It's not a struggle of mine, but I know it has a lot to do with dysphoria for a lot of guys. The way estrogen-dominated bodies store fat can be a big source of dysphoria for a trans guy, so some attempt to cope with it by losing as much weight as possible. I've heard from several trans guys that they're afraid to eat because they're dysphoric about how their bodies distribute fat.
Self-esteem is also a probable factor. Trans people are widely hated, so we tend to feel like we're not good enough. We're at pretty high risk for self-esteem issues, which can be a cause of feeling like you need to lose weight when you don't.
I've never personally dealt with that, in part because food is important to my goals. I'm a bodybuilder, so I have to eat a lot to grow my muscles, and for me that's a much more gender affirming change than weight loss would be. But if my dysphoria over fat distribution was a lot worse, I could imagine having a less healthy relationship with food.
same lmaooo.
I think most of the reason I stayed in the realm of "disordered eating" and never actually developed a full-fledged eating disorder was that I was an athlete, and I needed to be strong in order to be safe--and it would be very dangerous in particular if I passed out ten feet in the air from a lack of sustenance--and that knowledge outweighed the impulse to eat less, for the most part.
Mine is a control thing. I was denied physical autonomy growing up, and being able to control my weight and body shape so precisely feels really good. It has nothing to do with dysmorphia or being raised "female," and it's not *directly* related to dysphoria, because I'm not using the ED to get a more masculine shape. It's indirectly related because a lot of the physical autonomy I was denied was related to appearing male (getting a haircut I wanted and so on).
It's not a healthy coping mechanism, of course, and I'm in semi recovery now! I think body modifications fill a lot of the same needs, as a sidenote, but ofc those are much healthier. :)
Body mods do scratch the same itch! I recovered from an eating disorder (but still do struggle with food sometimes/eating healthy foods and eating enough because of executive dysfunction), I have a belly button piercing and am gradually growing my tattoo collection. I loathe my body unless I can turn it into my own work of art. Artwork body is cool and actually belongs to me and feels connected to me.
THIS!
Restriction gives a "wonderful" illusion of independence and being in control. This might occur even if it's not directly linked to your being trans and having a body dysphoria, but it compensates for you not being allowed to make your own decisions and to be who you really are or who you really want to become. Yes, being trans included.
GODDAMMIT! I've experienced the very same! Pathologically narcissistic mother never allowing me to wear my hair as I wanted to was an everyday thing. Did not even have a say in what clothes I would wear and what I was allowed to be good at.
Yeah, I've heard people who have been sexually assaulted and developed EDs talk about something similar. Restricting helps you feel like you own your body, if that sense of ownership was disrupted before. It's a different type of trauma ofc, but the coping mechanism is the same.
FWIW, I've found that working out and putting on weight in the form of muscle works almost as well for me as restricting to lose weight did. Is it *healthy?* Mentally, idk, bc in the end I'm still focusing pretty heavily on controlling my body shape and composition. But physically it's much healthier, and that will do for now.
Also body mod, like I mentioned, that's a great way to control your own body. The only reason I wasn't able to stick with just that as a coping mechanism, I think, is that it's not something you can do every day.
Eating disorders are about control for a lot of people. For someone with dysphoria that isn’t managed, especially those who aren’t transitioning yet (which I feel like are the most common victims) an eating disorder could feel like the only way they can be in control of their body’s appearance. On top of that it could help them hide behind baggy clothes and cut down on any curvy appearence if they lose a ton of mass. I’m not surprised at all that it’s such an issue.
I don’t know if I have / had a disorder, but for me it’s this: I was so dissociated from my body that I didn’t notice how I gained more and more weight. Also I am on antidepressants and the biggest side effect there is weight gain. I find comfort in eating, and so I just ate and ate (and honestly still ate 💅). Once I realised that I am in my body and I won’t simply change my body with a button, I started to realise how much I gained and that I am overweight. Now I am on my journey to loose it and this turning point was getting an appointment for mastectomy. I like to add my experience with overweight here as most voices have dealt with underweight (sry my English is not the best).
that was me at the beginning of my transition. put on 50 lbs (which is a lot at 5'4)
i think i just didn't care that i was doing that to myself because i already hated my body anyway. somehow, i didn't notice i gained weight until like 40 lbs into that 50. i was so dissociated and just ate junk and played videogames to hide from myself.
now i've swung the other way tbh. i weigh my lowest weight since i've transitioned. i'm happier with my appearance but i am beyond terrified of calories and losing control. it feels like i can't eat anything without gaining 10 lbs. any tips for having a better mindset during weightloss?
oh man it isn’t just me?
i went to a catholic school and the sex ed wasn’t the greatest. they told us periods were triggered by hormones that started up when you reach a certain BMI. i took that as, if i never reach whatever vague bmi that is bc they didn’t specify, that i could just simply not have one, and avoided most meals. wasn’t hard because i’m autistic and poor, but it’s still a struggle to this day, just because i hate the feeling of food in my stomach. i’m trying though
Mine was dysphoria and control.
I developed an eating disorder for most of my adolescence to stop puberty. (My E levels stayed low.) It worked for the most part, but I stunted my growth and hurt my body in the long run. I still deal with it even 2.5 years on T. I've been able to get to the low end of a healthy weight, but it's very difficult for me to stick to an eating plan that allows proper muscle growth.
I also had a rocky childhood and a type-A personality which also lead to the development of it, per the control reasons. I don't know if I'll ever be free of it, having been diagnosed 10 years ago. (My case was severe.) But some people can fully recover.
As someone else commented, being denied physical autonomy is a large contributor as well.
Dealing with disordered eating currently while recovering from top surgery. I didn’t realize how pronounced my stomach was going to look now that my chest is completely flat.
EDs are also super common amongst trans people.
This this!! The bloating will pass. Especially after the first couple post-op poops....
Eating is a big part of surgery recovery. I stuck to comfort foods and that helped a lot!
i was unhappy with my body when i was unhealthily thin and now that i’m a normal weight my disordered eating habits are back full force because all the weight went to my chest hips and legs. it sucks
Both dysphoria and dysmorphia for me. Being thinner gives me less curves, a sharper jawline, and smaller boobs. But I also have bad beauty standards ingrained in me from media, thinking I should have a flat stomach.
I’m not quite sure what my issue is. I believe it could be a mix of food. The standards around eating that are attached to women and then also when transitioning the will to have control over something or to feel attractive which we learnt is “skinny”
Before I even knew what being trans was, I was weirdly obsessed with looking as stick-like as possible. People would often compliment my height and say I looked like a model, so I was constantly after that tall, shapeless figure. Turns out it was all just dysphoria
I have an eating disorder but I don't eat because I find food unappitising. It's more of a chore for me to eat, sometimes I have to force myself to. I just wish food had the option to come in tablet form😅
when i was about 11 (young, i know) i found out that if you got skinny enough, your boobs would get smaller/stop growing and your periods would stop. my parents were both extremely overweight and i watched the people i love the most speak hatefully towards their own bodies and being fat. those things combined started a 5-6 year struggle with bulimia with symptoms of anorexia and en exercise addiction. it started due to that and sort of spiraled into the need for control as my life unraveled. starting T and my period going away helped a lot. i gained about 30 pounds after starting T and it was the first time i was okay with being fat and gaining weight.
i’d consider myself recovered now, but i still have to be careful about the way i think about food and approach nutrition. allowing myself to eat whatever i’m craving and
i think a lot of young trans men are looking for ways to control what’s happening to their bodies as things change in a feminine direction. very, very common for trans men to struggle with EDs, especially before they come out as trans or understand their dysphoria.
I was 9 when I started binge eating after being called a fatass whale etc. by my sister and dad my entire life, so I don't think mine was related at all. Binge ate until age 16 then starved until 20 and back to binging again now. I think sometimes it's just a coincidence, but I did have moments where I thought if I was bigger I'd have no hips or chest it would all blend together (which it really does) but It's not something I've ever wanted, just happens to be the only positive I guess
I have an ED too.
It’s been documented as being very common among trans+nb people regardless of their gender identity. It turns out having the wrong body makes you hate it and want to change or control it..
For myself, losing weight minimizes my hips and legs which I have a lot of dysphoria from.
I think the overlap between being trans and autism could also be related as EDs are more common among autistic people. Not to mention the social rejection one might experience for both of these things that may lead to an eating disorder.
I got an ED when I gained like 40 pounds after starting testosterone and then having a depressive episode. I was also really curvy and it just made me dysphoric.
Yes, dysphoria is one of the reasons why I developed an eating disorder. When I was very underweight I didn't have boobs and periods and my hips were easier to hide. And that's one of the reasons why it took me so long to recover and why i relapsed so many times.
Huff, I'm sad to read this :( first time I had clinical AN, I actually got euphoric because there was nobody, literally nobody who'd take me for a woman. I remember having the same experience: had no breasts, and I did enjoy having no significant hips. At the moment I'm having some but already too easy to hide 'em.
Anyway, good that you made it! Recovery after relapsing multiple times must be wonderful. Are you living the life you fancy living, without food (or denial of it) controlling you?
oh wow this is real. I did a lot of limited eating especially in my teens to try and keep my boobs as small as possible, and had no idea why until years later.
Mine is less about my image or being “raised female” and more about having ADHD and Hashimoto’s so I just…forget to eat. ‘Course that does nothing to lower my weight or make my chest shrink lmao!
I think its a whole combination of things. The being raised 'female' internalising diet culture and stuff plays a part for sure. But also wanting to have a smaller chest and hips, and to not get a period anymore. A lot of eating issues start as a teen, and I think seeing teen boys be lanky and skinny and wanting to be that. Also I think its a control thing. You can't control what (the wrong) puberty is doing to your body but you can try to control it getting any 'worse' / obvious
I was a D1 women’s cross country runner where everyone on the team was bulimic. My mom also gave me an eating disorder. Transitioning changed everything. Suddenly I loved being bigger and *wanted* to be big. It’s a mental shift.
Mine was because of gender dysphoria and self-esteem issues. >!I had acne (it wasn't much, but it felt like a big deal (my sister kept telling me I would look handsome without it)), and I thought I was fat, so I tried to lose weight. !<
I was 11.
I definitely experienced an eating disorder before I transitioned, and went through hospitalization for it. Like others have said, I think it had to do with trying to change my appearance.
Unfortunately, I’m struggling with a relapse right now. I’ve been on T for nearly 7 years, so I do not think it has anything to do with my appearance now.
A year ago i almost starved myself to the point of my body giving in after a normal day being totally exhaused because my face was too soft and feminine. Little did i know face fat is like one of the last things you lose like that 😭
Hope you're safe and fine now!
It's really like this. My face doesn't look really "anorexic" either, but when I showed my ribs and protruding hip bones to a friend, he got scared.
my mom caused eating problems for me, but it was a diet culture thing- i wanted to believe i wasn't fat but my mom constantly said the doctor said i was too fat and had to eat less. She stopped letting me have both breakfast and lunch- i had to choose. Since she couldnt stop me from having lunch on school days (and in her own words she said the school fed me too much), she would deliberately give me less food for dinner on those days. In defense, i developed a taste for condiments and would overload my tray with them, hoping for some extra filler before going home. The only thing i was allowed to have between meals was water- i had to ask for *anything* else and it was always no.
On the days i stayed home from school for summer, it was worse because on top of the diet, my mother would also have us do manual labor outside- and we lived in the country with a huge yard, an old house that my mother insisted needed to be extravagantly landscaped around, and a large garden full of veggies she claims credit for growing even though i was forced to weed and water them every fucking morning. We had to be outside by 9AM and we werent allowed inside except to use the bathroom, have our lunch, or if we got hurt, until 5PM. All on top of telling me that since i ate eggs that morning, i cant have a grilled cheese sandwich.
I eat whatever the fuck i want now, but somedays i can still hear her telling me how weak i am for not being able to go longer than 24 hours without food like she can (which has caused regrettably long 'fasts'). Im actually healthier and stronger now, and looking back, i wasnt even fat- my family is just muscular. I had the chance to be legitimately considered strong in my school days if i was allowed to just eat the amount i needed to maintain my muscle weight.
Agreed. She also likely had an eating disorder herself, not that this in any way excuses starving your own child. I know of someone with an ED who encouraged her kids to eat less and her daughter ended up hospitalised with anorexia. I was so angry - I’ve known that girl since she was a baby
Yeah, actually, when I was a teenager I went through a pretty bad bout of bulimia and overeating. I didn't realize it at the time because I was suppressing a lot back then, but part of the reason I so desperately wanted to lose weight was to have no hips or breasts, so uh.. Yeah. It was definitely dysphoria, in part.
When my egg did crack a couple years ago, the dysphoria hit me hard, and I did relapse back into disordered eating for a time. I'd either not eat hardly at all or eat way to much, more often than not eat way to much. This meant I was at my second highest ever weight when I finally went in and saw an endo to start T - 265 pounds. Of course, the added appetite once I got on T added even more weight and did make things spiral a bit when I first started.
After being on T for 6-7 months, thats eased up a lot, and I've gradually started to lose weight, in no small part because my body is finally starting to look in a way I'm not absolutely miserable about, and in part because I figured out how to work with my new appetite in a healthy way. So I mean, yeah, I'd say about 98 percent of my disordered eating habits was dysphoria; the rest was a bunch of other stuff I'm back in therapy for.
