Content Note: This article references a parent's use of Weight Watchers for their child. I didn’t always hate and hide my body. I was athletic as a child. I swam competitively and played outside until the last drop of daylight. I trusted my body and knew it well. That changed when puberty hit in the fourth grade. I started to look more like a woman than a little kid, and a … [Read more...]
6 Situations Where Weight Loss May Not Make Sense – Even if You Think It Does
This post was originally published by EverydayFeminism under the title "6 Scenarios Where Intentionally Changing Your Weight Doesn't Make Sense -- Even If You Think It Does" and is republished here with permission. Content note: This article contains references to weight loss, dieting, and eating disorders. I met with a new specialist to talk about the osteoporosis I’ve … [Read more...]
8 Things That Happened When I Stopped Shaving (Spoiler: Most Are Pretty Rad)
I remember growing up, I was a big fan of the TV show “That 70's Show." It had a catchy intro and featured a group of teenagers, one of them even a migrant like me! In one episode, one of the characters went ring shopping for his girlfriend. The store owner tried to help him choose a ring by putting it on and pretending to be her. However, the boyfriend was “thrown off” by the … [Read more...]
Self Love Isn’t Easy: 10 Difficult Things I Do To Practice Radical Self Love
Self-love is crucial for surviving and thriving in an oppressive society hellbent on making us feel like we’re wrong or not enough. But precisely because of this society, cultivating self-love can be difficult. As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety, I know how much energy it can take just to get through the day. When you’re stuck treading water, self-love can … [Read more...]
3 Steps Toward Good Sex Beyond the Binary: Having Sex With a Non-Binary Person, Even When That Person Is You
Gender is a spectrum, which means that between and outside of the constructs of male and female, there exists an entire range of gender identities. We often speak of “transgender” and “cisgender” identities: “cisgender” indicating that one’s gender matches the gender they were assigned at birth, and “transgender” indicating that one’s gender does not. However, we still often … [Read more...]
Why I’m Wary of Being Friends With You When None of Your Friends Are Marginalized
One day I was grappling with shame and self-consciousness over my tendency to take stock of the kinds of people new people in my life surround themselves with. I was thinking about this in relation to bodies and, specifically, race and fatness. Until that moment I had internalized this behavior as unnecessary, judgmental, and even shallow. But I had a realization that allowed … [Read more...]
When You Call Me Skinny (Hint: It’s Not a Compliment)
Content note: This article contains extended discussion of familial fat-shaming, attempted weight loss, dieting, and eating disorders. In a radical self-love webinar I took with TBINAA founder Sonya Renee Taylor, she asked participants to recall their first memory of body shame. Everyone had one. I went blank. I had none. The truth was, I had far too many. My entire life … [Read more...]
Notes From a Feminist Trans Guy on the Gendered Policing of Body Hair
“I mean, look at you, man. With that mustache you look like a real man. Everybody should want that." So said a guy to me in my bro-far-masculine-of-center gender support group. He said it as a means of establishing camaraderie and admiration. I felt shame. “Girls don’t have hairy backs,” said my nine-year-old peer at the city pool. I was wearing a light blue, shiny … [Read more...]
