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Overcoming the damage done by gender perceptions
by Lucia Coberly // Illustration by Raleigh Anderson
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Illustration by Raleigh Anderson
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When I decided to move back to on-campus housing for my final year of college, I began to worry about gaining weight again. When I was a freshman, I had the unlimited meal plan, and I made full use of it. Even if I wasn’t hungry and just fancied some sweets, I’d stop by Fulbright Dining Hall knowing that I didn’t have to worry about the cost. I gained a not insignificant amount of weight that first semester. When I realized it, I started dealing with it in a very poor way – once I was sure that nobody else was using one of the bathrooms on my floor, I’d go in and vomit after eating.
I was texting my fiancé about this in August and said I might go back to doing that, so I didn’t have to worry about gaining more weight, even though I was on the meal plan with 15 meals per week. He was very concerned by me suggesting that I might go back to purging after meals, as he had every right to be. It hit me: “Oh right, this isn’t a normal thing to do.” I promised him I wouldn’t go back to vomiting, which I had taken about a six-month hiatus from, but I also worried that I’d still be tempted to.
To ease my doubts and his fears, I made a Twitter account where I have posted pictures of every meal I’ve eaten on campus since I’ve moved in. I didn’t tell him that’s what it was for. It was just supposed to be an interesting project. It’s not art. It’s just a promise that I ate something and didn’t get rid of it afterwards. After a couple months at it, I feel like I’ve learned a lot more about myself and where my body image issues come from.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been consistently under 200 pounds. I feel like I’ve always been the fat guy that everyone knew. When I was in high school, this didn’t bother me as much because it wasn’t so obvious that I was overweight, and I didn’t worry that men wouldn’t find me attractive. I actually wouldn’t even come out as gay until I was 17, and even then, I was thin enough that I could mark myself as a “twink” on Grindr. A “twink” is usually a very thin, young, feminine man. But this was also around the time that I realized that I wasn’t a man or a woman. All I knew was that I wanted to be beautiful and feminine, and I felt that the expectation for being so was being as thin as possible. On and off since then, I purged after eating when nobody else was around. I wasn’t concerned about my health or someone trying to get me help if they caught me in the act, but rather I was embarrassed that I wasn’t just thin enough already and had to do something like purge.
Eventually, I would tell some of my close friends that I was trans, and a while later I also mentioned my weight issues. They were very understanding. That was encouraging, to a degree, that anyone would understand me. But I also knew that most people wouldn’t. I’d even tell some of my colleagues that I was trans, and that I used singular they pronouns, but some forgot the next day like I had never mentioned anything about it. I figured they still saw me as the fat guy that they had always known, so I felt even more that I had to lose weight so that they’d see me as who I really was. I’d start exercising every night for a week and then give up and go right back to purging. I tried eating healthier and bought a scale to keep track, and at one point was even using an app on my phone to keep track of everything I ate and all the exercise I did and became obsessed with every calorie. Going over felt like a major failure. I’d eat as little as I possibly could some days, so I could make my number of calories as low as possible, doing this for about a month before I decided that I was obsessing too much over every goal and number. Wasn’t vomiting just so much easier?
Over this past summer, a while after setting aside daily weighing and counting calories, I paid a visit to my boyfriend in California. Once I got off the plane, I was already Lucy, the name I had told my fiancé I wanted to go by, and I wasn’t the fat guy everyone back home knew me as. A totally clean slate where I didn’t have to act like someone else because I was afraid of not being taken seriously or worse. At home, at Starbucks, at the mall, wherever I was when someone asked who I was I could say the name I wanted without anyone looking at me weird. It felt great, and it was probably the first time in a long time I didn’t constantly feel self-conscious about myself and my body. The only time it ever came up was when a clerk pointed out the men’s section to me while I was browsing jackets in a Zumiez.
Back in Arkansas, I’m taking it a day at a time. The temptation to go back to purging is still there, and it’s even more appealing to just leave and be my real, nonbinary trans self without telling anyone that I’ve met here at the university. Now that I only have one semester left, there’s not much to be lost in being myself for once. Something as innocuous as wearing leggings is no longer an impossible feat. Eventually, I want to learn how to apply makeup, and start signing emails as Lucy, not Lucas. I still feel uncomfortable in my own skin, and I am still preoccupied with my weight. But now I’m starting to build the courage I need to present myself on my own terms. I can’t completely divorce my body image issues that come from being trans from my concerns about my weight, but I know now that being yourself isn’t contingent on everyone else’s approval.
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