into a conversation about working with what you’ve got, accepting of what is right now, and having a willingness to love ourselves anyway. 

Here’s the deal: we have the right to go to that corner store and feel beautiful doing it. How do we begin to hold this tension between what the world expects us to look like, what we expect us to look like, and learning to love and appreciate what we already have. Although you may have goals to change what your body looks like down the line, how do you every day begin to deposit this feeling, belief, and safety within yourself to feel good about where you are in the moment. Our brain is plastic and will focus on what we repeatedly tell ourselves. The thoughts in our heads are what we are downloading into our system and really affects our feelings and beliefs. 

To start to develop this love for your body, every day practice some affirmations. It might feel silly at first. Can you look at your body, can you be in your body, and start to celebrate little things. Can you say to yourself, “I feel beautiful,” or “I really love my hair today,” or “I really love how I put this outfit together.” Every day make it a point to say a few good things about your body and yourself. These little deposits of positivity and healthy body image will start to help to rewire your brain. It will start to help feeling safe within your body.

Gratitude

Next, let’s talk about gratitude. How to we remember the actual function of our body and feel grateful for our body in allowing us to live, breathe, and experience this world. We can begin got separate society’s expectations of what we should look like, our own expectations of what we should look like, and only seeing our body of this mold to fit a standard, to really moving into this grateful mindset of appreciating what our body does for us. This is something you can start little by little. 

Start Slow

Start slow. You can stand in front of a mirror if you’d like. Take a deep breath and scan your body. When you think about what parts or aspects of your body you are grateful for, what comes to mind first? Maybe it’s your lungs for allowing you to breathe right now. Maybe it’s your tongue for allowing you to taste that yummy breakfast you had this morning. Once you’ve said one thing, really take a moment to connect with this part of your body, celebrate it. Thank it for being there and think of all the experiences this body part allows you to do. Think about the happiest moments in your life that this body part has allowed you to experience. Really soak that in. Then move on to the next part or function of your body you are grateful for. This will improve your transgender body health.

Celebrate You

See how many parts, functions, and aspects of your body you can celebrate. You might be shocked that this exercise can go on for hours, in a spiraling wonder of all the incredible things your body does for you every moment of the day. Try to incorporate this into your daily practice. When you find yourself picking yourself apart, try to add something about that body part that you are grateful for as well. 

Medical Transition

Next, we are going to talk about the role of medical transition. Some trans people might feel that they want to alter for change their body to better align with society’s or their idea of their transgender body. This includes things such as Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and various gender affirming surgeries. Not every trans person takes medical steps to transition, and by no means does someone need to do this in order to transition. Some trans people also do not wish to alter their body at all, and some don’t experience gender dysphoria. Everyone’s transition journey is unique and moving forward with any aspect of medical transition does not make anyone more or less trans than anyone else. 

Having said all of that, for me personally, and some of the over 100 trans individuals I have worked with at my time in Queercare, HRT and gender affirming surgeries can save lives. Prior to HRT and some of my surgeries, I was highly depressed, didn’t see any future for myself, and was harassed and physically assaulted almost every time I would walk outside. Medical transition has greatly alleviated my gender dysphoria and has really helped my struggle with loving my transgender body. The world is also a lot safer for me. I don’t get harassed or assaulted anymore, and this has greatly improved my quality of life. This was my path, and I encourage you to think about what you want, and what steps you might take to get there.  

Read more about gender and mental health here.

Support Systems

Finally, let’s discuss how medical providers, therapists, friends, and loved ones can support transgender people on their journey of loving their transgender body and helping them with their transgender body-health and body-image issues. Generally, we should move away from commenting on peoples bodies. If someone has lost or gained weight, we can literally just not comment about it. Think about other ways we can complement people, that doesn’t have to do with the way their body looks. 

Bodies are just bodies! We don’t need to ask trans people about their medical transition or whether they want to change anything in their body, unless they bring it up. If or when they do, it’s important that they lead that conversion. We should avoid saying things like, “oh yes I think you should change your face,” or “I think you should or should not go through with HRT,” etc. These are very personal decisions, and the only person who should make them is the individual who has to make the choice and live with their decisions. 

Thank you all so much for your time today, and I really hope this blog helps you on your journey of loving your transgender body! You deserve all the peace, love, and happiness this journey will bring you.u