(I'm ftm) Oh wow what you just answered to that ask is eye opening... I always look with envy at people that are NATURALLY thin, tall and have small hips & beat myself up about not being like that and having to do more to achieve this. But tbh I never considered & looked at it objectively that it doesn't really matter if I will "slim down", before going on hrt I won't see changes in my pear shape. I've been higher up the scale, I've been further down... doesn't really matter how much sports I do
Yeah this is a really important consideration, but one that isn't immediately obvious! And one I don't know if a lot of people really know about at all, which I suspect fucks up a lot of us trans people. :(
Growing up in the USA where dieting culture is HUUUUGE, I was constantly bombarded with the message that losing weight = changing your shape. Not just changing one's size, but actually changing the shape of one's body.
But that's not really true! Past a certain point, it's mostly a change of size and firmness, because where fat is going to distribute is determined by genetics and one's hormone balance, and dieting and exercising isn't really going to change that. Which is something I wish I'd known a long, long time ago - even if I hadn't been able to face being trans back then, I think just knowing that it wasn't anything I was or wasn't doing that was causing my shape would have been a lot better for me emotionally and physically.
I'm always going to have narrow shoulders and wide hips due to my bone structure, but I also know changes in fat distribution are likely to help a lot. Two of my male relatives have a similar skeletal build to me, so I have an idea how I might turn out, eventually. Hopefully!