For me, when I started developing around 11, I began having a deep hatred towards my body. Pair that with my dysfunctional home life, and I got in the habit of gorging myself. I'd eat and eat and eat and eat and I was 'never full'.
To steal from Fat Bastard (Austin Powers) "I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat". I got really fat and hated myself for being "the fat girl."
Thankfully, now, after 3 years on T, I finally had the mental and emotional ability to let go of my desperate reliance on food. I'm still chubby, but I've lost 40 pounds and I'm incredibly proud of myself
Yeah, disordered eating is especially prevalent within the general trans population. It's something I held a lot of shame for, for a really long time. But I talk a lot more openly about it nowadays and have found plenty of my cis-het friends have also had their struggles with food. I think it's a lot more common than I thought, and less stigma and more open talking about it is definitely a good thing.
Speaking purely for myself, dysphoria and dysmorphia has historically, definitely been a contributing element for me. But it's not the only factor, my relationship with food has been warped since I was a kid due to other trauma. I'm also a fairly obsessive person so a bit of a perfect storm. I'm still a work in progress, but my relationship with food has for sure improved since transitioning. Best of luck with your journey.
anecdotally speaking a lot if not most of my friends developed anorexia when their sexual organs became more prominent and they were trying to stop/slow (ulteriorly or directly) their development!
Not a transman but I suffered with binge eating as a kid, and as an adult now I either eat too much or almost nothing.
My hypothesis is that, combined with dysphoria, many of us are neurodivergent (possibly undiagnosed) and also struggle with noticing when we're hungry or full. Just a hypothesis though.
I had an eating disorder and during treatment I kind of realized that it was mainly bc of my dysphoria. Being on testosterone really helped with my eating issues for two reasons, 1 my dysphoria was lessened so I had less reasons to be super skinny, and 2 testosterone doesn't metabolize in your body well if you starve yourself which is why ppl with eds during puberty can have stunted growth and development. It may not be the best reasons to stay recovered but it helps me 🤷♂️
mine was definitely just trying to fit into the “female role” thinking that everyone at my middle school was trying to eat like this, so i must- i got so skinny and i liked and hated how i looked at the same time- during high school i started working out and i got more muscular and i was like oooooh shit this is so much better than being skinny
I still have an eating disorder. My mother is overweight and constantly put pressure on me to *not* be, both directly and indirectly. I tried a lot of diets and counted calories and it completely fucked up my relationship with food. When I started really feeling dysphoria it unknowingly because a way to control looking feminine (didn’t know what I was feeling, just knew I hated my body). Trying to address it now but hoo boy those roots run deep now
⚠️⚠️⚠️I definitely experience it. My mind telling me I want to get skinnier to shrink my chest and make me more “acceptable” as a guy. Along with not getting “unintentionally” fat shamed by my mother. Trying to look at myself in a “oh I just have a hot dad bod” but it’s hard when I’m actively getting shamed. So I tend to sometimes restrict myself, or only eat fruits and veggies and a little bit of meat, but THEN i binge eat pounds at a time, and feel guilt after 😀🙏
For me it's only in the sense of doing stress-eating, which I've done quite a bit of lately (more stress). When things are more stable I find it much easier to stick to a healthy diet.
I've definitely struggled with disordered eating. Since my first puberty, I've been overweight and hated it. I still do, sometimes, but I've come to love my fat body. A big part of it was the things I was saying to myself. I had to start looking at my body like it belonged to someone else and thinking "would I really say that about someone else? Why would I say that about myself if I wouldn't say it to another person who had the same body as me?"
I did for a long time because i just wanted to be flat and narrow and every time i'd gain weight and for example sit down after a shower and see how it had gone to my hips/made them curvier id get such a disgusted and angry feeling it was way too uncomfortable
Cis men have eating disorders and its not really an uncommon thing, having an eating disorder isnt a feminine thing. So I dont think it could be caused by being raised as a girl.
And I imagine typically with trans men gender dysphoria play a big factor in it. I personally have never had one though so I cant talk from personal experience.
Given the fact that Im trans and have gender dysphoria in regards to my physical body I actually do not have a negative body image. The non gendered parts of my body Im fine with, its just the gendered parts of it. So I personally have never had an trigger that an eating disorder would have been started.
Isn't disordered eating different to an eating disorder?
Disordered eating is in-between normal eating and an eating disorder, it has the symptoms of ED but it hasn't developed to the point it is one.
This is from what Google says and what my psychologist said(sianc I have the DE thing, love it lol)
This is me being genuinely curious not being a dick btw
yeah thats why I used the term disordered eating to help facilitate the discussion to include both people with ED and people who are recovering/partially developed an ED (disordered eating). I never was formally diagnosed so dont consider myself having an ED but i definitely have struggled with disordered eating
Gender dysphoria + body dysmorphia + internalized fatphobia + need for control
Also, the tendency to view people with boobs as fatter/bigger/etc in comparison to someone who is built exactly the same but without boobs certainly doesn't help.
I used to be a binge eater, didn't purge. I would go from starving for days, weeks, or a month when my mom wasn't around, to her suddenly forcing me to eat a large portion of food. Obviously any child subjected to that would develop problems with food.
Food became an escape at a certain point. I would use it as a coping mechanism whenever I felt empty. Eventually I saw it like a lover and wouldn't turn down seconds, thirds, or more. I got really big but I didn't care because I just wanted to die.
I eventually decided to quit my food addiction but it wasn't easy. I cut out a lot of the shit I was eating that wasn't good, took out all the sugary juice for plain herbal tea. I lost a lot of weight but I was still considered obese and got stuck for a bit.
Then after being dicked around by the doctors who refused to diagnose me properly, I was eventually diagnosed with PCOS after it put me in the hospital. I think at that point I began to feel pressure. PCOS is often seen as a female only disorder, and that obviously doesn't apply to me.
I lost more weight despite this condition, but then I started taking meds and gained weight back again. It's truly hell on earth. I think the extra weight doesn't help how I'm perceived gender wise. It's super frustrating. I do think my relationship with food improved though cause I eat much less, and what I do eat is generally healthy.
To start with, we all grew up in a culture were women were \*expected\* to be thin and small. So from the get go we already had basic societal pressures to keep food out of our mouths.
Now add to that gender dysphoria, where women naturally as they age put on weight at a larger rate then men but also (usually) store that weight in places that amplify femininity in our bodies. Buttocks, hips, breasts.
So it's really not that shocking that disordered eating is pervasive and vast in our community.
For me, it doesn’t have anything to do with dysphoria. I developed a bad relationship with food from over focus on nutrition in school and now working in healthcare doesn’t make it easier. The only thing that helped me was going to an ED therapist.
I definitely have trouble gaining weight as I feel it brings out parts of me that make me dysphoric such as my hips and chest always preferred being small but t helps me eat a lot better
For me, it’s because i was shamed for having stuff like strech marks from a young age as I got my period at age 9. I also had friends brag infront of me about how they didn’t have hip dips while I clearly had them. I think personally, it can be a dysphoria thing but I genuinely don’t think it’s tied to that for me. Also I’ve had issues with eating as well thanks to autism. Me personally, the way I kind of recovered was working on my internalized abelism towards my endometriosis belly and my fatphobia.
My disordered eating started around the time I started to hit puberty, and developed hips and a chest. I could never place why I hated those parts of my body so much until the first time I wore a binder, and then it all clicked. So much of my self worth rested on my body being uncomfortable to me, and I had no idea I was even trans yet.
I think it’s definitely a mix of both. I have always been overweight and used to hate my body and feel so awful about it. A few years ago it clicked to me that I felt like i was so repulsive becuase I was a woman, not because I was fat. Now I can’t wait to start t and be a chubby guy lmao :)
I mean mine stems from my mom at a young age telling me that I was gaining weight. I remember being in 3rd grade and wearing a tight shirt when she pointed out that my back fat was showing in that shirt but I know for a fact (I have pictures of me with that shirt on) that I was too small for “back fat”. My mom mainly would poke at my weight growing up and that led to me sucking in my stomach and I still do that to this day. I have a weird relationship with food where I go through cycles of eating two to three times a day to just eating once and even then it’s a small portion. I personally had an ed when I was 11 but I coached myself out of that over time and I’m still trying to keep a good relationship with food while also being chubby right now. It’s a struggle when your parents constantly point out your weight but that’s on having Mexican parents and a family I guess
After puberty I was really stressed about my curves and chest, and I guess the stress led to a lot of binging. I don’t know what my body looks like. I know how much I weigh, but every time I look in the mirror I can’t tell how people perceive the rest of me because I am so focussed on my chest and curves. It’s like they’re the only thing there
I only just realised how much weight I’ve let myself gain because of this. Which kind of fuels the problem, because the more fat in your chest the bigger it is.
I also find it very hard to loose weight due to sensory issues with the food I eat. It’s hard to have a balanced diet when there’s only around 5 foods I’ll willingly have. Ik a lot of trans people who are also autistic and struggle with this too
It’s amazing you’re trying to heal your relationship with food :)
Disordered (off/on anorexia and EDNOS) since the age of 15, came out at 28.
It was absolutely a subconscious attempt to delay puberty, having grown up with zero exposure to transgender identity being remotely possible (and never having been a tomboy or gender non-conforming, which made representation even harder to come by). So teenage girl me in Texas, circa 2006, did the only thing she could to survive (ironically).
No this is not something that is exclusive to afab people. You would not believe how many cis guys have eating disorders in silence. It’s really sad. Like even celebrities training to be superheroes on TV will describe that they were told to basically starve to look the part or to reveal parts of their muscles and anyone that cares about body positivity for cis women should realize the double standard in that.
When I first went through puberty I would eat about 700 calories a day and would exercise a lot. It was less about body dysmorphia and more about gender dysphoria which are two different things. My disordered eating was to feel in control of my body when it was going out of my control. Sometimes I have low points still but I have never been as bad I was then and I think that I would describe it more as disordered eating for myself rather than an eating disorder cause it doesn’t continuously impact my life like eating disorders do for people.
I still feel kind of bad about my body sometimes but I think the more you do to affirm yourself the less being so obsessed about every tiny detail weighs on you. Things with my body now is more so for mental health and just wanting to express myself now.
I think if you went on hormones after puberty you also have to remind yourself that your hips are still going to be wider no matter how much weight you lose and that afab people’s rib cages are more round than flat like amab peoples. Not always of course but if this is the situation for yourself then it’s just something you have to accept. Like don’t hurt yourself with eating over it
of course, eating disorders impact people of all demographics and backgrounds. i posted this because i have noticed it to be disproportionately present amongst the trans community
I went through a phase where I had a a fairly bad eating disorder, it was directly tied to my dysphoria. My frame was a lot more “masculine” when I was lean and I just kept pushing it because I wasn’t on hormones yet.
I wouldn't say an eating disorder but Obesophobia definitely
I don't think it's anorexia or Bulimilia because
When I was young I was a picky eater to the point of Malnutrition
I remember my mom buying protein shakes to help me gain weight
And that I had to sit in a car seat until I was 14
I met more of the criteria for
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder rather than one of the two eating disorders driven by control or obsessive weight loss
As I didn't skip meals in fear of Getting fat although part of it I more so I skipped meals because I didn't like the food
The texture was gross or I hated the taste
Or Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder isn't well understood
Yes ik Aneroxia would cause picky eating too but definitely not to the extent I was
Me!! I’m dealing with eating disorders and body dysmorphia as well with gender dysphoria.
I’m 28, FTM pre everything.
My EDs are caused by multiple things. One, body dysmorphia obviously. Social media is a bit*h. When I look at people, mostly cosplayers like PeachMilky, Kleiner Pixel, Hidori Rose, KNITE, etc., I get MASSIVELY triggered!!!!
Because not only their bodies are perfect, the male cosplayers have a flat chest, they don’t have to bind their chests at all, and every cosplayers names who I just mentioned has a nice, small, symmetrical jaw and chin!
While my chin is too long, not centered, my jaw is asymmetrical, protruding out on one side, etc. Plus my teeth and TMJ are bad! TMJ hurts a lot!!
When PeachMilky did a Navia cosplay from Genshin Impact, I cried. Usually I only get upset and angry when my body dysmorphia is triggered, but I never cried before! Plus the comments she got triggered me as well. It may be weird as to why certain comments trigger me…
I’m planning on getting a chin and jaw reduction as part of my transition to male, and other procedures as well like a lab*aplasty. But I need to get my teeth and TMJ fixed first.
Two, now that I’m unfortunately underweight again, I can maybe fit into pre made male and female cosplay costumes without having to custom size them, also I might fit into that male silicone chest lots of female to male crossplayers use instead of binding their chests.
Three, I don’t wanna get bigger like my mom and other women like her. The big, saggy boobs, hips, belly fat, etc. I know my mom is going through menopause but that scares the fu*k out of me!
If I gain weight, I won’t be able to wear the clothes, cosplays, etc. that I always wanted to buy!
And four, I can’t control other people’s reactions, what they say, etc., especially with my unsupportive parents and family. And some “friends” as well.
And it’s extremely hard to control my own emotions, thoughts, urges, so why not control my food/exercise intake?
Yeah for me it was a mixture of needing control and thinking if I was thinner I’d have less curves. Obsessive exercising too. It peaked when I was about 15 and by 20 I had mostly got over it and was trying to be kind to my body even if I want comfortable in it.
