Androgyny and eating disorders

If you want your body to have straighter lines, you should look into ftm tips on dressing, even if you aren't trans. By doing this your body will look straighter and less curvy. It probably won't be necessary to lose any weight at all to do so either.

Binding will help with your chest, otherwise, compression sports bras and shape wear can be helpful in this way too, provided it's not so tight as to restrict your movement and breathing--be careful about that and only bind when necessary.

Then, you're going to want to try on a lot of pants. I have wide hips, so I tend to wear only a couple brands of cargo pants to make them look smaller. That way, the line from my hips to my thighs is straighter.

As far as the curve of my waist to my hips, I bind my chest and wear a loose t-shirt over the top of my binder (my binder is underworks but again, it's not always necessary to wear a medical grade binder, depending on your chest size) and then I wear a button up shirt over that, sized so that it's not baggy per se, but it is loose enough to hang so that the curves of my body are much less visible.

 

The danger of the androgynous fashion "trend" is that it idealizes one kind of androgyny: the skinny white kind. There are lots of people with lots of body shapes that are all striving for this androgyny, which I think is dangerous.

Maybe instead of worrying about losing weight, try doing exercise you enjoy; getting toned will balance out curves, or at the very least it'll make you feel strong and appreciate your body. thedreamwatch's dressing tips above are really helpful.

Curves will always be there unless you slim down a ton, for better or for worse. If you have serious body dysphoria, you might need different advice; but mine is to dress for the body you have, and learn to accept it.

---------- Post added 1st Aug 2014 at 03:11 PM ----------

Note I'm not saying you want to look androgynous for a trend; I'm just saying that this "trend" doesn't help people with body image issues and gender expression issues one bit. Sorry if it came off that way.

 

"Learn to accept it"

Oh how I hate those words. Such things can usually be changed or hidden, even if only slightly.

I heard from an FTM website that working out your legs can help slim down the hips.

 

yeah I'm thinking that some of the way you think your body should look is probably disordered as you said, but it sounds like you're working on that. good for you, that's really tough and it's awesome that you're doing it. you said you're doing or have done therapy and that certainly will help, and it might just take some time and some more work to not expect so much out of your body and start being okay with the one you've got.

that being said, I can understand trying to distance oneself from the soft and the feminine. that is something that makes me extremely uncomfortable in my skin. definitely look into getting/tailoring some nice fitting clothing for yourself that will emphasize what you want and take the view away from what you'd rather not flaunt. keep working your body in a healthy way that feels good. you can sort it out and find a place where you feel okay in your head and also your body is getting what it needs as well. (*hug*)

 

I had an eating disorder in ninth grade. I was about a week away from death before I was hospitalized. I think people may have been surprised, me being a tomboy my whole life, and always eating enormous amounts of food up until the problem started. I never really understood WHY I did it then, but now I realize that it was because I thought so little of myself and wasn't confident the majority of the time. I'm thinking that I didn't feel like I fit in with other people, therefore I felt shitty about myself, which had a cascading effect until I finally took the pain out on myself by starving. Maybe it's like this for other people too?

 

It was like that for me. For years, on and off, I had anorexia and some other types of unnamed ED. I strongly believe that I did this because I was struggling with my gender identity. I had very poor self-esteem. I tried to both run away from and to what I was gender wise, if that makes sense. I wanted to get thinner, because I was under the impression that my period would stop, my breasts would be like a boy's chest and I would end up looking less female. It didn't work and there were a few times when I was probably close to dying, yet I never went to a hospital or told my doctors about this.