Most days I call this body of mine one in all the next; an argument, a conversation or silence. Some days it’s all three. My stomach dips right into a well-honed (even when I do say so myself) v-shape. Across my stomach lays the word ‘home’, tattooed into some pretty solid-ish abs. Whatever this body be, it all the time might be a house. A house that rattles, creaks, one which aches for renovation. For a change, to be re-upholstered. A house that might be warm and loving sooner or later, but just has a lot work to do immediately. 

I can’t remember the last day I wasn’t completely aware of my body, mainly due to discomfort I feel existing in it. There are some moments though, often after blowing some smoke, occasionally living my kunty dream on a dance floor and perhaps five minutes after good sex that I forget I actually have one. It’s a sense I’m still waiting to search out out how you can articulate. It’s freedom, but greater than freedom it’s the silence and peace of not feeling like I’m in conflict. 

I prefer to care for my body due to ways I hate it. I do know that doesn’t make sense completely but I believe life only works with balance and the importance of that, for me, got here in the shape of accepting the worst things I take into consideration myself by combating them with my very own kinds of self-care. I can never eradicate all of those negative feelings, but I can motion them with some positives. Also, I’m vain, or insecure (or each), so I want to look good so as to feel good. Getting a superb trim, buying recent binders, packers and garments in addition to the occasional thirst trap Insta posts are all ways of affirming myself. Fitness is one other way I need to hone my body, while also practising self-care rituals.

My first time entering a gym after coming out and visibly embracing my masculinity was probably the most humiliating thing ever

My first time entering a gym after coming out and visibly embracing my masculinity was probably the most humiliating thing ever. My only issue with the gym prior to this (when presenting as a lady) was seedy men watching me squat or watching my chest jiggle whilst running. For me that was manageable, the dissociation meant I frankly didn’t care. It didn’t feel like my body, it was foreign and never something that I felt connected to. This time, though, was different – this was sniggers and smirks, this was eyes tracing my body to make sense of it, this was fearing for my safety. 

I walked in a bare-faced baby boy with a bulging bunched chest from not with the ability to bind while exercising and a t-shirt that clung to it. My legs sprouting non-convincing hair and eyes that should have looked like a deer within the headlights, I spent more time understanding how you can be invisible than I did understanding. Men with arms the width of my torso would discover a technique to make eye contact, to remind me of whose space this was, my inadequacy, to spotlight my mawga* chicken legs. I felt it. The intimidation was real. I quickly left the gym and swore to myself I wouldn’t be back. As an alternative, I exercised in private. I did bedroom circuits. I ran a good amount, even took litre bottles of fizzy drinks and used them as weights. I wasn’t doing what I wanted, I wasn’t getting hench but I used to be getting toned.

When I made a decision top surgery was something that I desired to and will do, I knew so as to get the most effective results, it was time to hit the gym again. A giant a part of coping with my dysphoria was and is changing the shape of my body, but greater than anything it was preparing my body for the change, almost like pre-recovery. After I’m within the gym now, I chuckle at the times of home gymming. Now I’m extremely lucky to have a gym space provided by Nike – as a part of a partnership aiming to work on inclusive gym spaces, we’ve got a non-public, small and intimate gym that I get to share with my chosen father Naeem and a trainer that I didn’t think existed. Most Tuesdays we come to our glad place, Megan Thee Stallion blares from the speakers and we activate; Team Get Hench mode. 

Naeem and I actually have the privilege of coaching with Joslyn Thompson Rule; not only has she dissolved my fears and stereotypes about personal trainers, she pushes us, understands our bodies and takes the time to essentially prepare us for top surgery – by improving each our fitness and our overall well-being. Our first day of meeting Jos was to determine what we wanted from training, what results we desired to see and a few background to our lifestyles. Each myself and Naeem found ourselves wanting to enjoy our body without dysphoria and likewise to masculinise our shape, which is able to help with passing/presenting. Before this, I’d sit and watch the likes of Laith Ashley and Ajay Holbrook in awe of their bodies but additionally feeling the pressure of getting to appear like that so as to pass. My genes ain’t that, my dad’s waist is smaller than mine! But additionally I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted or if it was an expectation of what my body should appear like – whether my ultimate goal ought to be having a body that’s unrecognisably ‘trans’. 

The pressure of hyper-masculinity and sexualisation of black men means that you just base an enormous a part of your personal perception of yourself on how attractive you might be to others

But pressure around “masculinising” my body image isn’t only linked to my transness. Growing up in a time that fetishises the black man’s body (a time we’re still in today) meant that, if I didn’t appear like D’Angelo in “How Does it Feel”, I didn’t feel sexy. Morris Chestnut, Tyrese Gibson and Mekhi Phifer were the celebs of most movies I watched they usually were FINE! But none of them looked like me. So growing up and into my masculinity, I didn’t think a slim body could attain that level of desirability, especially a non-cis one. The pressure of hyper-masculinity and sexualisation of black men means that you just base an enormous a part of your personal perception of yourself on how attractive you might be to others, which is a dangerous technique to find the sweetness inside your body.

Within the near future, mine and Naeem’ aim is to create a gym space where trans men and masc-centred people can come together and get them gains in addition to having a kiki! To offer various narratives to trans bodies, to present access to all trans bodies and to have a mix of coaching and socialising within the hope that we will collectively learn to or proceed to like and look after our bodies before, during and after the changes that may occur. We wish an area that fat, black, brown, small, athletic, fluffy, passable, non-passable, beyond the binary bodies are celebrated and revered, an area where we will work out without the pressures which are attached to the gym spaces that we will not be welcome in, where we feel unsafe, or scrutinised. 

I can see now that a whole lot of the technique of training and finding recent ways to take care of my body has been about realising, greater than just the gains, the mental wellbeing that comes with training, the importance of recovery and the way we prepare our mind, body and soul for the journey of transitioning physically. I feel so lucky to have been given a protected space just like the gym where I work out and my only wish is to expand that accessibility to all who find it triggering and traumatic to be on the gym. Taking care of yourself could be hard as a trans person, I need to make that feel easier and healthier, with less definitive reductive ’goals’. For now, I’m ready for a topless summer, there’s no stopping my recent 2.0 comfortable, repurposed, redefined body. Here’s to loving this home.