Written by: River | She/They | IG: @riverreads93

I’ve been coming to learn about my own non-binary identity for the past couple of years in the various shapes it takes. I was born a male and consider myself now non-binary trans-fem. This means that the way I look, feel and act doesn’t really align with either binary perception of gender.

One of the hardest parts of learning about myself and getting to know myself in this way has been the acceptance of body image. Body image is something often spoken of more widely around cisgender female bodies, however the issue affects people of all backgrounds, sexualities and genders.

For me, while growing up a straight white male, I always had the known issue of “why don’t I look like a Hemsworth”. Another very common societal issue where we find ourselves compared to, or more comparing ourselves to those we see on screen month in and month out. I get the privilege of relating more to the Parks and Recreation Chris Pratt than the Guardian of the Galaxy we now know and love.

More recently, the issue of body image has reared its head in the form of a sort of partnership with gender dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is known as the feeling one gets when their assigned biological sex doesn’t match with their emotional and psychological identifying gender. This can lead to a number of difficult mental health issues within the trans community.

This is something I have seen a small surge of queer people opening up about on social media which is encouraging and uplifting. However I feel that as an aspect of queer life, the awareness could be far greater particularly outside of queer circles.

Body image issues for trans-feminine people such as myself can lead to thoughts of feeling fake, inadequate or like I’m not measuring up to what I want to be or should be. As a society we have templates of what women and men should look like and appearing as an in between uncertainty between those expectations can be a hard and real experience for some trans and non-binary people.

I am six foot 5 inches tall, deep voiced, hairy, broad shouldered. Ironically these are attributes I’m sure a lot of men would do anything to have. I have always found myself with a shadow of envy around the more feminine attributes that both cisgender females or even genetically blessed trans women have been able to attain.

Growing up I always heard that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and this is true. Your heart and morality is so important. However that notion doesn’t always help. Something that has helped me a tremendous amount through my emotional struggles of dysphoria is reading others experiences and particularly seeing realistic representations of what trans people or non-binary people do look like. I think one of the greatest gifts that trans people can give each other is being open about how we look, how we feel about how we look and encouraging others in their validity around how they look.

Fantastic advocates for the unconventional, the breaking of boundaries have risen up and continue to rise up. I cite Addison Rose Vincent, founder of Break the Binary LLC and Alok Vaid-Menon, a performer and writer breaking barriers as a gender non-conforming person and a person of colour. These individuals are examples of those I personally look to for encouragement as they don’t shy away from showing what makes them unique, special and valid as gender non-conforming people. They particularly help to feel valid in the arena of body hair, which is a huge hurdle in my personal journey.

In the journey of being gender non-conforming, non-binary or trans, it is very easy to feel that you need to present a certain way. The feeling that you’re ‘not there yet’ in your appearance or you don’t look a certain way enough can be daunting and very present. The important thing to remember is this is a journey. I’m still going through the journey myself. However I am uplifted knowing there are people out there that I look like, there are things about me that make me important and valid and that moulds and expectations that have been formed in society need to be continued to be broken.