dysphoria

Hello, reader.  How are you doing?  I was talking to my friend about dysphoria.  I was confused because I heard the terms dysphoria and dysmorphic a lot, years ago, and get them mixed up.  Dysphoria vs dysmorphic?

Also I was confused because my friend is the most beautiful woman in the world.  Her gender is heavenly.  I knew I was missing something.  Why would she not want her face seen in photographs?  Why doesn’t she worship herself like I do?

So I asked her to explain dysphoria to me like I was a little child, which in some ways I am.  Or at least I feel like a little child inside much of the time.

safety

My friend explained how dysphoria is when the way you look doesn’t match the way you feel.  It’s partly about safety.  She was yelled at for years on the street for not passing as cis.  So she wants to look a certain way gender-wise, and it’s painful that she doesn’t.

“So it has an aspect of distortion?  The way you see yourself is distorted?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.  “I know girls who’ve had a lot of work done, and they still think they look like a man.”

invisible

It’s tricky territory because in a way I can relate.  I didn’t let anyone take my picture for some years.  When I was young, I wished to be invisible.

But for me it was less about gender and more about fatness.  I thought I ruined every photo I was in.  Why would I want to do that?

Then I asked Ming to photograph me daily as a spiritual practice, after my mom died, when I started riding trike.  I learned about…

• sexuality
• costuming / packaging
• race
• fatness
• the things men yell at me from their trucks
• diet culture
• faux health encouragement
• boundaries

I’m grateful to Ming for his willingness, kindness, and photography skills.  The work was nerve-wracking.  But the project broke me of some self-hate.

Like all the things my culture handed me that are harmful lies, I’m happy to set down what’s not mine.  I’m happy to release the idea that thin is worthy and the only way to be beautiful.

Wow, so many ways to be beautiful in this world.  I’m really fat and really beautiful.  God put me here to be fat and model how valid I am.  God put me here to tell the truth.  That includes this blog, zines, poems.  But I also tell the truth with my body.

reminders

I don’t exist to be beautiful.  My body and the way I look is for me–it’s my choice, what I do with myself and my life.

I don’t owe beauty to my friends, my relatives, strangers, my partners, or even myself.  I can try to be beautiful in a standard way, in my own way, or in no way at all.  I’m unconditionally valid.   I love myself no matter what.

My heart is my strength, as well as my intelligence, and my fiery soul.  In my personal mythology, my body is sacred and a favorite way I feel pleasure.  But also, my body is a vessel.

The inner life is what most matters to me.  But the truth is, I’m physically beautiful too–that’s fine.  I’m glad if someone likes my smile, the way I gesture, the bravery they see in my body, the way I dance, or the light that shines out of me.  But it’s ok if no one likes it too.

Parent Earth loves me no matter what.  In a way, what any person thinks is not my business.

If you love my breasts, that’s fine–they just grew on me.  I didn’t do much for them.  If you like my smile, some of that is really my spirit saying hello to you.  A lot about my physicality, I didn’t choose.  I chose my tattoo.  I choose the length of my nails and the clothes I wear.

hair

Soon I’m going to cut my hair.  It’s something I’ve been thinking about for decades.  What do you think , reader?  Will you recognize me, with super-short hair?

“I’m 31 years late,” I told a friend, like I was supposed to do this when I was a teenager, maybe with my first or second girlfriend.

“You’re right on time,” my friend told me.

I cried, to be so loved that my queerness is valid although I’m in my late 40s now, finally chopping all my hair off.

fuck yes

Hair can be power, but hair can also be a burden.  Patriarchy told me I was supposed to be beautiful, and my hair is one of the few things about me that culture approved.  So to cut it off is a fuck you to what’s expected of me.

But mostly it’s a fuck yes to myself.  It often works that way, right?  I can trade a scrap of legitimacy and legibility for my freedom.

Probably it sounds like a small thing, a haircut.  But I was hoarding my scrap of privilege, and I don’t need to do that anymore.  I can throw it in the river for sure.

dysphoria

Trans people are my people, so I love several people who have dysphoria.

Thank you for being patient with me if I say the wrong thing about how beautiful you are or how I adore you.  I will try to follow your parameters for how much I’m allowed to worship you and give space to your hurt places.  Thank you for being kind to me about mine.