Body image and weight issues in LGBTQ spaces
The mirror is not always my friend, especially now my brain is trying to get used to having no hair. I have also struggled coming to terms with a maturing body that stubbornly puts fat deposits causing all my nice clothes to stop fitting. One of the constants of LGBTQ life, especially if you are trans, is this idea of the perfect bodies, perfect ideals, and that the only pictures worth posting are those that will validate your identity. Gender and body dysmorphia sneak up and catch us unawares, especially when the world screams at you that young, slim, trim, fit, and beautiful is the ticket to eternal validation. Even within queer spaces and media a certain archetype exists that the only faces and bodies we see representing us are young, slim, and conventionally attractive by the mainstream media’s yardstick. Go on Reddit, Tumblr, Instragram and any other social media platform and the visual cue for queer and trans people will invariably trend towards this mean.
Obviously, there are many queer and trans folk out there that post about themselves, but to gain traction you have to fit within a narrow within of ideals that it makes anyone who does not fit within that window almost excluded from the conversation. This goes doubly for people of colour, disabled, and NB folk all of whom face existential barriers. This doubles down when it comes to the policing of our bodies, what is an acceptable weight and what passes for validation amongst our communities. Trans women and gay men face serious mental health issues due to the policing of what is acceptable, and nonbinary folk face societal pressures to conform that break apart the very notion of what it is to be nonbinary in the first place.
The first step is to talk about these issues, and there are many amazing queer folk who are discussing this right across the internet. However, that does little to break down the barriers that many of face in our own lived experiences. The fact that to even survive in cisgender society means we have to adapt and conform to body images that our endocrine systems and physiques were never meant to pour themselves into causes years of struggle and pain. Indeed, one of the leading mental health issues amongst all trans folk is their perceived failure to conform to society’s ideal of their gender.
This is why it is vital we talk about body image and weight issues loudly and without shame. We exist in a world that wants all people to conform to a fairly narrow band of gender expectation, and once you step outside of this you are invariably punished socially and mentally for doing so. Cis folk have this issue thrust upon them is they break these boundaries, and this is doubled and tripled down on LGBTQ folk because they are perceived as other. If you do not pass as straight or cis you immediate become a target for body policing; indeed, it goes to the extreme that there are dedicated groups on Reddit and across social media where we actively go to get policed and validated.
It is very easy to get caught up in cycles of validation and self-loathing, hell, I have a personal rule that I will never post a ‘bad’ image on social media because I don’t want to feel judged for my looks. We are all susceptible to this need for validation from our peers, especially if society at larger is either ignorant or wilfully goes out of the way to invalidate our bodies. Queer bodies are political as fuck precisely because we transcend societal expectations, and when we are invalidated at large we seek solace from within the community. Which is why body policing is so dangerous from within LGBTQ spaces because it perpetuates this cycle.
Yes, granted, this is taking the idea of passing and stealth, of attraction and personal sexual preferences to an extreme, but surely there must be a healthier way of seeing queer bodies than just judging each other against almost impossible body standards? Fat shaming, ignoring disabilities, indirectly excluding bodies of colour, and the eternal desire to see bodies as an ideal than lived in are systemic issues at the centre of this. Healthy queer bodies come in all shapes and sizes, from petite to muscular, lithe to chubby, short to tall, and everything in between. Queer bodies are lived experiences made manifest beyond what society expects, and by assuming we will fit into any ideals is doing ourselves and our communities a disservice.
If you want help or advice, especially as a trans person who is coming into their own skin, then this needs to be done in a healthy and realistic way. Oft times we assume that trans bodies must conform, but surely advise must account for the complexities of our lived experiences. Much as diets, fashion, and lifestyles are unique for each of us to suit who we as people, then the same goes for transition advice. It must be compassionate, considerate, and take account for the unique person on the other side of the conversation.
And, for me, this is the crux of the issue. We assume that all lives lived, especially our own, must be held up to some sort of ideal, otherwise we are failing. Bodies change and develop, mine certainly has, and we face a choice of either working with or against them. If we try to force ourselves and others into unrealistic body types we perpetuate across our communities issues that have been around as long as human beings realised that there was a such as thing as the body perfect. There is no such thing as the perfect body, each of us is unique in our physiology and biochemistry, and as such we need to find ways of having healthy conversations about queer and trans bodies.
Your body is a temple unto you, and you have to decide what is best for it. Getting advice and help is a natural part of existing within a community, but in the age of social media and Google searches LGBTQ folk need to be kind and compassionate with each other, rather than assuming that our bodies have to conform to any narrow idea of perfection. We are radical as fuck, our bodies politically charged, and it is up to our communities to help each other find contentment for the skins we live in.
