I’ve hesitated to write about this because I appreciate how much fitness stuff can be a turn off or trigger for many. I will never become the person to glorify fitness as the cure-all or must-do for anyone. I’m body positive, and this entire entry is basically on how I worked through and around the frustration of generic cishetnormative fitness messaging that missed the mark for me and no doubt for most of us. I will keep the nature of my fitness goals vague in hopes of reducing the odds of unintentionally seeming to promote a particular body type/shape. For what it’s worth, some of my goals are standards (e.g. bench pressing my weight), others are about complementing other goals, be it aesthetic or sport related.
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I grew up wanting to body build.
None of the parents I grew up with were into sports for fitness sake. Those who were into a sporting activity were into it as amateurs who enjoyed it at a leisurely level. Nothing wrong with that, but I was never encouraged to prioritise fitness. It was seen as important enough, but not nearly as important as intellectual based pursuits. My first school reflected this, with zero sport teams for the elementary years and literally a handful scattered across the secondary years. As a tween, I was finally allowed to take up one athletic activity after school at my local community centre, as long as no one else in the family had to be involved in any capacity. It’s not that I minded walking to and from on my own, or never having family cheer me on at tournaments, but it made it clear how little importance I was suppose to pay to it.
There was a basic conditioning room at two of the high schools I attended. I signed up to join their respective work out clubs but one school said it was guys only, and the other said it was only for the athletes in select sport teams (e.g. Canadian football.) I got into a few sport teams but none of them apparently warranted body conditioning off the court or trail.
The last high school I attended didn’t offer so much as phys ed, never mind having sport teams. But I found out about the gym across town, and began going regularly. Only, the gym owner didn’t approve of women pumping iron. My options were cardio machines or cardio-heavy classes, so I begrudgingly kept to the latter.
Between my high metabolism and the physical activities I was allowed to do, I’ve always been slim. I’m not asking anyone to play me a small violin in this fatphobic world, but as a short trans guy, it doesn’t help in being seen as my age, cloth shopping in men sections can trigger dysphoria, and I’m routinely subject to variations of belittling mocking along the lines of my “not being much of a man.”
I started lifting weights during undergrad. My goal was then as it is now to gain, but I made several mistakes along the way. Believing I wouldn’t go unless I had a gym buddy to hold me accountable, I tried one gym buddy after another, but they kept bailing on me. Also, most of them had losing weight or toning as their goals, so really, we’d end up going to the gym at the same time but scarcely actually working out together. And for whatever reason, after going a few times on my own after they’d bail, I stopped going out of some illogical worry they’d feel bad if I kept going without them. idk, I’m not always rational. Also, I got the erroneous message that I was better off on machines than free weights. Pretty sure that was one more time my medical history was held against my desire to work out. At any rate…
I eventually clue in that I have ample discipline to go to the gym on my own, by which point I even had the disposable income to hire a trainer. I opted not to disclose, for better and worse. We generally got along, and it was a good learning experience overall, but in hindsight, it was good I stopped training with him when he changed gyms because he wasn’t getting me any closer towards my goals. He was used to having to work with people mostly around eating better and he had me working on the generic fitness regime of targeting all body parts basically equally (even though I was content with some body parts, knew my other sport activities took care of others, and had specific ones I wanted to work on at the gym.) I’ve since gathered, all trainers will basically make you spend a year doing generic work outs before letting you finally get to work on your personal goals if they deviate from this. On the upshot, as this coincided with my ligaments getting weaker (a family trait, possibly exasperated by hormone therapy, as it seems common enough) and a few other things, I got to learn which exercises I should never do and how to do others in ways that prevented easily strained ligaments. And to his credit, I hit my 1st fitness goal with his help.
The 2nd trainer at that gym also didn’t know my medical history, and continuously made comments that triggered my dysphoria. I suspect he wouldn’t have had I disclosed, but I wasn’t interested in giving money to someone who would only be “mindful” if I gave him a reason.
I continued on my own until I had 2 full time occupations, at which point, if I wasn’t at one occupation, I was at the other, or in bed, all the while saving up for share of the costs for lower surgeries.
When I was back to 1 full time occupation, I resumed training, again working with yet another trainer. But this time a non-binary person to whom I’d disclosed. They were awesome at helping me stay on track with training as best I could in between lower surgeries. Once again, though, I was forced to work on all my body equally, but at least, they were done with teaching me about number of sets, reps and more to promote bulking up. At the same time, I attended a men-only body image support group, and coincidentally got an important piece of information from my surgeon that helped explained a recurring issue I was encountering. Combined, I shifted my fitness goals, and it confirmed that I was right to dismiss people giving generic (however well researched and evidence based) fitness advice because it’ll never work well given specifics of my medical history (not to do with transition.) This trainer adapted with the new information and goals and I finally hit my 2nd body building goal, and when this time I was the one who had to leave the gym, they left me with the know-how to reach my 3rd body building goal.
It hasn’t been obvious to continuously train while immigrating and what not, but along the way I was able to work 3 months with a trainer who was down with showing me the ropes of an intermediary training regime and targeting specific muscles over others. I’m never going back. I will give credit that as frustrating as it was to spend so long doing fitness regimes that weren’t what I was looking for, they still taught me important lessons that made this switch in work out regiment such a success. If I had started with this, I almost certainly would have hurt myself and possibly wrongly believed I wasn’t capable of more intense body building. It truly is key to get to know your body over time and with care.
Along the way I also became a comet to a trans power lifter. We have entirely different fitness goals, but all the same, it’s been absolutely inspiration to witness them gain inches in size all around their body in the years I’ve known them. They frequently discuss their ever evolving training, and it’s been helping me come up with a new work out regime essentially combining the best of things I’ve learnt from the 3 trainers and my comet. There are still tweaks to be made, but a month in, the delayed-onset muscle soreness suggests i’m on the right path for my next 3 fitness goals.
One thing remains true through it all though, I have never felt like I belonged in a gym. I feel comfortable enough, but it’s not unlike when I’m hanging with cishet friends trying to pick up at a straight bar. I frequently feel out of my element even if I’m a bi guy, who in theory/practice might genuinely be interested in flirting with a woman. How much of my “foreigner in a strange land” feel in gyms stems from the years of being actively barred, discouraged from body building, how much of it was the dysphoria I used to juggle in the earlier years, being surrounded by so many guys with bodies I wish I could attain or whatever, who knows. It’s largely irrelevant, insofar as I’ll still go, and do what I went to do.
Sidebar: please do not tell me I can attain X body shape with sufficient discipline, know-how, etc. It isn’t in my genetic cards and I’ve made peace with it. I’m genuinely excited for the goals I’ve set that are attainable for me. I’m not interested in being talked back into having a shit body image by someone who doesn’t know relevant tidbits of my medical history, tyvm./
The moments of exception come when a regular asks me to spot for them. Silly, I know. But there’s something about the request that makes me feel genuinely welcomed amidst a culture that otherwise feels apart from me.
From Surviving To Thriving 