Looking in the mirror after body horror

I was pregnant as an agender person, and it was hard, but it didn’t destroy me.

The tenses in this one are a doozy. I use “breast” in here a lot as I believe it’s already a gender-neutral term.

I got misgendered my entire pregnancy by medical professionals. They even had my pronouns in their system! But calling people “mama” all day is a hard habit to break, and it happened all. the. time.

Willow about 7 months pregnant in front of a mirror, swollen

And also — my breasts grew 2 cup sizes. My hips expanded. Not as much as they might have if Locke had completed his damn pregnancy, but still. My fairly androgynous figure was gone. I couldn’t bind anymore. After pregnancy, it wasn’t just medical professionals that were seeing me as femme, based on my newly acquired hourglass figure. I was Uncomfortable. I was hiding in bland clothing. I couldn’t look at myself in a mirror. I shied away from sexy times. I was, and I mean this with all the dark humor in the world, “not feeling myself.”

I got back into riding my bike regularly (although centuries and beyond will still have to wait, having a kid is time consuming). I lifted heavy thing up and set them back down gently. I ate healthy. My shape didn’t change much. I tried buying clothes that were more my style than comfy pregnancy clothes, and that helped some. I am surrounded by people who love me. I have folks in my life that are attracted to me, including for my more femme-coded shape. I have a solid meditation practice and self care routine. But I still couldn’t look at myself in the mirror or feel confident in my self. It started to erode my confidence elsewhere. I hated being perceived as a woman.

So I looked into surgery. The surgeon in network wanted to know a LOT more about “gender queer” and not simply going from one binary to another, and didn’t have experience in breast reduction, only breast removal. She only knew about cinching waists, not diminishing a curve. I started talking to other surgeons out of network and found one who specializes in gender queer surgeries. I kicked off conversations about a breast reduction and body contouring. Reed and I changed insurance. I got my letters of approval. I got told breast reduction would be covered but not hip liposuction as it was cosmetic. I tried to explain it was about gender. I spent about 30 hours on emails and phone calls with the surgeon’s office, insurance, and my work. Reed and I had lengthy discussions about how to cover the costs and recovery time. Both procedures would finally be covered. Then we stalled out on if even MORE paperwork was needed, and who needed to start it, before we could schedule. I finally, about 8 months into fighting, got scheduled for a date. I emailed people I’m closest to about coming to help me recover.

Sometime in here, Reed started being on a GLP-1 agonist so he could control his weight without being on strict keto like he had been for about 8 years. You’ve probably heard of Ozempic. This wasn’t that, but in the same family. And I thought.. the things I’m talking about going under general anesthesia for surgery (always a risk of death, a long recovery time for what I was considering) for are just fat deposits. Maybe I’ll try this out, too. So I have been, for about 6 months. And it’s worked. I can look at myself in a mirror again. Hell, I even think I’m cute!

It’s also had the WILD side effect of drastically reducing my drinking. That’ll probably be a whole separate blog post.

And so after weeks of thinking about it, I.. cancelled my surgery?! My hips certainly spread, not just from fat, but I’m not willing to do anything about the actual bone structure there. My breasts have reduced sufficiently, and I think they may diminish even a bit more. I no longer have an hourglass shape. I fit into my suits again, without being busty about it. Suits while I was busty just didn’t feel right. Others can totally rock this look, but not for me.

Of course I have feels about correlating weight loss with being comfortable in my body again. I fully endorse body positivity, I have no feels about folks’ weight, and I’m deeply concerned about what people put themselves through in order to be closer to an “ideal.” I don’t like piling another chip on the side of the scale that says “thinner is better.” So let me be clear — I intend on being a total beefcake. I am not interested in being rail thin. But how my gender was perceived by others (and myself!) based on fat deposits was having a real toll on my mental and emotional wellbeing. So that’s complex and basically impossible to untangle. Good thing we contain multitudes!