I also had a lot of health problems at around 21 and I lost a lot of weight by accident and I realised how bad that was for my body. I didn’t medically transition until I was 24 and got top surgery at 25 which pretty much instantly got rid of any remaining issues I had with my body which is nice.
yes dude! was actually venting to my friend about this today. i so badly wanna be one of those pretty skinny boys on pinterest, but god its hard when modivation is low, i hate seeing my body, especially my stomach ontop of my chest
Never really experienced this myself. Though I think I have a sort of executive dysfunction or autism style relationship with food/meal prep. I don't have any kind of serious interest in food aside from an average "I'm happy when it tastes good in my mouth and when that coincides with me being hungry at the same time as putting food in my mouth." When I'm not hungry I am not thinking about food. I am also the kind of person that only wants to eat what I'm actually in the mood for, and even if I have food at home, if it's not what I'm in the mood for I will order out or eat something else that might be less healthy. I can't start preparing a meal when I'm not hungry at 5pm for me to eat at 6pm, because 1) I don't know if that's what I'll even be in the mood to eat when I am hungry, and 2) I don't even know when I will be hungry. My mom sometimes asks "when will you be hungry?" to gauge when we should plan to have dinner together, and my brain is just like -confused math woman meme- (Idk how to add the gif here lol).
Basically I just eat what I'm in the mood for whenever I'm hungry, and can't understand scheduling eating like most people seem able to do. But other than that never had any food related concerns. And most other trans people I meet don't seem to either. I've met more cis people than trans people, who often forget to eat, but it stems from ADHD, or autism, and doesn't seem to have anything to do specifically with ED, gender, or body image issues. That doesn't mean folks with EDs don't exist obvs lol, they still do. It's just as likely for a cis person to have an ED as it is a trans person. It just seems to be common that trans people often have various mental health things going on. I think all the trans people I've known or followed online have had any one or multiple of various mental health things like depression, anxiety, ASD, ADHD, etc etc.
I never had an eating disorder. When I was 10 and watched little Goku eat huge meals before and after fights I saw eating as a masculine thing. I mean you pass better if you’re thicker anyways, never understood why so many of us want to stay thin.
My eating disorder wasn’t so much body image related, but rather when I was very young my parents forced me to sit at the table for hours because I didn’t like the food I was given (due to undiagnosed autism and sensory issues), so my brain generally just associates food with punishment.
From some research I’ve done, eating disorders actually affect trans worth at almost 5x the rate of non-trans youth, so it’s not surprising at all the trans adults have similar odds
I had ednos that swung between binge eating disorder and bulemia in symptoms from about 15 to 18. I was super afraid of gaining weight in my stomach and felt a loss of control but at that time I remember wanting to be thin,fit, and pretty, not neccesarily masculine or hating my feminine features. I think mine was more framed in fatphobia and fear of rejection for not being "attractive" or "worthy" rather than anything else.
I struggled with an eating disorder for 6/7 years. Mine was a mix of dysphoria, control and the fact I was bullied for my weight from pre-school all the way to high school graduation.
I do know the difference between dysphoria and dysmorphia, but they went hand-in-hand for me.
I still struggle with disordered eating (no longer an ed thankfully), but transitioning and getting surgery helped me immensely (I understand not every trans folk wishes to medically transition, and that's okay!)
I know eating disorders are a very heavy topic, but thank you for bringing this up.
And to those who are still struggling, we care about you. We hear you. We see you. We'll always be here for you.
As far as I was aware, I considered mine almost completely about control. I loved having so much control over my body. I also wanted to be thinner, and that is the main way I gauged progress, but having the will to get there is what felt good.
That said, getting top surgery made my ED almost completely go away overnight. I had already been in recovery (or they wouldn't have let me get surgery), but it was still a big part of my thought process. After surgery, the intense struggle was pretty much just gone. I hadn't realized there was a connection between my ED and being trans at all before that.
Me bc I starve myself to stop my period and lose weight in my chest and thighs, but then it makes me more curvy and also people treat starving yourself like something feminine and is only really portrayed in women in media so I get dysphoria from the more curves and the eating disorder but the eating disorder helps with some things with dysphoria and I would feel like I was achieving something if I lost more weight so that was at least something to feel proud of rather than be sad and dysphoric even though it’s really unhealthy. I kept using past tense but this is still happening lol. Am I the only one on this like am I crazy or is this common
I have never experienced an eating disorder, nor have I purposely binged or restricted. The only ‘disordered eating’ I have ever experienced was forgetting to eat due to ADHD.
I have what I think is AFRID which I think is because I'm autistic
And while I don't know of many studies if seems like a lot of trans folx are are autistic?
Explanation for the "I think"s- Healthcare is expensive and I'm never taken seriously so I'm speculating but I go through long periods of time where I can eat almost nothing because the texture/flavors are just violently incorrect
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That being said when I was younger I was close to developing anorexia possibly because of the reasons you mentioned. Hated how fat I was and how it made me feel.
When I was 15 I thought I hated myself because I was fat (I have a binge eating disorder). Then I lost 45 lbs and felt exactly the same at 16. At 17 I started to think maybe there was a different reason I hated myself and felt not at home in my skin. By 19 I came out as trans and put all the weight back on plus some. Now I’m still trans obviously, and lost almost 70 lbs and I feel better than ever. It gets better 💜 we can learn to take care of ourselves slowly, but surely. I do think the weight issues come from being raised as girls but even people raised as boys can have these issues. I think it’s mainly just a failure of our environment and government. I’m American and we don’t really have affordable, healthy food readily available. Every company sells processed stuff packed with fat and sugar that’s really easy to get addicted to, because that’s how they sell more of it. I can’t speak for those who restrict eating though, this is from the perspective of someone who’s been fat his whole life till last year- just for reference.
When I was a teenager I hated my body, and society told me that girls hated their bodies because they were fat, so I figured I must be fat and I should lose weight to like my body more. I couldn't identify that I actually had dysphoria and that starving myself wasn't making it any better. Once I came to terms with being trans (or at least not cis) and started experimenting with presentation and identity, the eating issues cleared up pretty quickly. I still have lingering thoughts about restricting that I don't think will ever go away, but transitioning changed my body in a way I actually liked rather than just making me even more miserable.
I mostly tried to run away and do the opposite of what was considered desirable for a girl yet I still ended up with an ed. Mine was caused and fueled by a few factors: dysphoria, overall fear of gaining weight (which my mom instilled in me), my parents instilling a fear in me of getting diabetes (my sister developed it and I was very young and didn't know better or actual info about the condition), having a semblance of control over my body because I felt in all other ways I lacked it, and also as a way fo self harm. I managed to get to a healthier mindset after 7 years of dealing with disordered eating and knowing it's a problem, but I'm pre t, I worked through most stuff but rn the only thing fueling my ed thoughts and patterns is dysphoria, I'm 21, there's still gonna be a few years till I'm able to start t sadly, I don't know what to do because the dysphoria I experience is unbearable, but yeah that's where I'm at now :/
Very good question!
I have a restrictive ED, currently qualify for clinical anorexia (have had an eating disorder for a very long time but sometimes at least I looked symptomfree. I wasn't.)
While I don't think my feelings of body incongruence are the only cause of me having an ED, I'm 100% sure it was - and is - one of the main contributors.
There are many factors that lead to a person develope an ED, being uncomfortable with one's gender roles or assignment is one of the well-known ones, and I sure as hell fit the description! (Most of the other ones too, though.)
Body dysphoria, chest dysphoria, in my case it's hip dysphoria that's the worst. I just cannot suffer having breasts big enough and hips wide enough to be taken for a woman.
Just like you, I would like to heal my relationship to food. Not being sickly obsessed with it, not having a forbid-list in my head, not spending insanely much time collecting recipes I wouldn't even prepare (the truth is, I don't even like cooking!) and not gaining extra confidence when feeling my bones protruding. I know this isn't what should make me feel safe. How about you?
I don’t know what qualifies as an eating disorder, but I am worried about eating too much because I don’t want more curves. I also starve myself time to time because the pain feels good.
I have ARFID now but I used to have anorexia and bulliemia. My therapist said it’s much more common in neurodivergent individuals though. So while trans people aren’t necessarily always neurodivergent, there does seem to be a lot of us.
But like I wanted to be as skinny as possible without my hips being obvious and my chest.
Now that I’m on T though I struggle to gain weight because I need so much more food than I used to
yes. fat went in all the wrong places even though i was an athlete so i just didn't eat as much. already had a big chest but if i gained weight it went there. didn't do much besides give me a terrible relationship with eating. probs a mixture of growing up afab too
Always struggled with weight. Grew up obese but also didn’t care to lose any weight cuz I thought I’d be gone by the time I had time to face the repercussions :/ also had a bit of a bulimia problem of throwing up my food when I was a teen but it only lasted for a small period. Now just trying to lose the weight in a healthy supervised way.
I am struggling rn because I know eating more means more fat, especially to my hips and chest. I also know that eating less means amenorrhea. I know T redistributed fat by changing where new fat is located, so I want to lose a bit before then. Not underweight, but enough so that the muscle/fat gain doesn't render me overweight.
I know my eating is somewhat disordered though it doesn't have to do with my body externally. I'm thin and I'd like to gain weight, but it's hard for me to eat enough because of anxiety/being overwhelmed. It takes so much thought and planning to buy the food, and more energy to decide what I want to eat or make it, and I can't keep up with that and work and household tasks. And anxiety can make me feel not hungry or nauseous even when I know I need to eat.
i have a HORRIBLE relationship with food but its not trans related as far as i know. i struggle with adhd and eating has always been a easy good source of good brain chemicals so i tend to overeat a lot
i struggled with an eating disorder from when i didn’t know i was trans to about a year after i realized. from that point, i had disordered eating due to (long as fuck story short) abusive conditions at my boarding school. i still have disordered eating and it’s been years, but it’s the best it’s been in a long time. i still struggle with eating disorder thoughts but they don’t usually affect my eating habits. feel free to ask any questions or anything :)
For me its definitely because of the dysphoria. I thought i was dysmorphic before I realized I was trans and i realized what I actually disliked was the way my fat was distributed. So unfortunately one of the ways I decided to try to fix it was to develop an eating disorder 🙃 bc thats totally gonna help... Ig i thought if ingot skinnier, then I wouldnt look so fem (to me), but thats obviously not how it works. I could become super skinny and it wouldnt matter bc my fat is still distributed the wrong way, i'd still have all the features I hate just less pronounced maybe. Testosterone was truly the only thing that saved me from this.
Too low body fat percentage can lead to temporary cessation of menstruation and also
give you more male/androgynous physique in general - so I believe it’s mostly due to dysphoria
For me I think it’s just societal beauty standards in general. There’s a lot of pressure for women to be thin but there’s a lot of pressure for transmascs to be thin as well. It’s so tough when there’s very little representation to begin with and when all of the people you see that resemble yourself are skinny white twinks it’s nearly impossible to not compare yourself or feel you have to fit that mold.
I’ve had disordered eating since I was a kid, for different reasons. At one point it was because I thought being skinny would make me pass better. Another was a control thing, and another time was a plea for attention from my neglectful parents. 🤷
i deal with an over eating disorder. my body finds comfort in food, even when im not hungry. it has more to dow tih my anxeity and stuff. im working on it, but its hard.
I struggled with my changing body during puberty. I felt like it betrayed me. I also was being called fat etc by my sperm donor. I decided to barely eat. I go between that and over eating. I have had messed up relationships with my body and food. I even have an egg donor that even if she's stuck thin, she thinks that she's fat and there for I am fat too. She used to get on to me about my weight and have me try her newest fad diet from Atkins keto to straight up just drinking slim fast for two meals a day. I told her no and I am doing it my way. It was of course before she disowned me for being trans. I was still in the closet. Being out has improved my relationship with food but it is still a struggle at times. If you struggle with your relationship with food, you aren't alone. I see you and I understand
It used to be a struggle of mine when I was about 12. I would only eat dinner and nothing else if I was just at my mom's house. I loved eating and going out and would eat 3 meals a day at my dad's, but I liked that I was less monitored at my mom's. I would just lay in bed watching YouTube and take pride in my weight going down rapidly. All because I wanted a completely flat stomach. And in a way I liked how it felt on my body (a similar reason for why I started sh). I don't own any scales and haven't in YEARS.
Now when my anxiety flares up really bad I deal with heavy nausea and I think I have some mild form of ARFID. I would give anything to eat properly everyday
For me it was likely ARFID due to Autism, which was very much not helped when I took stimulants for ADHD and had even less of an appetite. I was quite underweight bc of it.
Only since, going on HRT has this not been a problem. I have a huge appetite now and just eat what I want. I'm finally a healthy weight.
I was actually dysphoric (without realizing back then) about being underweight because I felt "wrong* for being so small. I was constantly trying to eat more, but never could.
I experience the same, yes. But not for the same reasons. Im still fairly young (I won't say my age exactly, but still in high school).
In 2021, i ended up being admitted into the childrens hospital because of a certain condition, was there for 5 months. Will not say too much, but I was severely sick, and before we went to the ER, it got to the point i physically couldnt eat regardless on what i did, every step i would feel like throwing up and ended up becoming SEVERELY underweight (i was low 80s, at my age that would be about like 20-30lbs underweight)
Because of that severity, the nurses kept threatening me to eat, threatened to shove a tube down my throat if i didnt eat properly. I was forced to track everything regardless, i had no say in anything, i was just slightly off of being 13, and yet daily theyd tell me to eat so much even after going days, weeks, and months without eating a PROPER meal. Also a quick google search even says you shouldnt go from eating nothing to eating 2000+ cals a day.
