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More worried about transition appearance than pre-transition?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Cailan, Mar 28, 2017.

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  1. Cailan

    Cailan
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    I've seen it over and over. Trans folks wanting to lose weight so they can look how they think they should look once they've transitioned. Trans folks at the gym, doing weight loss, massive weight loss. It seems to be a thing, to not care as much about appearance until transition is a possibility.

    I'm bi-gender F/M, and as soon as I have my breast reduction surgery (not chest contouring, just reduced from my ridiculous G cup to a bindable D), abdominoplasty surgery so I no longer look 7 months pregnant and I finish losing weight (68 pounds so far and 68 pounds to go!) AND get a panniculectomy (that giant hanging skin pouch after large weight loss) I plan to start giving my inner guy some guy time on the outside for the first time since I was a teenager.

    I'm tall (5'9") and large, square built with natural man-hips. The only feminine thing about my body is my shoulders, which are relatively narrow. Overall I'm already built more like a guy than a girl. I figure the fat gave me the illusion of having a "Gaia" type female figure. My girl side hates not looking feminine. She wants to be a petite girly thing my large frame could never achieve. From that POV I have a lot in common with many MtF folks.

    I only started really caring about weight loss, and become almost obsessive about it since I figured out my transness. Within a week I went from, "Weight loss? Okay, if it happens, it happens." to counting every calorie and joining a gym to work out three days a week.

    So why do I care about weight loss and fitness only because I don't want to look bad as a guy? I never really cared if I was fat as a woman. I love being a woman, but being thin and shapely (round is a shape, right?) wasn't a thing for me. But after dressing ONCE, I was so traumatized by what I saw in the mirror I haven't been able to do it again. I lost all interest in going guy mode, for now. All I can think about is "once I get my body to where it needs to be I can try this again."

    Yet I still don't know if it's even right for me to go full guy mode. I can only discover this once I get to the point that I can look at myself in the mirror again.
     
    #1 Cailan, Mar 28, 2017
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2017
  2. BrookeVL

    BrookeVL
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    I also only recently started getting serious about weight loss. I mean I'm not huge or even fat, but I do have a bit of a belly and more muscle than I want. I actually feel better about myself when I eat healthy and work out, but I stopped last year because I didn't like the results. I was putting on muscle I didn't want, and I wasn't even working to build muscle, I'm just naturally muscular looking.

    Now I'm trying to eat healthier and plan on gong back to the gym over summer, when I no longer have school work to take up so much time....and I've been on estrogen and blockers long enough that I should be able to keep the muscle mass easily in check.

    ---------- Post added 29th Mar 2017 at 02:20 PM ----------

    I think the crux of it is, most of us don't really care since we tend to have little connection to our outer shell, so we tend to get into it when transition starts, as we see that it's possible to now mold it into a body we want, not a shell you're stuck in.
     
    #2 BrookeVL, Mar 29, 2017
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  3. randomconnorcon

    randomconnorcon
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    For me, it was like, before knowing I was transgender, there was something in me that I couldn't quite make out and it was being pushed further and further away by severe mental health problems. So severe that I didn't see the point in fixing things. I didn't see the point in anything. Once I started finding things that helped me cope, I was slowly able to make that something out again. And then I realized I was trans, and it wasn't unique and I wasn't just a freak, and that along with friends and writing, I wasn't fixed because being trans wasn't the (sole) reason my mental health was so bad, but I had drive again. I was alive, not just living. So, for me, working out is one of those things that's more about getting right what I got wrong when I was just existing - helping me be me. With added physical health problems now, it's hard. But it won't stop me... right now anyway. At all, I hope.
     
    #3 randomconnorcon, Mar 30, 2017
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2017
  4. Rickystarr

    Rickystarr
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    I'm also a lot more concerned with fitness and health now. Before it's like it didn't really matter since I wasn't getting the results I wanted anyway without hormones. And it's like that wasn't even my body before so who cares?
     
    #4 Rickystarr, Mar 30, 2017
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