Body Positivity For a Moment

My body isn’t perfect just the way it is. But, I’m not saying that for the reason(s) you might think.

#BodyPositivity is this weird thing/has become this weird online space. I recently saw a post by a presumably cithet ally that went something along the lines of, “we should respect ALL bodies… we must show love to LGBTQIA+ people.” Firstly, LGBTQIA+ people can and often do look EXACTLY LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Like, it might shock you to know how often you’re in the presence of one (gasp).

But, secondly, for so many people who actually live inside LGBTQIA+ bodies in a heterosexist and cissexist society--especially those of us multiplicatively marginalized because we are also disabled, or POC, or visibly religious minority, or gender nonconforming in our presentation to the world, etc.--we don’t feel like we have a place within the body positive movement. For me, at the end of the day, what’s so wrong with wanting to change my body? What’s so wrong with wanting to alter how it looks? What’s so wrong about not feeling comfortable in my own skin? Why do I have to accept that #allbodiesaregoodbodies if I don’t know that mine is?

My body isn’t perfect just the way it is. I have chronic pain from IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and DDD (degenerative disc disease) and #retrolisthesis, the latter two of which have caused two discs in my cervical spine to nearly disappear and one disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae to herniate. I have near constant pain in my neck, down the left side of my trap and shoulder, in my mid and low back, and down my right hip. Once, for--no joke--three weeks, I had a constant sharp pain in my right piriformis/medius muscles that NEVER WENT AWAY. Never. Not once. It was there when I went to bed, when I brushed my teeth, when I was showering, when I was attempting to do yoga, when I was teaching, when I was cooking dinner, when I sat on the couch, when I drove to school, etc. and so on.

My body isn’t perfect just the way it is. I was born AFAB (assigned female at birth) and because of that, I was socialized to believe that there was only one way for me and my body to look. But, unlike my cishet women peers, the issue wasn’t simply one of weight or body size (which, of course, it also was that. I once was fat. Beautifully fat. But I engaged in over a decade of serious anorexia and bulimia, which wrecked my body and ruined my insides and destroyed my skin and...). No, the issue has always been deeper. It was in the ways I was supposed to like my hair, which I could never stop fiddling with or perfect because of my BFRB and OCD (body-focused repetitive behaviors and obsessive-compulsive disorder). It was in the ways I was supposed to dress, with push up bras and high heels and makeup… makeup. Shit, my BDD (body dysmorphia) made makeup (makes makeup) so hard. It’s hard to stare at my face. It’s hard to see through the acne scars and the dark spots and veins and the lines around my mouth which make me feel like I have jowls and the uneven, sparse eyebrows, which even after getting permanent eyebrow tattooing I feel are still too spotty and patchy from all the pulling out of them I did in high school. It was in the ways in which I was supposed to feel about my sexuality. About my genitals. About how others were supposed to objectify me and my genitals. It was reductionist (it is reductionist for everyone) and I couldn't (and still can't) lay claim to womanhood the way cishet woman so desperately cling to and reinforce.

My body isn’t perfect just the way it is. I never felt comfortable in my body. Scratch that: I don’t feel comfortable in my body. And it’s not just a weight thing. I don’t want to be in constant pain. I don’t want to be disabled. I don’t want to have trouble shopping at the mall with my niece because we've been standing for more than an hour and my whole back has stiffened and I need to find a place to sit but there isn't one. I don't want to be miss a gentle yoga class because I've been stuck in the bathroom for more than an hour, simultaneously constipated and unable stop pooping. I don’t want to be late for work because I can’t get dressed, because nothing that day aligns with how I want others to perceive my gender identity. I’m tired. I’m tired of living in this imperfect body.

#BodyPositivity shouldn’t be about traditionally beautiful mostly cishet women who are really good at makeup and hair telling the rest of us that our bodies deserve respect. Like, we fucking know that already. It seems more than a little tokenizing. It seems more than a little exploitative. I wish society respected my body, for sure. And in a lot of ways it already does. I'm thin, White, highly educated, fully employed, in stable housing and because I'm AFAB and most people assume I'm a woman I only experience the same types of street harassment cishet women do (though, let's be honest, being non-binary and never ever ever ever ever read as non-binary is deeply disappointing and only contributes even more to that whole self-validation bullshit thing I mentioned before).

In so many ways, I navigate life relatively unscathed. But in so many other ways, I feel left behind because the body positivity movement seems to only respect people who unconditionally love their "flaws" or have reframed "flaws" to mean what society labels as "flaws", but what is in actually just difference. I'm happy for those people. I'm happy for people who love their bodies unconditionally. But what making space for those us who are unhappy with our bodies to talk about those feelings. Allowing those of us in pain to be fucking angry at our pain. Disabled Bodies aren’t bad bodies, but we can be fucking upset/frustrated/confused/resentful toward our disabled bodies. Enby (non-binary) bodies aren't bad bodies, but we can fucking frustrated at clothes and makeup and work meetings and our own internal struggles with self-validation. Scarred bodies aren’t bad bodies, but we can be uncomfortable with how we look and want to constantly alter it/hide behind foundation/tattoos/body modification.

My body isn’t perfect just the way it is. Now, that doesn’t give -you- the right to judge my body, but I can fucking feel however I want about it and I don’t need anyone else who is not in my body telling me otherwise.