Last week, one of the people I love most in the world told me that I've made myself unattractive and unhealthy-looking by cutting off my hair and by broadening my shoulders and muscles generally through training and powerlifting. This person is disgusted by my transitions: in gender and in fitness. They have both always been in me: I am only now in a place in my life where all of me -- the nerdy nonbinary powerlifting author -- is embraced and supported by my chosen family. I am only now in a place where who I am -- who I've always been -- can manifest on the outside. The afternoon that I had to hear this transphobia and misogyny (because he certainly wouldn't have told me I look unhealthy if I were a cis man), I went to the gym. I trained harder than ever: and I trained, of course, safely. Because training journeys -- like gender journeys -- are about loving yourself enough to explore what kinds of potential you have inside you. I love myself; I love the body I am carving for myself; I love how I look, broad shoulders and short hair, powerful and bold and brave, whether I'm packing and wearing my binder or rocking six inch stilleto boots and a push-up bra. I deserve that self-love, even when people who are supposed to love me well try to take it from me. And you deserve that self-love, too. My trans and nonbinary friends: your transitions, whether from the gym or hormones or surgery or clothing or makeup or something else or some combination of the above, do not make you unattractive. They do not make you look unhealthy. They make you YOU, and therefore they make you incredible. My women (trans and nonbinary and cis alike) who train: you look amazing and you look powerful. My folks of all genders who *don't* train: you also look amazing and you also look powerful. Because, training or not, whatever kinds of bodies you have, you all ARE amazing and powerful. Unconditionally. So keep being unabashedly YOU. The world needs you. -- #powerlifting #transworkout #nonbinaryworkout #bodybuilding #veganbodybuilding #traininglife #powerliftingwomen #training #writerswhotrain #writerswholift #transpowerlifting #nonbinarypowerlifting #nonbinary #transgender
