Objects in Mirror

My medicine cabinet has three doors that split the mirror into three pieces. If I angle one of the doors and place my reflection square in the middle of the crack, my torso looks smaller. My ribcage doesn’t jut out as far. It’s a beautiful sight.

If I dress a certain way, I can make my hips feel wide. I wear long tops that go past my hips to my thighs. My thighs are huge, no doubt about it. They’re disproportionate to the rest of my body, and they stick out as far as my hips *should*. So when I wear long tops, the break in silhouette between hip and thigh is broken. That gorgeous width is connected to my hips. The effect is further enhanced if I wear a brightly colored long top and then layer a shorter black cardigan over it. The black cardigan narrows my waist and contrasts with the bright color of the shirt under it to expand my hips even more. Top it all off with the perfect pair of jeans, and in that moment I am ecstatic. I have literally jumped for joy while wearing these outfits. I become giddy like a little kid. It’s Christmas, and Santa brought me hips!

Sometimes it happens by accident. My spine will bend in just the right way when I lie down so that if you don’t examine it too closely, I appear to have a pelvis of the child-bearing variety. I pass by a light and my shadow tapers off along the ground to create a silhouetted alternate-dimension Amy who walks alongside me with a confident sway. As I walk down the street I catch a glimpse of my distorted reflection in a slightly bent shop window. Not only does she have a narrower waist, but the skin on her face is smooth, without the deep acne scars that cover my upper body.

I savor these moments. Even though they are fleeting, accidental, and illusory, I make them last. They’re like a lollipop I want to bite into and annihilate, but I hold back knowing it will be worth the inevitable frustration. There are precious few moments I feel at home in my body, so I take advantage of every chance I get, no matter how “real”. I burn those images into my brain, and when I feel gross I pull them back out again.

I avoid moments that highlight my dysphoria. I often shower with my eyes squinted or closed. I pee with the lights off. When getting ready, I only look in the mirror when I absolutely have to. When lying down I usually cover myself up with a blanket. I cover my whole body, avoid revealing clothing, and wear hoodies constantly. By hiding what upsets me and soaking in the moments that make me feel good, I make life in this damaged body a little more tolerable. The mirror’s inescapably cracked, literally and metaphorically, so why not turn it into a force for good?

Diversity of Language

[TW: Slurs, some censored so I could write this out]

One of the common criticisms the trans community makes of cis feminism is in regards to the myth of the “universal female experience”. I personally am realizing that I have unknowingly subscribed to a myth of a universal trans female experience. This myth is based on my own, genuine experience: I knew I was female since the beginning. I disown most established trans language in favor of terms like CAMAB and CAFAB. I don’t believe in pure sexual dyadism or terms like “male-bodied”.

While these parameters genuinely fit most trans women I know personally, they don’t apply to everyone. Applying them to everyone else isn’t helping me interact with the greater trans community. It’s causing unnecessary arguments and unproductive battles of trigger versus trigger. It is still important to debunk the myths surrounding the binary essentialism of “male” and “female”. It’s important to deconstruct cis language and find our own. It’s important to empower ourselves. But it’s also important to recognize the trans community has a wide range of perspectives. What’s most important is that we respect each other, and define ourselves without projecting onto others.

Just as some people knew they were trans since birth, some didn’t. Some trans women are also genderqueer or female non-gendered. Some binary-identified trans people consider themselves “gender variant”. Some people identify as MtF. Some people describe themselves as male-bodied. Some people identify as transmisogynistic slurs, including she**** and tr***y. Some people identify as transmen and transwomen, regardless of how intensely that lack of a space sets off my OCD (I’m sad to say that is not hyperbole).

I’ve failed to handle these truths many times, and some of them I still struggle with. But my perspective is becoming a very strong “let people identify themselves”. I’m adjusting my rhetoric to accommodate this. Rather than telling others what to say and what not to say, I find it more helpful to explain the range of experiences trans people have. Some trans women aren’t “born male”, but some are. Some find MtF insulting, others don’t. A similar range of experience (on different subjects) exists among cis people regarding their own genders. What’s important is that we respect the individual and support each other as a community. The message changes from “Don’t make x assumption about me, because trans people aren’t like that”, to “don’t make x assumption about anyone, because people are individuals”. If there is one truth with the power to disarm stereotypes, it’s how different we can be from each other, even those of us who use the same labels.

This shift in perspective is hard. It’s possibly one of the hardest challenges I’ve faced when writing “for the community” and not just myself. This process is also messy. While I am learning the theory, in practice I am certainly no expert. Most of us have sore spots, sensitive topics, and certain words we just cannot bear to hear. Words that have been weaponized so many times we can’t take it anymore. We get angry at each other, we get triggered, we fly off the handle. Sometimes because the offending person is intentionally malicious, other times unintentionally malicious, and sometimes it’s just a plain old misunderstanding. Regardless, the pain is real. The problem often is that, even if we all speak the same language, we don’t necessarily speak the same language. Sometimes we use the same word to mean different things, or use different words to mean the same thing. These mismatched meanings become layered on top of each other, creating a confusing glut of mixed messages.

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