in the women’s changing room, a woman complimented my swimsuit 😭
it felt so great to be able to swim and move freely without shame - I don’t think I had ever gone swimming before and not felt some significant shame about my body.
I’m still overweight, and it was hard in the past for me to see that my body shame was about the wrongness of my male body (e.g. not wanting to ever take off my shirt) and not about being overweight. (Probably relevant that I still felt that body shame even when I was “anorexic skinny” to use the words others have used to describe me during that time, whereas now I feel much more body acceptance despite still being overweight.)
anyway, yay - life is great
When my egg first cracked and I removed my body hair, before any other changes, I was struck with this incredible feeling of “ohhhhh I don’t hate my body, I hate my (assigned) gender”.
Like there’s still a lot I wish was different and the hormones still have a lot of work to do, but seperating out the feeling of gender dysphoria from the rest of the body image stuff was a really powerful feeling.
God, how’d you find the confidence? Good job! I’m still changing clothes every time I take my dog out. And you got a compliment on an outfit thing you picked?! The world really can be good