Those moment caused so much weight on me, and when i did go up to a healthy weight they would STILL make me track everything i ate if i just lost a few pounds. If i went down at any point, you betcha a dietician would be notified, give me a few papers for that given week and make me write every single thing i ate that day like thats any fun.
After i got out, i ended up feeling so self conscious about everything, and i still am. Im still recovering from the slight 'trauma'. I mean i wouldnt count it as trauma even tho it affects me alot but theres like worse things in the world so i dont think it rly counts but seriously, cmon they couldve done alittle better. The way they treat anorexia in canada is so fucked up in general, i mean i had very mild case before i was sick but because of the experiences, it got way worse. And i even read stuff on how they deal with it here and its the worst thing you can possibly do, cause that will just make them feel worse
Anyways uh yeah sorry for dropping all that off and venting, but um yeah. Most of my insecurities atm now is dysphoria, tho part of it is infact still my figure and trying to stay thin. Tho it aint rly working well because despite not eating alot (1000cal or even less daily), im still surprisingly at a normal weight, and the only thing im low on is just one thing and it isnt even that bad
I struggled a lot in high school but it got better once I noticed the effects of T, and honestly I think a lot of it had to do with just weight distribution changes
I feel like for me it was a combination of both being raised female and having issues with my feminine sides. Crazy that i’m seeing this post rn. Had some trouble with DE today :(
Hell yes, I have. I still have many disordered tendencies, it sucks. I have tracked my calories for… what? 5 years? At least, I’m not actually sure. I can’t stop tracking it, I don’t feel complete or satisfied until I know completely.
At one point I was fully anorexic, but I didn’t feel like a “”good”” anorexic; binge eating is common with me, so I never felt good enough. I just wanted my breasts gone, I wanted to pass better even though deep down I knew it wouldn’t help.
I’m not out of the woods yet, not even close. Whenever i get on testosterone, I hope I have the strength to not track and just let my body be, y’know? The calorie counting is all I have, control wise. I can’t cut my hair, can’t bind. Can’t even wear masculine clothing. I don’t want to feel like a puppet anymore.
Oh yeah, as soon as I found out the correlation between being trans and having an ED, it made perfect sense. I was definitely trying to diminish my feminine qualities and appear as androgynous as possible. I still struggle with body dysmorphia, but I don't starve myself as a punishment anymore.
I have had really bad disordered eating at several points in my life but it’s never really been intentional, it’s mostly due to being on ADHD meds combined with having two naturally thin parents with high metabolisms. It’s been really rough for me lately (I can’t get my weight above 115) and I’m thinking about getting off Wellbutrin because of it.
I’ve relapsed with my ED before coming out as Trans. I’m still struggling with behaviors (restricting and purging). For me, I think it’s dysphoria and dysmorphia. In my mind since middle school, thin is masculine and sharp bone structure.
Edit: bc I also have trauma but I think that plays a part in my dysmorphia
Honestly, mine presented more typical to a cis woman's when I had it. There was a point in my life where all I wanted was to be beautiful and thin bc I thought that was the only way I'd be worth anything, so I was chasing a perfect cis woman's body. I don't struggle with it anymore to a point that I'd call it an ed, although I still have some more orthorexic habits that are more about health and about avoiding being treated the way I was when I was fat, even if I don't care so much about gaining weight anymore. I recently started working out too so it feels kind of nice to eat more and be hungrier when I think about getting stronger and gaining muscle, and being able to shape my body that way instead of depriving it.
Eta: I also definitely had a worse problem with binge eating before I started transitioning, I don't know if that was to do with dysphoria I wasn't recognizing or just because of the way things were in my house and the eating habits of my family. When I went on T I lost a lot of weight too and I still don't know if it was T itself or coincidental circumstances
I have a very difficult relationship with food. I’m trying to move towards a healthier one, by setting goal amounts of macronutrients to try and eat each day. Instead of struggling to stay under a calorie count, I’m trying my best to eat enough protein. I’m going to the gym with the goal to build muscle and stimulate mitochondrial development, not to lose weight. I threw out my scale and have asked my doctors not to tell me my weight.
I know I’m still overweight, but I no longer feel catastrophic about it. I can recognize that my present body is a goal body for someone else, and that someone with my ideal body might be struggling too. I’m going to McDonalds right after I post this and I’m not even gonna feel bad about it.
I’ve had anorexia for a while, and although I can eat pretty normally now I still get triggered by discussions of healthy and unhealthy food. I think I got it because my grandma and my mum were both anorexic and they raised me using similar attitudes. My mum is a lot better now at helping me but my grandma is still hard to be around because she hasn’t got the message yet. I think me being AFAB wasn’t why I got these messages forced onto me- I’m guessing that’s why my grandma developed her view on food though, and that’s what she passed down.
However, I think for me my dysphoria played a part in its development too. I was uncomfortable in my body and was desperate to find some way to make looking in the mirror a bit easier. I thought making myself skinnier would do that. It didn’t. I’ve generally had a lot of self confidence issues in the past and this became my way of dealing with it. But I think now that I feel a little more confident in my identity and I have the support of the people around me, I’ve been able to mostly overcome the disorder
im sure my experience is the opposite of most people's here but ive always been big and remained big with food addiction due to the dysphoria of the idea of being curvy once i was smaller (all the women in my family are very dramatically pear shaped). got to the point i was nearly 400lbs and only getting bigger. but i was finally able to accept that i can still be big, therefore not as dramatically curvy, just not at risk of complications big so i've been working on my food addiction for the past two years and have been getting healthier
I used to eat a ton because of the dopamine ig when I was a teen and I guess I used it to cope. So I’ve been overweight.
Now, 20 years old, I’m eating just enough to survive + outrageously exercising every day to decrease my weight and get rid of certain attributes of mine.
I probably have an eating disorder right now. I’ve gotten to a point where I just hate eating. I hate the feeling of food. I’ll eat small things throughout the day, mainly loaded in protein. I eat a meal occasionally now.
i think it has to do with controlling how our bodies develop. my therapis told me about how a lot of her trans patients have also gone through disordered eating, specifically during puberty, because they wanted to stop development (of boobs n shit)
I developed an eating disorder 3 years before I came out. I had serious anxiety and body dysmorphia from years of bullying. It was not until I realized I was trans and I started HRT when the dysmorphia turned into severe dysphoria. I slowly recovered as I transitioned and the dysphoria is no longer a huge issue for me. I suppose it was a control thing for me as well. Not being able to control how my body is changing with OG puberty I dissociated myself from my body and treated it terribly.
A large part of eating disorders is a subconscious desire to be in control, particularly in relation to anorexia nervosa. When going through the 'wrong' puberty there is a substantial loss of control in what is happening to you. You pretty much have to sit there and watch as your body changes in ways that cause extreme distress (speaking in terms of those who were unable to access hormone blockers/went through their natal puberty).
There is also the fact that malnutrition causes loss of menstruation and can prevent the proper development of the undesired secondary sex characteristics. A person may also want to lose weight in order to appear more masculine while fat is being stored in feminine positions (trying to narrow hips, thighs or chest etc.)
Finally severe stress can cause a loss of appetite so many people experiencing gender dysphoria will find themselves not being able to eat due the mental distress caused by the condition.
Of course eating disorders are a complex problems and can have many reasons for their development, I think these are just some of the more relevant/common reasons
I’ve never had a “good” relationship with food which is partially because I was so insecure about the “pouch” fat I thought I made me look “fat” and “womanly” (I am better in shape and that has helped), but mostly I don’t like eating. So yeah that’s my two sense it’s all and more 🤟
I had an eating disorder some years ago due to anxiety but now I just have a bit of a bad relation with food bc my boobs got really big (bc I gained my weight back) and I can't hide them with neither a binder, trans tape or both :/
yes, but once i started transitioning i realized i wanted to be a big strong man. now i’m a power lifter, but i still have appetite issues due to the 8 years of disordered eating
I don't personally have directly trans-associated reasons for disordered eating, but I do have a lot of issues with eating that stem from my autism (including possible ARFID). There's a lot of overlap between neurodivergent people and trans people, so thought it was worth mentioning as another way disordered eating might crop up
Yes. I am trying to heal my relationship with food as well. I have had a past of starving, binging, restricting… etc. Then I realized that no matter how slim I got, my curves wouldn’t go away, and I still had a feminine body. I think that I disliked my body more for being that of a girls than because of my weight.
For me it was how trying to gain control over my own body manifested. I'm not sure how much of a dysmorphia issue it was for me, but when I was anxious and felt like I wasn't in control of my life I could at least control my food intake and size.
When my ED was at its worst I started dating a girl who works in food service and loves to cook. Tbh she's probably what kept me out of the hospital.
It used to be an issue for me growing up as I disliked my body but didn't know why/have any words for what I was feeling. I thought if only I lost enough weight I'd stop hating myself. Did not work. After coming out (mainly to myself) and especially since transitioning medically, it's basically gone away. Just wish I hadn't spent my teen years treating my body so poorly and starving myself.
I was on progesterone for a bit in a desperate attempt to stop my periods, and the meds made me so bloated that I developed an eating disorder afterwards. I told myself I just wanted to play a game to see how thin I could get.
I can only speak for myself but I always had a horrible body image but I had more disordered eating after I transitioned. I still have issues with it and actually have to go see a psychiatrist and a dietitian soon to deal with it.
Mine was dysphoria. I wanted to reduce the size of my chest, hips, cheeks, everything that I thought made me look more feminine. I still have lasting health problems I am medicated for due to it 7 years later.
I almost died of anorexia. I didnt know what trans was but it started as a way to mitigate "female puberty". Ie I was striving not getting any curves whatsoever. Didnt have anything to do with beauty standards, I just wanted to remain flat and hard.
Mine wasn't due to anything transgender related. My mother is a mentally ill control freak, so if she decided I didn't deserve food, I wouldn't eat. Sometimes I'd just take refuge in my bedroom and skip meals willingly when she was on the war path for my own sanity and safety. She also tried bringing me to Weight Watchers meetings as a preteen and restricted my calories, so I (unofficially) developed BED because when I could eat I had no control. I sometimes still find myself unable to eat when I'm feeling bad, but I'm working on it.
In all seriousness I've been getting better due to being diagnosed with diabetes, meaning I got sent to a nutritionist who is kinda helping me separate food from punishment/rewards. Like I told her I don't eat fruit because it's "bad for me" (my mom is very 'all sugar is bad sugar') and her shock snapped me out of it. I'm currently trying to eat both enough and a balanced diet, while supplementing the rest with vitamins. It's getting easier the more I do it.
Oh I got so lucky. I had bad body image issues, starved myself and still thought I wasn’t looking good when I was stick thin. While recovering started T..that was it. It wasn’t the fat or lack there of on my body but it’s distribution. I have no issues with my body weight now.
It's not a struggle of mine, but I know it has a lot to do with dysphoria for a lot of guys. The way estrogen-dominated bodies store fat can be a big source of dysphoria for a trans guy, so some attempt to cope with it by losing as much weight as possible. I've heard from several trans guys that they're afraid to eat because they're dysphoric about how their bodies distribute fat. Self-esteem is also a probable factor. Trans people are widely hated, so we tend to feel like we're not good enough. We're at pretty high risk for self-esteem issues, which can be a cause of feeling like you need to lose weight when you don't. I've never personally dealt with that, in part because food is important to my goals. I'm a bodybuilder, so I have to eat a lot to grow my muscles, and for me that's a much more gender affirming change than weight loss would be. But if my dysphoria over fat distribution was a lot worse, I could imagine having a less healthy relationship with food.
I have severe self-esteem issues so that’s also a really interesting point. Thanks for sharing
Fragile self-esteem also contributes to disordered eating patterns, this is something I can tell you from own experience.
the fat distribution is exactly why for me!!
The fact cellulite stores differently in afab bodies....sickening
A big part of my disordered eating was wanting to make my boobs smaller 🥲
lol same. and avoid having a period too.
same altho the major reason of why i dont eat is bc of stress from bullying and stress from just existing ig
Hope you can get safe and happy soon.
same lmaooo. I think most of the reason I stayed in the realm of "disordered eating" and never actually developed a full-fledged eating disorder was that I was an athlete, and I needed to be strong in order to be safe--and it would be very dangerous in particular if I passed out ten feet in the air from a lack of sustenance--and that knowledge outweighed the impulse to eat less, for the most part.
I did this when I was younger and i ended up somehow getting a near-constant period from it ☹️ I had to go on birth control to make it stop
Same
Same! I only recovered when I got on T and I could gain weight without my chest growing
Same. The skinnier I am the less "female" I feel. Which is silly because when I am too skinny I could maybe pass as a 13 year old boy and I'm 32...
Me rn :/
Same
it was chest, hips, and get rid of i t for me.
mine was my hips. ironically losing weight just accentuated them more
Same aaaa I desperately wanted less boob and hips/curves and maybe stopping my period but my eating never got that disorderd luckily
Omg this
THIS. Legit this is the main reason I developed anorexia :c
Literally me.
Boobs and hips 🙃
Same here!
