I Am Not Too Much and I Am Trans Enough

Loving my body has been a lifelong journey. I still don’t love it enthusiastically and completely, but I love it more than I ever have. 

It’s been a process of letting myself dislike my body, then working to tolerate it, and now accept it. I hope to one day like it but for now I love it because it’s mine.

I find my belly embarrassing on certain days. My hips which tell my secrets that say I’m not a cis male.

I was born in a body that was not labeled the correct gender at birth. 

I have body parts that don’t feel like mine or that I can easily love.

I may work to find peace with them but I am very much still in the process.

I am happy as a human and yet to be happy in my body can feel hard.

I am recovering from disordered eating and to me, that’s still hard to say. I struggle to write these words because I was dismissed for so long. I was told I wasn’t worthy of help.

I was fat, how could I possibly have disordered eating? I clearly struggled with not feeding myself. But if only they knew. The way I restricted myself and my caloric intake for weeks, for months, for years. 

But I am here, I am queer, I am history in the making.

I represent what a fat, trans person recovering from self-loathing caused by society’s bullsh*t ideals of beauty which led to me restraining myself from eating and thus love.

I was scared to eat. I was almost always bigger than all my peers growing up and was told in many ways, many times, that I was too big, too fat, too much. I should be less. Take up less space, be quieter, less colorful, less me.

I shouldn't love myself and be myself was what I heard from my grandma when I told her my friends and I called each other freaks in 4th grade, inspired by the music of the Spice Girls.

I shouldn't laugh so loud I was told in my college because it hurt people's ears.

I shouldn’t wear clothes that I liked (that aligned with my gender) because I had a good figure and should wear small, tight (re uncomfortable) clothes (that also misaligned with my needs as an autistic person).

I should sacrifice myself and my own being for others. For others pleasure, for their comfort, for their well-being and not prioritize myself. Messages I got growing up about my worth were related to my being raised as a girl. I never was one, never have been. They were wrong in making assumptions.

I am me. Human, wholeheartedly perfect and just enough.

I am perfectly worthy of love, of food, of calories, of nourishment, of support.

I am not too much and I am not too little.

I am just enough. Like you are.

We all are.

We are enough.

We are worthy of foods that nourish our body, mind and soul.

We are worthy of love, of being treated with humanity, compassion and respect.

And it starts with me. I wholeheartedly love myself now. My name Heart reflects my new connection to my heart and the feelings that disassociation as a result of body dysmorphia and dysphoria took from me. I lived for years outside of my body in a confused, disempowered state. Now I am me and I am legally he.

I am Heart, nice to meet you.

I am moving from my heart and I love myself like no other.

And I still struggle with my body and my belly sometimes but that’s okay. It no longer makes me want to die or feel unworthy. I am inherently worthy because I exist. Like you, me, we are perfectly whole and worthy and enough. 

I am you. You are me. I love you.

If you’re struggling with body dysmorphia and dysphoria, you’re not alone. A lot of us do. Just ask for help and it will appear. I promise you.

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