I recently spoke with my aunt and shared the blog post from the other day where I responded to that quote she posted. I mentioned that I really like being asked questions, because not only can I help others understand me better, but they often help me understand myself better.
She asked something that I’ve thought about before, but I’m not sure if I’ve articulated it even to myself. “Does being non binary mean that you feel both male and female, or neither male nor female?”
I’m not sure I have really thought about it much before, but I guess I don’t like having signs that we typically associate with one gender or another. A larger chest means people assume you’re a woman, facial hair means people assume you’re a man, etc. Some people like playing with those markers and might have both of the ones I mentioned at once. I feel better having neither. So maybe I do feel a little more like neither than like both.
I feel great having had top surgery. I knew I wasn’t happy before, but I worried a little that this wouldn’t feel right, either. I certainly felt like it would be an improvement. But would it be right?
Well, it is. And that certainly makes sense. I sometimes joke that my chest was a problem for me before it was a problem. I remember being very young and learning that I’d grow up and have breasts (that word is still hard for me, but it’s much easier to say after having had top surgery!). I was devastated. It felt wrong. I assumed that everyone felt how I felt as a kid, and that as I got older, I’d feel better about it. But that never happened.
I also remember a day shortly after we moved to New Mexico, when I was six. It was summer and it was very hot out, and I came home and took off my shirt to lie under the ceiling fan and cool off. My dad told me I had to put my shirt back on. It didn’t seem fair. But again, I assumed that I’d eventually understand.
I still feel that it’s unfair that society views a flat chest as something that can be shown in public, but that breasts cannot be. I know it’s different in some other countries, but not here! It’s funny, because I would feel incredibly uncomfortable seeing someone with breasts without a shirt on. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t change in a locker room or a dressing room for a play with others. Shame about my body is a piece of it, not wanting to have to identify with one binary gender or the other is a piece of it, and not wanting to see others’ bodies is a piece of it. I’m not even comfortable seeing someone with a flat chest without a shirt on, to be honest. But even though I don’t want to see it, I think it’s something that people should be able to show if they want to. It seems unfair to deem one acceptable and the other not.
I also almost feel selfish for having had top surgery, and I think I may have figured out why. I think that deep down, I kind of feel like everyone with breasts must feel the same way I did. It’s a very self-centered thought, I suppose, but I think it’s common to believe that others feel the same way we do. (Though I suppose that in itself is assuming that others feel the same way I do…)
I’m trying to remind myself that we have differences, and to celebrate those. Many people are happy with their bodies, and with their chests in particular. Others aren’t. I think it’s important to celebrate our differences and to appreciate that diversity, not just in terms of what we look like, but in terms of what we want to look like.
I guess that brings me back to the eating disorder, like so many things do. Society seems to assume that everyone wants to be relatively thin. I think women are probably more prone to that thinking than men, though it certainly affects many men as well. I think non-binary and/or trans people may feel that even more than most cis folk, because many of us feel like our bodies are wrong.
I’ve read a lot about size diversity, and I’ve tried to really engage with those thoughts. When I was young, I guess I did believe that it was “bad” to be big. That’s what my parents seemed to say, and that’s what started this whole thing off. I was in the 95th percentile or so for height and weight for my age, and everyone said I was big. That meant I was doing something wrong, though I think I didn’t even know that size and food had any correlation whatsoever at that point, so it didn’t affect my eating. (It took many more years to learn that that correlation is so much weaker than most people think!)
I knew that some people don’t have the desire to be small, but I guess it was hard to believe that the desire really wasn’t present. Maybe they just pushed it aside. Maybe they denied it to themselves. But could anyone really not feel that pressure?
I’m learning now that some people don’t. My therapist recently mentioned that not everyone compares themselves to others in terms of weight. I knew that my comparisons were extreme. Most people probably don’t figure out exactly how many times as heavy they are as their newborn and feel ashamed of that number. Most people probably don’t figure out how many pounds lighter they are than a friend and feel that it’s important to keep that distance even if their friend loses weight. Most people probably don’t figure out the sum of their weight and their friend’s weight and feel that it’s important to keep that sum low, even if their friend gains weight. (Yes, if I knew my weight, at this point I would still do both. It’s a great way to keep pressure on yourself regardless of what others’ bodies do.)
Again, I knew that not everyone went to the extremes that I did. But I figured that just meant that people had a narrower range of comparisons. Maybe they wouldn’t compare themselves to a seven-pound infant, but they must compare themselves if someone is close, right? My therapist said that he doesn’t compare at all. I’ve never met him in person, due to COVID and telehealth and the fact that he’s two hours away. I haven’t even seen him below his shoulders, really. I’m not sure if he’s heavier or lighter than I am—while I have a very rough idea of his build, it could go either way depending on how tall he is, which I purposefully have not asked.
He doesn’t know my weight, because he doesn’t need to know. But I told him that if he knew, I felt like he would compare it to his own. Maybe he doesn’t judge me based on it, or judge himself based on mine, because he doesn’t have an eating disorder. But he must make the comparison, right? He must have the thought?
Apparently not.
I also suppose that I felt that anyone who is larger than society deems is “acceptable” or even “good” must want to lose weight. Maybe they have denied that feeling to themselves because they feel like they can’t lose weight, or because they want to be beyond such a superficial matter. But they must want it deep down, right? They must want to be thin?
In terms of size diversity, I’m learning that some people really don’t feel the pressure to be small, or at least don’t give in to it at all or feel it personally. Some people are truly happy with where they are, even if that’s not where society seems to tell them to be. I can’t imagine that for myself. But maybe I can get closer.