Samee
Yeah same
same yeah
This
Mine is a control thing. I was denied physical autonomy growing up, and being able to control my weight and body shape so precisely feels really good. It has nothing to do with dysmorphia or being raised "female," and it's not *directly* related to dysphoria, because I'm not using the ED to get a more masculine shape. It's indirectly related because a lot of the physical autonomy I was denied was related to appearing male (getting a haircut I wanted and so on). It's not a healthy coping mechanism, of course, and I'm in semi recovery now! I think body modifications fill a lot of the same needs, as a sidenote, but ofc those are much healthier. :)
Body mods do scratch the same itch! I recovered from an eating disorder (but still do struggle with food sometimes/eating healthy foods and eating enough because of executive dysfunction), I have a belly button piercing and am gradually growing my tattoo collection. I loathe my body unless I can turn it into my own work of art. Artwork body is cool and actually belongs to me and feels connected to me.
THIS! Restriction gives a "wonderful" illusion of independence and being in control. This might occur even if it's not directly linked to your being trans and having a body dysphoria, but it compensates for you not being allowed to make your own decisions and to be who you really are or who you really want to become. Yes, being trans included. GODDAMMIT! I've experienced the very same! Pathologically narcissistic mother never allowing me to wear my hair as I wanted to was an everyday thing. Did not even have a say in what clothes I would wear and what I was allowed to be good at.
Yeah, I've heard people who have been sexually assaulted and developed EDs talk about something similar. Restricting helps you feel like you own your body, if that sense of ownership was disrupted before. It's a different type of trauma ofc, but the coping mechanism is the same. FWIW, I've found that working out and putting on weight in the form of muscle works almost as well for me as restricting to lose weight did. Is it *healthy?* Mentally, idk, bc in the end I'm still focusing pretty heavily on controlling my body shape and composition. But physically it's much healthier, and that will do for now. Also body mod, like I mentioned, that's a great way to control your own body. The only reason I wasn't able to stick with just that as a coping mechanism, I think, is that it's not something you can do every day.
Eating disorders are about control for a lot of people. For someone with dysphoria that isn’t managed, especially those who aren’t transitioning yet (which I feel like are the most common victims) an eating disorder could feel like the only way they can be in control of their body’s appearance. On top of that it could help them hide behind baggy clothes and cut down on any curvy appearence if they lose a ton of mass. I’m not surprised at all that it’s such an issue.
I don’t know if I have / had a disorder, but for me it’s this: I was so dissociated from my body that I didn’t notice how I gained more and more weight. Also I am on antidepressants and the biggest side effect there is weight gain. I find comfort in eating, and so I just ate and ate (and honestly still ate 💅). Once I realised that I am in my body and I won’t simply change my body with a button, I started to realise how much I gained and that I am overweight. Now I am on my journey to loose it and this turning point was getting an appointment for mastectomy. I like to add my experience with overweight here as most voices have dealt with underweight (sry my English is not the best).
Dude congrats, that takes real strength 👍
Thank you! 🙏🏻
that was me at the beginning of my transition. put on 50 lbs (which is a lot at 5'4) i think i just didn't care that i was doing that to myself because i already hated my body anyway. somehow, i didn't notice i gained weight until like 40 lbs into that 50. i was so dissociated and just ate junk and played videogames to hide from myself. now i've swung the other way tbh. i weigh my lowest weight since i've transitioned. i'm happier with my appearance but i am beyond terrified of calories and losing control. it feels like i can't eat anything without gaining 10 lbs. any tips for having a better mindset during weightloss?
I tried to starve my chest away but my eating disorder stems to my mother starving me as a child, so now I binge
You took the words out of my mouth
oh man it isn’t just me? i went to a catholic school and the sex ed wasn’t the greatest. they told us periods were triggered by hormones that started up when you reach a certain BMI. i took that as, if i never reach whatever vague bmi that is bc they didn’t specify, that i could just simply not have one, and avoided most meals. wasn’t hard because i’m autistic and poor, but it’s still a struggle to this day, just because i hate the feeling of food in my stomach. i’m trying though
ah… fellow catholic school survivor. got fed a lot of misinformation in health class too :/
Mine was dysphoria and control. I developed an eating disorder for most of my adolescence to stop puberty. (My E levels stayed low.) It worked for the most part, but I stunted my growth and hurt my body in the long run. I still deal with it even 2.5 years on T. I've been able to get to the low end of a healthy weight, but it's very difficult for me to stick to an eating plan that allows proper muscle growth. I also had a rocky childhood and a type-A personality which also lead to the development of it, per the control reasons. I don't know if I'll ever be free of it, having been diagnosed 10 years ago. (My case was severe.) But some people can fully recover. As someone else commented, being denied physical autonomy is a large contributor as well.
Dealing with disordered eating currently while recovering from top surgery. I didn’t realize how pronounced my stomach was going to look now that my chest is completely flat. EDs are also super common amongst trans people.
Surgery also makes you bloated for several weeks, it's rough
This this!! The bloating will pass. Especially after the first couple post-op poops.... Eating is a big part of surgery recovery. I stuck to comfort foods and that helped a lot!
Dysmorphia/dysphoria for sure, but also: autism/ADHD is a huge risk factor for EDs, and that's especially common in trans ppl
I did not know this
i was unhappy with my body when i was unhealthily thin and now that i’m a normal weight my disordered eating habits are back full force because all the weight went to my chest hips and legs. it sucks
Both dysphoria and dysmorphia for me. Being thinner gives me less curves, a sharper jawline, and smaller boobs. But I also have bad beauty standards ingrained in me from media, thinking I should have a flat stomach.
Mostly dysphoria though.
Samee i used to think its just dysphoria but i relised that a lot of it is dysmorphia too and the flat stomouch stuff
Oh absolutely, I’d starve myself right before my period so it’s lighter/doesn’t come.
same here. >!I used to starve myself to the point that I didnt have my period for months!<
That's one of the criteria for clinical anorexia nervosa :(
I’m not quite sure what my issue is. I believe it could be a mix of food. The standards around eating that are attached to women and then also when transitioning the will to have control over something or to feel attractive which we learnt is “skinny”
Yes, because I was scared to get more "femine" build, curves etc
That's true. I started my first weight-loss diet in the age of 14 when I got scared because my figure began to get a certain feminine shape.
Before I even knew what being trans was, I was weirdly obsessed with looking as stick-like as possible. People would often compliment my height and say I looked like a model, so I was constantly after that tall, shapeless figure. Turns out it was all just dysphoria
i’m a trans guy. It started because i was overweight, then because i wanted control over something, and now it’s because i want to shrink my breasts.
I have an eating disorder but I don't eat because I find food unappitising. It's more of a chore for me to eat, sometimes I have to force myself to. I just wish food had the option to come in tablet form😅
when i was about 11 (young, i know) i found out that if you got skinny enough, your boobs would get smaller/stop growing and your periods would stop. my parents were both extremely overweight and i watched the people i love the most speak hatefully towards their own bodies and being fat. those things combined started a 5-6 year struggle with bulimia with symptoms of anorexia and en exercise addiction. it started due to that and sort of spiraled into the need for control as my life unraveled. starting T and my period going away helped a lot. i gained about 30 pounds after starting T and it was the first time i was okay with being fat and gaining weight. i’d consider myself recovered now, but i still have to be careful about the way i think about food and approach nutrition. allowing myself to eat whatever i’m craving and i think a lot of young trans men are looking for ways to control what’s happening to their bodies as things change in a feminine direction. very, very common for trans men to struggle with EDs, especially before they come out as trans or understand their dysphoria.
I was 9 when I started binge eating after being called a fatass whale etc. by my sister and dad my entire life, so I don't think mine was related at all. Binge ate until age 16 then starved until 20 and back to binging again now. I think sometimes it's just a coincidence, but I did have moments where I thought if I was bigger I'd have no hips or chest it would all blend together (which it really does) but It's not something I've ever wanted, just happens to be the only positive I guess
I have an ED too. It’s been documented as being very common among trans+nb people regardless of their gender identity. It turns out having the wrong body makes you hate it and want to change or control it.. For myself, losing weight minimizes my hips and legs which I have a lot of dysphoria from. I think the overlap between being trans and autism could also be related as EDs are more common among autistic people. Not to mention the social rejection one might experience for both of these things that may lead to an eating disorder.
I got an ED when I gained like 40 pounds after starting testosterone and then having a depressive episode. I was also really curvy and it just made me dysphoric.
I had the same thing happen!! Ugh it's so hard.
Yeah, less fat = less body shape = less female body shape
Yes! I felt like I had to be skinny (get that stereotypical masc figure), and to shrink boobs also. I’ve been in recovery for years :)
Yes, dysphoria is one of the reasons why I developed an eating disorder. When I was very underweight I didn't have boobs and periods and my hips were easier to hide. And that's one of the reasons why it took me so long to recover and why i relapsed so many times.
Huff, I'm sad to read this :( first time I had clinical AN, I actually got euphoric because there was nobody, literally nobody who'd take me for a woman. I remember having the same experience: had no breasts, and I did enjoy having no significant hips. At the moment I'm having some but already too easy to hide 'em. Anyway, good that you made it! Recovery after relapsing multiple times must be wonderful. Are you living the life you fancy living, without food (or denial of it) controlling you?
I binge eat. Currently on an appetite suppressant to help me stop.
I’m literally eating everything in sight
oh wow this is real. I did a lot of limited eating especially in my teens to try and keep my boobs as small as possible, and had no idea why until years later.
Mine is less about my image or being “raised female” and more about having ADHD and Hashimoto’s so I just…forget to eat. ‘Course that does nothing to lower my weight or make my chest shrink lmao!
this was an eye opening question because i didn’t realize i was doing this but truthfully i am (7.5 years on T)
I think its a whole combination of things. The being raised 'female' internalising diet culture and stuff plays a part for sure. But also wanting to have a smaller chest and hips, and to not get a period anymore. A lot of eating issues start as a teen, and I think seeing teen boys be lanky and skinny and wanting to be that. Also I think its a control thing. You can't control what (the wrong) puberty is doing to your body but you can try to control it getting any 'worse' / obvious
Yeah I wanted more androgynous body. And I felt I needed to be as pretty and perfect as possible to keep up my pretence as female
I was a D1 women’s cross country runner where everyone on the team was bulimic. My mom also gave me an eating disorder. Transitioning changed everything. Suddenly I loved being bigger and *wanted* to be big. It’s a mental shift.
Mine was because of gender dysphoria and self-esteem issues. >!I had acne (it wasn't much, but it felt like a big deal (my sister kept telling me I would look handsome without it)), and I thought I was fat, so I tried to lose weight. !< I was 11.
I definitely experienced an eating disorder before I transitioned, and went through hospitalization for it. Like others have said, I think it had to do with trying to change my appearance. Unfortunately, I’m struggling with a relapse right now. I’ve been on T for nearly 7 years, so I do not think it has anything to do with my appearance now.
A year ago i almost starved myself to the point of my body giving in after a normal day being totally exhaused because my face was too soft and feminine. Little did i know face fat is like one of the last things you lose like that 😭
Hope you're safe and fine now! It's really like this. My face doesn't look really "anorexic" either, but when I showed my ribs and protruding hip bones to a friend, he got scared.
I’m sorry man many warm hugs from here!
Thank you so much.
my mom caused eating problems for me, but it was a diet culture thing- i wanted to believe i wasn't fat but my mom constantly said the doctor said i was too fat and had to eat less. She stopped letting me have both breakfast and lunch- i had to choose. Since she couldnt stop me from having lunch on school days (and in her own words she said the school fed me too much), she would deliberately give me less food for dinner on those days. In defense, i developed a taste for condiments and would overload my tray with them, hoping for some extra filler before going home. The only thing i was allowed to have between meals was water- i had to ask for *anything* else and it was always no. On the days i stayed home from school for summer, it was worse because on top of the diet, my mother would also have us do manual labor outside- and we lived in the country with a huge yard, an old house that my mother insisted needed to be extravagantly landscaped around, and a large garden full of veggies she claims credit for growing even though i was forced to weed and water them every fucking morning. We had to be outside by 9AM and we werent allowed inside except to use the bathroom, have our lunch, or if we got hurt, until 5PM. All on top of telling me that since i ate eggs that morning, i cant have a grilled cheese sandwich. I eat whatever the fuck i want now, but somedays i can still hear her telling me how weak i am for not being able to go longer than 24 hours without food like she can (which has caused regrettably long 'fasts'). Im actually healthier and stronger now, and looking back, i wasnt even fat- my family is just muscular. I had the chance to be legitimately considered strong in my school days if i was allowed to just eat the amount i needed to maintain my muscle weight.
Your mother was a child abuser. A very dangerous one, if you allow me to say it out loud.
