#Look I just want to be an ambiguous bog witch that stirs unexpected feelings in people and not be blamed for it

[messengerhermes]

Hey, since it's trans visibility week here's a reminder: your body belongs to you.

As a trans person that's been out for twelve years, and who has been considering HRT seriously for the last two now, I've noticed a pattern that happens on terms of how people, even supportive people engage with me around my gender.

People get uncomfortable when I assert my right to change my body in ways they don't find appealing.

This happens particularly with family members and partners, but I've also had strangers on the street and coworkers occasionally make comments.

When I first stopped waxing and shaving, it was unease and disapproval of my body hair.

When I wore my hair very short it was complaints over how confusing it was, how pretty it was long. Now that the top part's long again, I get complaints that it's dyed, that I've shaved the sides.

Last year, when I told my partner at the time that I was starting to think about T, I got a lot of objections. They thought I was going to see if vocal training would do enough for me, did I really think I'd be able to grow facial hair, I was dreaming if I thought I'd build muscle, there were other things we could try about my bottom dysphoria.

They were relieved I don't want top surgery, because they would be sad if I got rid of my tits.

When I told a relative recently, she was largely supportive, but couldn't help sliding in "I hate facial hair."

Well I'm not building this body for you, Janet.

The underlying connection between all these comments is:

I don't want you to change your body in ways I find personally unappealing/unsexy/or somehow bad.

My body is not public property.

I'm not a billboard to sell you hamburgers, a projection screen for your porngraphic fantasies, or a vessel for the hopes and dreams you had for the future.

I'm a person. My flesh belongs to me. To shape as I so please.

I'm still waffling on a knife edge about testosterone, but I realize the fear that holds me back is this:

What if they're right and I get none of the changes I want but also become undesirable in ways that get me discarded?

It's a real fear. I cannot guarantee T will change my voice, grow me a gay little mustache, help me beef up, or solve my dysphoria when it comes to intimacy.

But what's my alternative?

I stay unchanged in a body that some days I don't recognize in the mirror, with a voice that sounds like I stole it from the lost and found until time inevitably changes this meatsuit in ways that also render me undesirable?

Some choice.

There's a lot to be discussed about gender essentialism and the ways white supremacist beauty standards can influence what we as trans people deem as "necessary" for our gender expression when it comes to medical transitions.

But if the discussion boils down to "if you seek medical transitions in any way you're giving into the binary and cissexism," then we're stripping bodily autonomy completely from the conversation.

And honestly, I resent the idea that I'm playing into the gender binary by wanting bodily changes that make me *more* ambiguous by our currently defined standards of gender, not less.

And I resent the ways those arguments only seem to come into play to push me *not* to pursue changes that could make me comfortable in my body, but "hey babe, gender is all a performance, go for it" never pops up when I express the desire to wear plunging chiffon gowns to expose a thick thatch of chest hair that's sprouted between my tits.

I have the right to shape this body of mine however I see fit, my body is not a rental, I don't need to preserve its resale value, I'm here for life.

Your body isn't a rental either, and you can't resell it. Make it up to be your dream home.