Body Thoughts
Over the past few weeks, I've been seeing a fair amount of folks (and reading and hearing) that aren't happy about their bodies. This ranges the gamut from "Need to work out more" to "I wish my chest was bigger/smaller" to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
warinbear's minor grumblings about being a lesbian trapped in a man's body to me being a generally curious mouse and doing some reading on transgender/transsexual folks.
My first conclusion is that I am fascinated by people and cultural and societal concepts. I am endlessly curious about . . . well, to be honest, about anything and everything.
My second conclusion came about when, out of this curiousity, I tried to imagine myself as other than I was.
It didn't work. Trying to imagine myself as being taller or having a narrower bone structure almost made my brain lock, and when I tried to envsion myself as male, my brain tried to crash. With a great deal of mental effort, I can imagine my hair colour being a few shades away from what it is now. I can also very easily see myself once more of my fat transfers to muscle. But as for major changes? It just will not compute. Although, I can easily see myself with wings, a tail, and retractable claws. Then again, I can damn near feel those body features all the time anyway, so that's not really a change as far as I'm concerned. That's just stuff that's not currently attached to me physically. And even then, it's only a minor change. The claws are more like very strong, sharp, and retractable guitar picks; the tail is a standard mouse tail, adapted to human size. The most noticable thing about the wings is the fact that I love rainbow patterning, so the feathers follow the ROYGBIV colour pattern. (digress, digress . . .)
This actually makes me feel pretty good. I feel at home in my body. It feels right to me. While I'd like to change a few things (namely, I'd like to to get more of my fat to become muscle) it's nothing *major*. I like being female. (No, let me correct that: I *am* female. The very act of trying to imagine myself in a male body gave me the barest inkling of how folks that got stuck in the wrong gender body must feel. It felt incredibly wrong.) I like my hair, eye, and skin colour. I generally even like being short! Considering the extent and severity of the self-image problems I was having not all that long ago, this is a really big victory for me. That, and I had the realization of just how lucky I am. So many people out there got stuck in a body and/or gender that just does not fit them. I lucked out. I managed to get a perfect fit.
warinbear's minor grumblings about being a lesbian trapped in a man's body to me being a generally curious mouse and doing some reading on transgender/transsexual folks.My first conclusion is that I am fascinated by people and cultural and societal concepts. I am endlessly curious about . . . well, to be honest, about anything and everything.
My second conclusion came about when, out of this curiousity, I tried to imagine myself as other than I was.
It didn't work. Trying to imagine myself as being taller or having a narrower bone structure almost made my brain lock, and when I tried to envsion myself as male, my brain tried to crash. With a great deal of mental effort, I can imagine my hair colour being a few shades away from what it is now. I can also very easily see myself once more of my fat transfers to muscle. But as for major changes? It just will not compute. Although, I can easily see myself with wings, a tail, and retractable claws. Then again, I can damn near feel those body features all the time anyway, so that's not really a change as far as I'm concerned. That's just stuff that's not currently attached to me physically. And even then, it's only a minor change. The claws are more like very strong, sharp, and retractable guitar picks; the tail is a standard mouse tail, adapted to human size. The most noticable thing about the wings is the fact that I love rainbow patterning, so the feathers follow the ROYGBIV colour pattern. (digress, digress . . .)
This actually makes me feel pretty good. I feel at home in my body. It feels right to me. While I'd like to change a few things (namely, I'd like to to get more of my fat to become muscle) it's nothing *major*. I like being female. (No, let me correct that: I *am* female. The very act of trying to imagine myself in a male body gave me the barest inkling of how folks that got stuck in the wrong gender body must feel. It felt incredibly wrong.) I like my hair, eye, and skin colour. I generally even like being short! Considering the extent and severity of the self-image problems I was having not all that long ago, this is a really big victory for me. That, and I had the realization of just how lucky I am. So many people out there got stuck in a body and/or gender that just does not fit them. I lucked out. I managed to get a perfect fit.