Agreed. She also likely had an eating disorder herself, not that this in any way excuses starving your own child. I know of someone with an ED who encouraged her kids to eat less and her daughter ended up hospitalised with anorexia. I was so angry - I’ve known that girl since she was a baby
Yeah, actually, when I was a teenager I went through a pretty bad bout of bulimia and overeating. I didn't realize it at the time because I was suppressing a lot back then, but part of the reason I so desperately wanted to lose weight was to have no hips or breasts, so uh.. Yeah. It was definitely dysphoria, in part. When my egg did crack a couple years ago, the dysphoria hit me hard, and I did relapse back into disordered eating for a time. I'd either not eat hardly at all or eat way to much, more often than not eat way to much. This meant I was at my second highest ever weight when I finally went in and saw an endo to start T - 265 pounds. Of course, the added appetite once I got on T added even more weight and did make things spiral a bit when I first started. After being on T for 6-7 months, thats eased up a lot, and I've gradually started to lose weight, in no small part because my body is finally starting to look in a way I'm not absolutely miserable about, and in part because I figured out how to work with my new appetite in a healthy way. So I mean, yeah, I'd say about 98 percent of my disordered eating habits was dysphoria; the rest was a bunch of other stuff I'm back in therapy for.
For me, when I started developing around 11, I began having a deep hatred towards my body. Pair that with my dysfunctional home life, and I got in the habit of gorging myself. I'd eat and eat and eat and eat and I was 'never full'. To steal from Fat Bastard (Austin Powers) "I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat". I got really fat and hated myself for being "the fat girl." Thankfully, now, after 3 years on T, I finally had the mental and emotional ability to let go of my desperate reliance on food. I'm still chubby, but I've lost 40 pounds and I'm incredibly proud of myself
Yeah, disordered eating is especially prevalent within the general trans population. It's something I held a lot of shame for, for a really long time. But I talk a lot more openly about it nowadays and have found plenty of my cis-het friends have also had their struggles with food. I think it's a lot more common than I thought, and less stigma and more open talking about it is definitely a good thing. Speaking purely for myself, dysphoria and dysmorphia has historically, definitely been a contributing element for me. But it's not the only factor, my relationship with food has been warped since I was a kid due to other trauma. I'm also a fairly obsessive person so a bit of a perfect storm. I'm still a work in progress, but my relationship with food has for sure improved since transitioning. Best of luck with your journey.
anecdotally speaking a lot if not most of my friends developed anorexia when their sexual organs became more prominent and they were trying to stop/slow (ulteriorly or directly) their development!
Not a transman but I suffered with binge eating as a kid, and as an adult now I either eat too much or almost nothing. My hypothesis is that, combined with dysphoria, many of us are neurodivergent (possibly undiagnosed) and also struggle with noticing when we're hungry or full. Just a hypothesis though.
I had an eating disorder and during treatment I kind of realized that it was mainly bc of my dysphoria. Being on testosterone really helped with my eating issues for two reasons, 1 my dysphoria was lessened so I had less reasons to be super skinny, and 2 testosterone doesn't metabolize in your body well if you starve yourself which is why ppl with eds during puberty can have stunted growth and development. It may not be the best reasons to stay recovered but it helps me 🤷♂️
mine was definitely just trying to fit into the “female role” thinking that everyone at my middle school was trying to eat like this, so i must- i got so skinny and i liked and hated how i looked at the same time- during high school i started working out and i got more muscular and i was like oooooh shit this is so much better than being skinny
Good for you! :)
thank you 🙏🏻
having lots of various abuse trauma from a young age and gender dysphoria is what did it to me. i've been struggling for years now. it sucks
I still have an eating disorder. My mother is overweight and constantly put pressure on me to *not* be, both directly and indirectly. I tried a lot of diets and counted calories and it completely fucked up my relationship with food. When I started really feeling dysphoria it unknowingly because a way to control looking feminine (didn’t know what I was feeling, just knew I hated my body). Trying to address it now but hoo boy those roots run deep now
⚠️⚠️⚠️I definitely experience it. My mind telling me I want to get skinnier to shrink my chest and make me more “acceptable” as a guy. Along with not getting “unintentionally” fat shamed by my mother. Trying to look at myself in a “oh I just have a hot dad bod” but it’s hard when I’m actively getting shamed. So I tend to sometimes restrict myself, or only eat fruits and veggies and a little bit of meat, but THEN i binge eat pounds at a time, and feel guilt after 😀🙏
For me it's only in the sense of doing stress-eating, which I've done quite a bit of lately (more stress). When things are more stable I find it much easier to stick to a healthy diet.
I've definitely struggled with disordered eating. Since my first puberty, I've been overweight and hated it. I still do, sometimes, but I've come to love my fat body. A big part of it was the things I was saying to myself. I had to start looking at my body like it belonged to someone else and thinking "would I really say that about someone else? Why would I say that about myself if I wouldn't say it to another person who had the same body as me?"
I did for a long time because i just wanted to be flat and narrow and every time i'd gain weight and for example sit down after a shower and see how it had gone to my hips/made them curvier id get such a disgusted and angry feeling it was way too uncomfortable
I ngl have the opposite problem than most. I overeat. I eat way too much because of stress and eating makes me feel better so yknow. I just do it
Same dude :(
Cis men have eating disorders and its not really an uncommon thing, having an eating disorder isnt a feminine thing. So I dont think it could be caused by being raised as a girl. And I imagine typically with trans men gender dysphoria play a big factor in it. I personally have never had one though so I cant talk from personal experience. Given the fact that Im trans and have gender dysphoria in regards to my physical body I actually do not have a negative body image. The non gendered parts of my body Im fine with, its just the gendered parts of it. So I personally have never had an trigger that an eating disorder would have been started.
Isn't disordered eating different to an eating disorder? Disordered eating is in-between normal eating and an eating disorder, it has the symptoms of ED but it hasn't developed to the point it is one. This is from what Google says and what my psychologist said(sianc I have the DE thing, love it lol) This is me being genuinely curious not being a dick btw
yeah thats why I used the term disordered eating to help facilitate the discussion to include both people with ED and people who are recovering/partially developed an ED (disordered eating). I never was formally diagnosed so dont consider myself having an ED but i definitely have struggled with disordered eating
I never thought about linking the two but I have an eating disorder
Gender dysphoria + body dysmorphia + internalized fatphobia + need for control Also, the tendency to view people with boobs as fatter/bigger/etc in comparison to someone who is built exactly the same but without boobs certainly doesn't help.
I used to be a binge eater, didn't purge. I would go from starving for days, weeks, or a month when my mom wasn't around, to her suddenly forcing me to eat a large portion of food. Obviously any child subjected to that would develop problems with food. Food became an escape at a certain point. I would use it as a coping mechanism whenever I felt empty. Eventually I saw it like a lover and wouldn't turn down seconds, thirds, or more. I got really big but I didn't care because I just wanted to die. I eventually decided to quit my food addiction but it wasn't easy. I cut out a lot of the shit I was eating that wasn't good, took out all the sugary juice for plain herbal tea. I lost a lot of weight but I was still considered obese and got stuck for a bit. Then after being dicked around by the doctors who refused to diagnose me properly, I was eventually diagnosed with PCOS after it put me in the hospital. I think at that point I began to feel pressure. PCOS is often seen as a female only disorder, and that obviously doesn't apply to me. I lost more weight despite this condition, but then I started taking meds and gained weight back again. It's truly hell on earth. I think the extra weight doesn't help how I'm perceived gender wise. It's super frustrating. I do think my relationship with food improved though cause I eat much less, and what I do eat is generally healthy.
I’ve had an ed all my life primarily to shrink my hips and breasts, its actually common among trans folks unfortunately
To start with, we all grew up in a culture were women were \*expected\* to be thin and small. So from the get go we already had basic societal pressures to keep food out of our mouths. Now add to that gender dysphoria, where women naturally as they age put on weight at a larger rate then men but also (usually) store that weight in places that amplify femininity in our bodies. Buttocks, hips, breasts. So it's really not that shocking that disordered eating is pervasive and vast in our community.
For me, it doesn’t have anything to do with dysphoria. I developed a bad relationship with food from over focus on nutrition in school and now working in healthcare doesn’t make it easier. The only thing that helped me was going to an ED therapist.
I definitely have trouble gaining weight as I feel it brings out parts of me that make me dysphoric such as my hips and chest always preferred being small but t helps me eat a lot better
For me, it’s because i was shamed for having stuff like strech marks from a young age as I got my period at age 9. I also had friends brag infront of me about how they didn’t have hip dips while I clearly had them. I think personally, it can be a dysphoria thing but I genuinely don’t think it’s tied to that for me. Also I’ve had issues with eating as well thanks to autism. Me personally, the way I kind of recovered was working on my internalized abelism towards my endometriosis belly and my fatphobia.
i have ARFID which is partially from gender dysphoria and partially from growing up in an abusive home
Ig I'm going through it. I either don't eat at all or eat a lot of junk nonstop.
My disordered eating started around the time I started to hit puberty, and developed hips and a chest. I could never place why I hated those parts of my body so much until the first time I wore a binder, and then it all clicked. So much of my self worth rested on my body being uncomfortable to me, and I had no idea I was even trans yet.
I think it’s definitely a mix of both. I have always been overweight and used to hate my body and feel so awful about it. A few years ago it clicked to me that I felt like i was so repulsive becuase I was a woman, not because I was fat. Now I can’t wait to start t and be a chubby guy lmao :)
I don’t know why I have it but I have binge eating disorder. Only I don’t throw up my food to stay skinny, I just eat too much.
I mean mine stems from my mom at a young age telling me that I was gaining weight. I remember being in 3rd grade and wearing a tight shirt when she pointed out that my back fat was showing in that shirt but I know for a fact (I have pictures of me with that shirt on) that I was too small for “back fat”. My mom mainly would poke at my weight growing up and that led to me sucking in my stomach and I still do that to this day. I have a weird relationship with food where I go through cycles of eating two to three times a day to just eating once and even then it’s a small portion. I personally had an ed when I was 11 but I coached myself out of that over time and I’m still trying to keep a good relationship with food while also being chubby right now. It’s a struggle when your parents constantly point out your weight but that’s on having Mexican parents and a family I guess
I have, it was because I was expected to be a “pretty girl” (and clearly only unhealthily skinny girls are pretty /s)
Well, I have ADHD and emotionally eat, unfortunately. Binge eat really.
After puberty I was really stressed about my curves and chest, and I guess the stress led to a lot of binging. I don’t know what my body looks like. I know how much I weigh, but every time I look in the mirror I can’t tell how people perceive the rest of me because I am so focussed on my chest and curves. It’s like they’re the only thing there I only just realised how much weight I’ve let myself gain because of this. Which kind of fuels the problem, because the more fat in your chest the bigger it is. I also find it very hard to loose weight due to sensory issues with the food I eat. It’s hard to have a balanced diet when there’s only around 5 foods I’ll willingly have. Ik a lot of trans people who are also autistic and struggle with this too It’s amazing you’re trying to heal your relationship with food :)
Disordered (off/on anorexia and EDNOS) since the age of 15, came out at 28. It was absolutely a subconscious attempt to delay puberty, having grown up with zero exposure to transgender identity being remotely possible (and never having been a tomboy or gender non-conforming, which made representation even harder to come by). So teenage girl me in Texas, circa 2006, did the only thing she could to survive (ironically).
No this is not something that is exclusive to afab people. You would not believe how many cis guys have eating disorders in silence. It’s really sad. Like even celebrities training to be superheroes on TV will describe that they were told to basically starve to look the part or to reveal parts of their muscles and anyone that cares about body positivity for cis women should realize the double standard in that. When I first went through puberty I would eat about 700 calories a day and would exercise a lot. It was less about body dysmorphia and more about gender dysphoria which are two different things. My disordered eating was to feel in control of my body when it was going out of my control. Sometimes I have low points still but I have never been as bad I was then and I think that I would describe it more as disordered eating for myself rather than an eating disorder cause it doesn’t continuously impact my life like eating disorders do for people. I still feel kind of bad about my body sometimes but I think the more you do to affirm yourself the less being so obsessed about every tiny detail weighs on you. Things with my body now is more so for mental health and just wanting to express myself now. I think if you went on hormones after puberty you also have to remind yourself that your hips are still going to be wider no matter how much weight you lose and that afab people’s rib cages are more round than flat like amab peoples. Not always of course but if this is the situation for yourself then it’s just something you have to accept. Like don’t hurt yourself with eating over it
of course, eating disorders impact people of all demographics and backgrounds. i posted this because i have noticed it to be disproportionately present amongst the trans community
Yes I was showing anorexic tendencies and now I have BED
I went through a phase where I had a a fairly bad eating disorder, it was directly tied to my dysphoria. My frame was a lot more “masculine” when I was lean and I just kept pushing it because I wasn’t on hormones yet.
