The effect of trans male culture’s relationship with fitness over wellness on my self esteem (Why and how I’m shifting focus)
Bodybuilding comes in many forms, from huge muscles and vast sponsorships to clean eating and calisthenics. No matter the style, the method or the positive effects bodybuilding may have on self esteem and health it’s primary purpose is to attain a particular physique. Often a physique that is not attainable for many of us.
Before folks start suggesting that I’m making excuses, bear with me on this.
For many trans men time, money, energy (physical or mental) can be highly limited resources that need to be rationed according to immediate priority needs such as family commitments, going to work, or if you can’t work, going to the doctor. you get the idea leaving little left for fitness goals, which as I’m sure you can imagine tends to play havoc with self esteem when all about us we see images of rippling muscular trans male bodies.
For some of us who struggle with this, another way based on wellness and body positivity might work better.
What is Health:
Now I know for many of you this will sound like excuses for not getting “healthy” but let’s look for a moment at what healthy means:
“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” - WHO, 1948
Ok so, by this definition “health” is really wellbeing. So why is so much of the health and fitness industry focused solely on outward physical appearance? Given the huge diversity of athletes’ bodies we can’t draw the conclusion that the perfect gym body is an accurate indicator of health or wellbeing.
The reason I talk about the definition of health is because since the 1980s health has slowly become synonymous with fitness/physique rather than with wellness.
The result is that rather than engaging in physical activity for the sake of feeling good, most people including and perhaps especially trans men often engage in physical activity in order to look good; spending more time examining how our bodies look in a mirror than how our bodies feel to live in.
For a group on society that has a tendency towards low self esteem due to transphobia, toxic masculinity and gender norms, this way of looking at things can be hugely detrimental. It is hugely understandable for guys to focus on physique and muscle size in order to build a “optimal male body” to reduce dysphoria, i get it.
Less of a trans MAN?
This has become idealized as the ultimate transmasculine goal and jacked trans male bodies have become the ideal that is championed by the trans masculine community, putting pressure on everyone to achieve this cis passing macho body. In essence we as a community have replicated the hugely pressured and patriarchal culture of ultra masculinity that causes so many cis and trans men to hate their bodies, have unrealistic goals and generally feel shit about themselves to the point where they injure themselves or give up on sport or physical activity entirely! We need to stop doing this!
Now, I’m not saying guys shouldn’t work out or get big/swole/ripped/whatever. Great if that’s your thing! I’m glad it works for you! My issue is that for many trans men, especially younger guys trying to figure out “how to be a trans man” this can seem like the only way to be a healthy adult man, so I just wanna go back to the definition of health for a sec.
In 1986 the WHO held a conference where 61 states agreed on some prerequisites to health based on the definition I quoted earlier, these were:
peace
shelter
education
food
income
a stable eco-system
sustainable resources
social justice, and equity
As you can see, health is way more complex than hitting the gym. And extensive research has shown that a one size fits all approach to health and wellbeing rarely works in any community or population.
Focus solely on gym fitness and muscular physique fails to recognise the many options for living a healthy lifestyle and results in feelings of dysphoria, low self-esteem and inferiority amongst trans men because you know what, not everyone enjoys or finds gym fitness enjoyable! And they shouldn’t have to feel less valid as a man, trans or otherwise for not getting on well in a gym environment.
From Fitness to Wellness:
I believe that shifting our focus as a community from fitness to wellness is a great place to start fixing the situation we are in.
So how is this done? Well there is no one way to do this, that’s the point wellness is holistic and works in different ways for different people. One thing that I would say is integral to shifting from fitness to wellness is to make feeling good the number one priority over achieving particular looking good.
Here’s how this works in practice for me:
For a long time I worked really hard doing exercise and sport that I really hate because I was trying to achieve a particular body type. I never achieved it and even if I had it wouldn’t have been enough. I wanted to be a total muscle bear with big pecs, big arms and a huge back. For me years of ultra-fit modelesque trans men on tumblr and instagram told me that hey “This is how you get people to see you as a man, this is the *right* way to be a man”.
I was wrong. Because if you don’t enjoy something, you’re not likely to stick to it! The logical conclusion is therefore, you never achieve your goals and feel forever like a failure.
Even doing sport that I like such as swimming, climbing, hiking or cycling didn’t make me feel good because my focus was on what I would get out of this activity, not on enjoying the activity for it’s own sake. I wasn’t getting bigger or more toned fast enough. I didn’t have veins popping everywhere. That expectation of myself made me hate the activities I used to love and hate my body.
I stopped working out all together and did some soul searching. The conclusion I came to is that I had to stop caring about what any given sport or physical activity would have on the appearance of my body and focus only on how it makes me feel.
For example, swimming is great for my cardio and overall strength, it makes me breathe easier, feel fresher and I feel stronger.
Building sports/fitness activity into an overall wellbeing plan really helps me to keep the focus off my body and on my sense of wellness. I see yoga, prayer, meditation, swimming, climbing, home bodyweight strength training, hiking, spiritual pursuits, creating art and eating food that nourishes me and surrounding myself with images of diverse male bodies as activities that are essential and flow into one and other to dramatically improve my wellbeing, and funnily enough through not focusing on my body, my body has begun to change too.
The Power of Diverse Bodies
So, I stumbled upon this quote that really got me thinking: “If we all ate the same and exercised the same, we would still all have different bodies.” It’s like a revelation that encapsulates the beautiful complexity of human nature and individuality.
Imagine, despite all of us following the same diet and workout routines to a tee, we’d still emerge with these…
