What would the world be like if it was built for us? The world as it is now is so unaccommodating to anyone who isn’t cis, straight, white, male, and able bodied. Whether it’s lack of gender neutral bathrooms or failure to provide disability access in stores and restaurants, the world we live in now is not built for people who don’t meet the western societal standards of what a perfect body should look and function like. That being said, why isn’t the world more accessible? Aren’t we the ones who decide how the world should work? So why is it that we continue to make these things so inaccessible when it is an easy fix? It’s so engrained in our society that this is just the way things are and that we should just accept it. It’s like the saying “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” except it is broken and we refuse to acknowledge it. There are so many ways in which the world could be more accessible that just aren’t implemented tin the way they should be. Like why do we not have wheelchair ramps and elevators at every establishment? We could make all restrooms gender neutral as well. Small things such as this would make the world a much more accessible place for everyone to live and be happy. I guess I just don’t understand why we would go out of our way to make things inaccessible for those who need these things. Not to mention it would help everybody, not just those who you would think need it. An example would be parents withs strollers, a ramp would be helpful to them too so they don’t have to carry the stroller up a flight of stairs. Moral of the story, the world could be so much more accessible if we just decided that it should be.
Author: kca56
The coexistence of trans bodies and gender binaries
As a trans person, much of my existence has been spent thinking about mine and other people’s bodies. Growing up I had a pretty clear cut idea of what it meant to be a woman and what it meant to be a man. This idea was shaped largely by my conservative Christian upbringing. Even before I started my medical transition, it was apparent to me that I was built larger than most of the AFAB* people I surrounded myself with. My shoulders were broader, my chest larger, my limbs longer, and many things that I felt weren’t “womanly” enough. I spent so much of my youth trying to correct these things as if that would magically fix all of my problems. This sent me into a life long battle with my relationship towards not only my body, but also my relationship towards food. At twelve, I started to lose a lot of weight and I started counting all the calories I would eat in a day. It’s as if the numbers went down, then so did the things that made me seem more “manly”. This was around the time that I started to realize I was transgender. Turns out that eating less than 500 calories a day wouldn’t solve my body dysmorphia or my gender dysphoria. As time went on, I tried to correct these things even more. I wore dresses and makeup, I grew out my hair, and I started to act more “feminine”. After about 3 years of that, I realized how much these behaviors had made me grow to hate myself. I was not only starting to be unhealthy mentally and physically, but I was full of more self hatred than when I started. Looking back now, 4 years after I came out as transgender and accepted these parts of myself, I realize how harmful these behaviors really were. The thing about that is, I still have these thoughts almost daily. I’m in a position now where I can shut them down, but it’s still strange to me how these gendered behaviors and ideals can still coexist with my existence as a trans man. I know that trying to act more feminine won’t erase my transness, but sometimes I still wish I tried harder. I live my life now, knowing that the gender binary is a colonial ideal that really doesn’t do much but harm the individuals in our society but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about them. I love my transness and the transness of those close to me, so why do these gendered ideas still live in my head from time to time?
*AFAB = assigned female at birth
Unruly Bodies 