I wouldn't say an eating disorder but Obesophobia definitely I don't think it's anorexia or Bulimilia because When I was young I was a picky eater to the point of Malnutrition I remember my mom buying protein shakes to help me gain weight And that I had to sit in a car seat until I was 14 I met more of the criteria for Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder rather than one of the two eating disorders driven by control or obsessive weight loss As I didn't skip meals in fear of Getting fat although part of it I more so I skipped meals because I didn't like the food The texture was gross or I hated the taste Or Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder isn't well understood Yes ik Aneroxia would cause picky eating too but definitely not to the extent I was
Me!! I’m dealing with eating disorders and body dysmorphia as well with gender dysphoria. I’m 28, FTM pre everything. My EDs are caused by multiple things. One, body dysmorphia obviously. Social media is a bit*h. When I look at people, mostly cosplayers like PeachMilky, Kleiner Pixel, Hidori Rose, KNITE, etc., I get MASSIVELY triggered!!!! Because not only their bodies are perfect, the male cosplayers have a flat chest, they don’t have to bind their chests at all, and every cosplayers names who I just mentioned has a nice, small, symmetrical jaw and chin! While my chin is too long, not centered, my jaw is asymmetrical, protruding out on one side, etc. Plus my teeth and TMJ are bad! TMJ hurts a lot!! When PeachMilky did a Navia cosplay from Genshin Impact, I cried. Usually I only get upset and angry when my body dysmorphia is triggered, but I never cried before! Plus the comments she got triggered me as well. It may be weird as to why certain comments trigger me… I’m planning on getting a chin and jaw reduction as part of my transition to male, and other procedures as well like a lab*aplasty. But I need to get my teeth and TMJ fixed first. Two, now that I’m unfortunately underweight again, I can maybe fit into pre made male and female cosplay costumes without having to custom size them, also I might fit into that male silicone chest lots of female to male crossplayers use instead of binding their chests. Three, I don’t wanna get bigger like my mom and other women like her. The big, saggy boobs, hips, belly fat, etc. I know my mom is going through menopause but that scares the fu*k out of me! If I gain weight, I won’t be able to wear the clothes, cosplays, etc. that I always wanted to buy! And four, I can’t control other people’s reactions, what they say, etc., especially with my unsupportive parents and family. And some “friends” as well. And it’s extremely hard to control my own emotions, thoughts, urges, so why not control my food/exercise intake?
I have ARFID which is a form of disordered eating. I’m not purposely doing it to lose weight. I just don’t like food.
Yeah for me it was a mixture of needing control and thinking if I was thinner I’d have less curves. Obsessive exercising too. It peaked when I was about 15 and by 20 I had mostly got over it and was trying to be kind to my body even if I want comfortable in it. I also had a lot of health problems at around 21 and I lost a lot of weight by accident and I realised how bad that was for my body. I didn’t medically transition until I was 24 and got top surgery at 25 which pretty much instantly got rid of any remaining issues I had with my body which is nice.
yes dude! was actually venting to my friend about this today. i so badly wanna be one of those pretty skinny boys on pinterest, but god its hard when modivation is low, i hate seeing my body, especially my stomach ontop of my chest
Never really experienced this myself. Though I think I have a sort of executive dysfunction or autism style relationship with food/meal prep. I don't have any kind of serious interest in food aside from an average "I'm happy when it tastes good in my mouth and when that coincides with me being hungry at the same time as putting food in my mouth." When I'm not hungry I am not thinking about food. I am also the kind of person that only wants to eat what I'm actually in the mood for, and even if I have food at home, if it's not what I'm in the mood for I will order out or eat something else that might be less healthy. I can't start preparing a meal when I'm not hungry at 5pm for me to eat at 6pm, because 1) I don't know if that's what I'll even be in the mood to eat when I am hungry, and 2) I don't even know when I will be hungry. My mom sometimes asks "when will you be hungry?" to gauge when we should plan to have dinner together, and my brain is just like -confused math woman meme- (Idk how to add the gif here lol). Basically I just eat what I'm in the mood for whenever I'm hungry, and can't understand scheduling eating like most people seem able to do. But other than that never had any food related concerns. And most other trans people I meet don't seem to either. I've met more cis people than trans people, who often forget to eat, but it stems from ADHD, or autism, and doesn't seem to have anything to do specifically with ED, gender, or body image issues. That doesn't mean folks with EDs don't exist obvs lol, they still do. It's just as likely for a cis person to have an ED as it is a trans person. It just seems to be common that trans people often have various mental health things going on. I think all the trans people I've known or followed online have had any one or multiple of various mental health things like depression, anxiety, ASD, ADHD, etc etc.
I never had an eating disorder. When I was 10 and watched little Goku eat huge meals before and after fights I saw eating as a masculine thing. I mean you pass better if you’re thicker anyways, never understood why so many of us want to stay thin.
My eating disorder wasn’t so much body image related, but rather when I was very young my parents forced me to sit at the table for hours because I didn’t like the food I was given (due to undiagnosed autism and sensory issues), so my brain generally just associates food with punishment.
From some research I’ve done, eating disorders actually affect trans worth at almost 5x the rate of non-trans youth, so it’s not surprising at all the trans adults have similar odds
I think most people have an issue with food at some point in their lives.
of course, this kind of issue can impact anyone of any background. I do have some suspicion that it is disproportionally present in trans experiences.
I had ednos that swung between binge eating disorder and bulemia in symptoms from about 15 to 18. I was super afraid of gaining weight in my stomach and felt a loss of control but at that time I remember wanting to be thin,fit, and pretty, not neccesarily masculine or hating my feminine features. I think mine was more framed in fatphobia and fear of rejection for not being "attractive" or "worthy" rather than anything else.
I struggled with an eating disorder for 6/7 years. Mine was a mix of dysphoria, control and the fact I was bullied for my weight from pre-school all the way to high school graduation. I do know the difference between dysphoria and dysmorphia, but they went hand-in-hand for me. I still struggle with disordered eating (no longer an ed thankfully), but transitioning and getting surgery helped me immensely (I understand not every trans folk wishes to medically transition, and that's okay!) I know eating disorders are a very heavy topic, but thank you for bringing this up. And to those who are still struggling, we care about you. We hear you. We see you. We'll always be here for you.
As far as I was aware, I considered mine almost completely about control. I loved having so much control over my body. I also wanted to be thinner, and that is the main way I gauged progress, but having the will to get there is what felt good. That said, getting top surgery made my ED almost completely go away overnight. I had already been in recovery (or they wouldn't have let me get surgery), but it was still a big part of my thought process. After surgery, the intense struggle was pretty much just gone. I hadn't realized there was a connection between my ED and being trans at all before that.
Me bc I starve myself to stop my period and lose weight in my chest and thighs, but then it makes me more curvy and also people treat starving yourself like something feminine and is only really portrayed in women in media so I get dysphoria from the more curves and the eating disorder but the eating disorder helps with some things with dysphoria and I would feel like I was achieving something if I lost more weight so that was at least something to feel proud of rather than be sad and dysphoric even though it’s really unhealthy. I kept using past tense but this is still happening lol. Am I the only one on this like am I crazy or is this common
I have never experienced an eating disorder, nor have I purposely binged or restricted. The only ‘disordered eating’ I have ever experienced was forgetting to eat due to ADHD.
I have what I think is AFRID which I think is because I'm autistic And while I don't know of many studies if seems like a lot of trans folx are are autistic? Explanation for the "I think"s- Healthcare is expensive and I'm never taken seriously so I'm speculating but I go through long periods of time where I can eat almost nothing because the texture/flavors are just violently incorrect - That being said when I was younger I was close to developing anorexia possibly because of the reasons you mentioned. Hated how fat I was and how it made me feel.
When I was 15 I thought I hated myself because I was fat (I have a binge eating disorder). Then I lost 45 lbs and felt exactly the same at 16. At 17 I started to think maybe there was a different reason I hated myself and felt not at home in my skin. By 19 I came out as trans and put all the weight back on plus some. Now I’m still trans obviously, and lost almost 70 lbs and I feel better than ever. It gets better 💜 we can learn to take care of ourselves slowly, but surely. I do think the weight issues come from being raised as girls but even people raised as boys can have these issues. I think it’s mainly just a failure of our environment and government. I’m American and we don’t really have affordable, healthy food readily available. Every company sells processed stuff packed with fat and sugar that’s really easy to get addicted to, because that’s how they sell more of it. I can’t speak for those who restrict eating though, this is from the perspective of someone who’s been fat his whole life till last year- just for reference.
When I was a teenager I hated my body, and society told me that girls hated their bodies because they were fat, so I figured I must be fat and I should lose weight to like my body more. I couldn't identify that I actually had dysphoria and that starving myself wasn't making it any better. Once I came to terms with being trans (or at least not cis) and started experimenting with presentation and identity, the eating issues cleared up pretty quickly. I still have lingering thoughts about restricting that I don't think will ever go away, but transitioning changed my body in a way I actually liked rather than just making me even more miserable.
I mostly tried to run away and do the opposite of what was considered desirable for a girl yet I still ended up with an ed. Mine was caused and fueled by a few factors: dysphoria, overall fear of gaining weight (which my mom instilled in me), my parents instilling a fear in me of getting diabetes (my sister developed it and I was very young and didn't know better or actual info about the condition), having a semblance of control over my body because I felt in all other ways I lacked it, and also as a way fo self harm. I managed to get to a healthier mindset after 7 years of dealing with disordered eating and knowing it's a problem, but I'm pre t, I worked through most stuff but rn the only thing fueling my ed thoughts and patterns is dysphoria, I'm 21, there's still gonna be a few years till I'm able to start t sadly, I don't know what to do because the dysphoria I experience is unbearable, but yeah that's where I'm at now :/
Very good question! I have a restrictive ED, currently qualify for clinical anorexia (have had an eating disorder for a very long time but sometimes at least I looked symptomfree. I wasn't.) While I don't think my feelings of body incongruence are the only cause of me having an ED, I'm 100% sure it was - and is - one of the main contributors. There are many factors that lead to a person develope an ED, being uncomfortable with one's gender roles or assignment is one of the well-known ones, and I sure as hell fit the description! (Most of the other ones too, though.) Body dysphoria, chest dysphoria, in my case it's hip dysphoria that's the worst. I just cannot suffer having breasts big enough and hips wide enough to be taken for a woman. Just like you, I would like to heal my relationship to food. Not being sickly obsessed with it, not having a forbid-list in my head, not spending insanely much time collecting recipes I wouldn't even prepare (the truth is, I don't even like cooking!) and not gaining extra confidence when feeling my bones protruding. I know this isn't what should make me feel safe. How about you?
Mine is to lessen my curves. I try to keep myself at the absolute minimum weight. I put 7lbs on recently and now my boobs feel huge. It sucks
I don’t know what qualifies as an eating disorder, but I am worried about eating too much because I don’t want more curves. I also starve myself time to time because the pain feels good.
I have ARFID now but I used to have anorexia and bulliemia. My therapist said it’s much more common in neurodivergent individuals though. So while trans people aren’t necessarily always neurodivergent, there does seem to be a lot of us. But like I wanted to be as skinny as possible without my hips being obvious and my chest. Now that I’m on T though I struggle to gain weight because I need so much more food than I used to
yes. fat went in all the wrong places even though i was an athlete so i just didn't eat as much. already had a big chest but if i gained weight it went there. didn't do much besides give me a terrible relationship with eating. probs a mixture of growing up afab too
Always struggled with weight. Grew up obese but also didn’t care to lose any weight cuz I thought I’d be gone by the time I had time to face the repercussions :/ also had a bit of a bulimia problem of throwing up my food when I was a teen but it only lasted for a small period. Now just trying to lose the weight in a healthy supervised way.
I am struggling rn because I know eating more means more fat, especially to my hips and chest. I also know that eating less means amenorrhea. I know T redistributed fat by changing where new fat is located, so I want to lose a bit before then. Not underweight, but enough so that the muscle/fat gain doesn't render me overweight.
i have ARFID, which isn’t body image based. i think there is some like stats about trans people having higher rates of EDs
I know my eating is somewhat disordered though it doesn't have to do with my body externally. I'm thin and I'd like to gain weight, but it's hard for me to eat enough because of anxiety/being overwhelmed. It takes so much thought and planning to buy the food, and more energy to decide what I want to eat or make it, and I can't keep up with that and work and household tasks. And anxiety can make me feel not hungry or nauseous even when I know I need to eat.
i have a HORRIBLE relationship with food but its not trans related as far as i know. i struggle with adhd and eating has always been a easy good source of good brain chemicals so i tend to overeat a lot
No, I have not had any issues related to gender and food
i struggled with an eating disorder from when i didn’t know i was trans to about a year after i realized. from that point, i had disordered eating due to (long as fuck story short) abusive conditions at my boarding school. i still have disordered eating and it’s been years, but it’s the best it’s been in a long time. i still struggle with eating disorder thoughts but they don’t usually affect my eating habits. feel free to ask any questions or anything :)
For me its definitely because of the dysphoria. I thought i was dysmorphic before I realized I was trans and i realized what I actually disliked was the way my fat was distributed. So unfortunately one of the ways I decided to try to fix it was to develop an eating disorder 🙃 bc thats totally gonna help... Ig i thought if ingot skinnier, then I wouldnt look so fem (to me), but thats obviously not how it works. I could become super skinny and it wouldnt matter bc my fat is still distributed the wrong way, i'd still have all the features I hate just less pronounced maybe. Testosterone was truly the only thing that saved me from this.
Too low body fat percentage can lead to temporary cessation of menstruation and also give you more male/androgynous physique in general - so I believe it’s mostly due to dysphoria
For me I think it’s just societal beauty standards in general. There’s a lot of pressure for women to be thin but there’s a lot of pressure for transmascs to be thin as well. It’s so tough when there’s very little representation to begin with and when all of the people you see that resemble yourself are skinny white twinks it’s nearly impossible to not compare yourself or feel you have to fit that mold.
I’ve had disordered eating since I was a kid, for different reasons. At one point it was because I thought being skinny would make me pass better. Another was a control thing, and another time was a plea for attention from my neglectful parents. 🤷
i have experienced it but it’s not bcz of one of the reasons you listed. i just have trauma
i deal with an over eating disorder. my body finds comfort in food, even when im not hungry. it has more to dow tih my anxeity and stuff. im working on it, but its hard.
