Did you know when you see pictures of male weightlifters, and they’re ripped and you can see every crevice and nook and vein, that definition only happens during a period of starvation? They are strong, they’ve been knocking it out at the gym for months to put on the muscle, but before that particular image got put on film they’ve put in a couple of months of only boiled chicken and broccoli and hardly any calories to get all the fat off. So our idea of what “ripped” looks like is first of all, about male bodies, and second of all, about male bodies being starved.
Since I’m committed to not beating up on my body for both being female and looking female, and since my expectation is I’m only going to look like I’m in starvation mode if I’m starving myself, and that doesn’t work for the whole not killing myself thing. I realized, oh wait if I keep this up I could get strong as fuck and really not look like it.
But hey, that’s the deal with female bodies- we’re getting lied to about what strong looks like. Sometimes muscles are visible, lots of times they’re not. If you can lift the weight, that’s how strong you are.
So the question is do other people need to see the strength for it to be real?
Well, I don’t know if you’ve caught on that I have a lot of disdain for other people’s ability to perceive me. I’ve been around so many blocks with other people’s perceptions of me that my assumption is those perceptions are 99.9% their own bullshit.
But how do you ever learn about yourself if your default is complete dismissiveness of other people’s takes about you?
It’s real easy. There’s numbers on the weights. There’s what you’ve lived through. There’s what hasn’t killed you.
Strength is fun to have, even if people can’t see it. Strength is fun to know about. Strength is fun to be able to use.
Is detransition the definition of who I am? I just think of it as a weight I lifted. I was doing hard things before transition/detransition and I’ve done hard things since. I’m a woman who just throws herself at the world, and so I’ve gotten the shit kicked out of me a lot, but also I’ve gotten really strong. It’s fun being strong. It’s not a sad-sack kind of deal, although it can look sad to people who aren’t prone to throwing themselves against the world like it’s a concrete floor.
Here’s the thing about smashing your face on a concrete floor- the first time it’s a tragedy, the 12th time it’s a little bit fun. The kind of fun you could do without, but some part of you gets proud. That’s where you see who you are.
I like my strength a lot. I like my obsessiveness a lot. I like my strangeness a lot. It’s all bigger than detransition. I think it’s even bigger than anything like conforming or not conforming. I enjoy getting to be me. And I enjoy what other people can’t see.
Definition by C. C. | thinking about detransition? you are not alone