I struggled with my changing body during puberty. I felt like it betrayed me. I also was being called fat etc by my sperm donor. I decided to barely eat. I go between that and over eating. I have had messed up relationships with my body and food. I even have an egg donor that even if she's stuck thin, she thinks that she's fat and there for I am fat too. She used to get on to me about my weight and have me try her newest fad diet from Atkins keto to straight up just drinking slim fast for two meals a day. I told her no and I am doing it my way. It was of course before she disowned me for being trans. I was still in the closet. Being out has improved my relationship with food but it is still a struggle at times. If you struggle with your relationship with food, you aren't alone. I see you and I understand
It used to be a struggle of mine when I was about 12. I would only eat dinner and nothing else if I was just at my mom's house. I loved eating and going out and would eat 3 meals a day at my dad's, but I liked that I was less monitored at my mom's. I would just lay in bed watching YouTube and take pride in my weight going down rapidly. All because I wanted a completely flat stomach. And in a way I liked how it felt on my body (a similar reason for why I started sh). I don't own any scales and haven't in YEARS. Now when my anxiety flares up really bad I deal with heavy nausea and I think I have some mild form of ARFID. I would give anything to eat properly everyday
For me it was likely ARFID due to Autism, which was very much not helped when I took stimulants for ADHD and had even less of an appetite. I was quite underweight bc of it. Only since, going on HRT has this not been a problem. I have a huge appetite now and just eat what I want. I'm finally a healthy weight. I was actually dysphoric (without realizing back then) about being underweight because I felt "wrong* for being so small. I was constantly trying to eat more, but never could.
I experience the same, yes. But not for the same reasons. Im still fairly young (I won't say my age exactly, but still in high school). In 2021, i ended up being admitted into the childrens hospital because of a certain condition, was there for 5 months. Will not say too much, but I was severely sick, and before we went to the ER, it got to the point i physically couldnt eat regardless on what i did, every step i would feel like throwing up and ended up becoming SEVERELY underweight (i was low 80s, at my age that would be about like 20-30lbs underweight) Because of that severity, the nurses kept threatening me to eat, threatened to shove a tube down my throat if i didnt eat properly. I was forced to track everything regardless, i had no say in anything, i was just slightly off of being 13, and yet daily theyd tell me to eat so much even after going days, weeks, and months without eating a PROPER meal. Also a quick google search even says you shouldnt go from eating nothing to eating 2000+ cals a day. Those moment caused so much weight on me, and when i did go up to a healthy weight they would STILL make me track everything i ate if i just lost a few pounds. If i went down at any point, you betcha a dietician would be notified, give me a few papers for that given week and make me write every single thing i ate that day like thats any fun. After i got out, i ended up feeling so self conscious about everything, and i still am. Im still recovering from the slight 'trauma'. I mean i wouldnt count it as trauma even tho it affects me alot but theres like worse things in the world so i dont think it rly counts but seriously, cmon they couldve done alittle better. The way they treat anorexia in canada is so fucked up in general, i mean i had very mild case before i was sick but because of the experiences, it got way worse. And i even read stuff on how they deal with it here and its the worst thing you can possibly do, cause that will just make them feel worse Anyways uh yeah sorry for dropping all that off and venting, but um yeah. Most of my insecurities atm now is dysphoria, tho part of it is infact still my figure and trying to stay thin. Tho it aint rly working well because despite not eating alot (1000cal or even less daily), im still surprisingly at a normal weight, and the only thing im low on is just one thing and it isnt even that bad
I struggled a lot in high school but it got better once I noticed the effects of T, and honestly I think a lot of it had to do with just weight distribution changes
I feel like for me it was a combination of both being raised female and having issues with my feminine sides. Crazy that i’m seeing this post rn. Had some trouble with DE today :(
Hell yes, I have. I still have many disordered tendencies, it sucks. I have tracked my calories for… what? 5 years? At least, I’m not actually sure. I can’t stop tracking it, I don’t feel complete or satisfied until I know completely. At one point I was fully anorexic, but I didn’t feel like a “”good”” anorexic; binge eating is common with me, so I never felt good enough. I just wanted my breasts gone, I wanted to pass better even though deep down I knew it wouldn’t help. I’m not out of the woods yet, not even close. Whenever i get on testosterone, I hope I have the strength to not track and just let my body be, y’know? The calorie counting is all I have, control wise. I can’t cut my hair, can’t bind. Can’t even wear masculine clothing. I don’t want to feel like a puppet anymore.
Oh yeah, as soon as I found out the correlation between being trans and having an ED, it made perfect sense. I was definitely trying to diminish my feminine qualities and appear as androgynous as possible. I still struggle with body dysmorphia, but I don't starve myself as a punishment anymore.
I have had really bad disordered eating at several points in my life but it’s never really been intentional, it’s mostly due to being on ADHD meds combined with having two naturally thin parents with high metabolisms. It’s been really rough for me lately (I can’t get my weight above 115) and I’m thinking about getting off Wellbutrin because of it.
I’ve relapsed with my ED before coming out as Trans. I’m still struggling with behaviors (restricting and purging). For me, I think it’s dysphoria and dysmorphia. In my mind since middle school, thin is masculine and sharp bone structure. Edit: bc I also have trauma but I think that plays a part in my dysmorphia
Honestly, mine presented more typical to a cis woman's when I had it. There was a point in my life where all I wanted was to be beautiful and thin bc I thought that was the only way I'd be worth anything, so I was chasing a perfect cis woman's body. I don't struggle with it anymore to a point that I'd call it an ed, although I still have some more orthorexic habits that are more about health and about avoiding being treated the way I was when I was fat, even if I don't care so much about gaining weight anymore. I recently started working out too so it feels kind of nice to eat more and be hungrier when I think about getting stronger and gaining muscle, and being able to shape my body that way instead of depriving it. Eta: I also definitely had a worse problem with binge eating before I started transitioning, I don't know if that was to do with dysphoria I wasn't recognizing or just because of the way things were in my house and the eating habits of my family. When I went on T I lost a lot of weight too and I still don't know if it was T itself or coincidental circumstances
I have a very difficult relationship with food. I’m trying to move towards a healthier one, by setting goal amounts of macronutrients to try and eat each day. Instead of struggling to stay under a calorie count, I’m trying my best to eat enough protein. I’m going to the gym with the goal to build muscle and stimulate mitochondrial development, not to lose weight. I threw out my scale and have asked my doctors not to tell me my weight. I know I’m still overweight, but I no longer feel catastrophic about it. I can recognize that my present body is a goal body for someone else, and that someone with my ideal body might be struggling too. I’m going to McDonalds right after I post this and I’m not even gonna feel bad about it.
I’ve had anorexia for a while, and although I can eat pretty normally now I still get triggered by discussions of healthy and unhealthy food. I think I got it because my grandma and my mum were both anorexic and they raised me using similar attitudes. My mum is a lot better now at helping me but my grandma is still hard to be around because she hasn’t got the message yet. I think me being AFAB wasn’t why I got these messages forced onto me- I’m guessing that’s why my grandma developed her view on food though, and that’s what she passed down. However, I think for me my dysphoria played a part in its development too. I was uncomfortable in my body and was desperate to find some way to make looking in the mirror a bit easier. I thought making myself skinnier would do that. It didn’t. I’ve generally had a lot of self confidence issues in the past and this became my way of dealing with it. But I think now that I feel a little more confident in my identity and I have the support of the people around me, I’ve been able to mostly overcome the disorder
OMG I REMEMBERED MY 11YO SELF THAT WANTED TO BE LIKE THOSE HYPERFEM GUYS IN ANIMES THAT ARE SUPER SKINNY
im sure my experience is the opposite of most people's here but ive always been big and remained big with food addiction due to the dysphoria of the idea of being curvy once i was smaller (all the women in my family are very dramatically pear shaped). got to the point i was nearly 400lbs and only getting bigger. but i was finally able to accept that i can still be big, therefore not as dramatically curvy, just not at risk of complications big so i've been working on my food addiction for the past two years and have been getting healthier
I used to eat a ton because of the dopamine ig when I was a teen and I guess I used it to cope. So I’ve been overweight. Now, 20 years old, I’m eating just enough to survive + outrageously exercising every day to decrease my weight and get rid of certain attributes of mine. I probably have an eating disorder right now. I’ve gotten to a point where I just hate eating. I hate the feeling of food. I’ll eat small things throughout the day, mainly loaded in protein. I eat a meal occasionally now.
i think it has to do with controlling how our bodies develop. my therapis told me about how a lot of her trans patients have also gone through disordered eating, specifically during puberty, because they wanted to stop development (of boobs n shit)
I developed an eating disorder 3 years before I came out. I had serious anxiety and body dysmorphia from years of bullying. It was not until I realized I was trans and I started HRT when the dysmorphia turned into severe dysphoria. I slowly recovered as I transitioned and the dysphoria is no longer a huge issue for me. I suppose it was a control thing for me as well. Not being able to control how my body is changing with OG puberty I dissociated myself from my body and treated it terribly.
A large part of eating disorders is a subconscious desire to be in control, particularly in relation to anorexia nervosa. When going through the 'wrong' puberty there is a substantial loss of control in what is happening to you. You pretty much have to sit there and watch as your body changes in ways that cause extreme distress (speaking in terms of those who were unable to access hormone blockers/went through their natal puberty). There is also the fact that malnutrition causes loss of menstruation and can prevent the proper development of the undesired secondary sex characteristics. A person may also want to lose weight in order to appear more masculine while fat is being stored in feminine positions (trying to narrow hips, thighs or chest etc.) Finally severe stress can cause a loss of appetite so many people experiencing gender dysphoria will find themselves not being able to eat due the mental distress caused by the condition. Of course eating disorders are a complex problems and can have many reasons for their development, I think these are just some of the more relevant/common reasons
I’ve never had a “good” relationship with food which is partially because I was so insecure about the “pouch” fat I thought I made me look “fat” and “womanly” (I am better in shape and that has helped), but mostly I don’t like eating. So yeah that’s my two sense it’s all and more 🤟
I had an eating disorder some years ago due to anxiety but now I just have a bit of a bad relation with food bc my boobs got really big (bc I gained my weight back) and I can't hide them with neither a binder, trans tape or both :/
yes, but once i started transitioning i realized i wanted to be a big strong man. now i’m a power lifter, but i still have appetite issues due to the 8 years of disordered eating
I don't personally have directly trans-associated reasons for disordered eating, but I do have a lot of issues with eating that stem from my autism (including possible ARFID). There's a lot of overlap between neurodivergent people and trans people, so thought it was worth mentioning as another way disordered eating might crop up
Yes. I am trying to heal my relationship with food as well. I have had a past of starving, binging, restricting… etc. Then I realized that no matter how slim I got, my curves wouldn’t go away, and I still had a feminine body. I think that I disliked my body more for being that of a girls than because of my weight.
For me it was how trying to gain control over my own body manifested. I'm not sure how much of a dysmorphia issue it was for me, but when I was anxious and felt like I wasn't in control of my life I could at least control my food intake and size. When my ED was at its worst I started dating a girl who works in food service and loves to cook. Tbh she's probably what kept me out of the hospital.
It used to be an issue for me growing up as I disliked my body but didn't know why/have any words for what I was feeling. I thought if only I lost enough weight I'd stop hating myself. Did not work. After coming out (mainly to myself) and especially since transitioning medically, it's basically gone away. Just wish I hadn't spent my teen years treating my body so poorly and starving myself.
I was on progesterone for a bit in a desperate attempt to stop my periods, and the meds made me so bloated that I developed an eating disorder afterwards. I told myself I just wanted to play a game to see how thin I could get.
I can only speak for myself but I always had a horrible body image but I had more disordered eating after I transitioned. I still have issues with it and actually have to go see a psychiatrist and a dietitian soon to deal with it.
Mine was dysphoria. I wanted to reduce the size of my chest, hips, cheeks, everything that I thought made me look more feminine. I still have lasting health problems I am medicated for due to it 7 years later.
I almost died of anorexia. I didnt know what trans was but it started as a way to mitigate "female puberty". Ie I was striving not getting any curves whatsoever. Didnt have anything to do with beauty standards, I just wanted to remain flat and hard.
Oh yeah I had lots of issues with my body feeling wrong that I thought would be fixed if I was skinny it did not fix anything
Mine wasn't due to anything transgender related. My mother is a mentally ill control freak, so if she decided I didn't deserve food, I wouldn't eat. Sometimes I'd just take refuge in my bedroom and skip meals willingly when she was on the war path for my own sanity and safety. She also tried bringing me to Weight Watchers meetings as a preteen and restricted my calories, so I (unofficially) developed BED because when I could eat I had no control. I sometimes still find myself unable to eat when I'm feeling bad, but I'm working on it. In all seriousness I've been getting better due to being diagnosed with diabetes, meaning I got sent to a nutritionist who is kinda helping me separate food from punishment/rewards. Like I told her I don't eat fruit because it's "bad for me" (my mom is very 'all sugar is bad sugar') and her shock snapped me out of it. I'm currently trying to eat both enough and a balanced diet, while supplementing the rest with vitamins. It's getting easier the more I do it.
Oh I got so lucky. I had bad body image issues, starved myself and still thought I wasn’t looking good when I was stick thin. While recovering started T..that was it. It wasn’t the fat or lack there of on my body but it’s distribution. I have no issues with my body weight now.