Physical Grieving

Today, I’m starting to write a new chapter of my textbook, the most “special” chapter of my textbook, both because it’s the one that will most differentiate this book from others in its discipline and also because it draws directly on my own field of expertise and scientific research, which I love so much. So I’m excited and also a little scared.

But I’m also grieving something, maybe more than one thing… It’s still unclear to me what exactly I’m grieving but I’ve definitely been experiencing some deep grief in the past couple days.  

I think part of it is “physical grieving”, i.e. grief for the physical body that I’ll never be able to have, no matter how much I yearn for it, and grief for the physical body I might choose to renounce if I do decide to pursue gender affirming surgery and/or HRT. 

I believe I’m experiencing this very particular (and new to me) type of grief now because of the session I had with the specialist from the Gender Affirming Clinic on Thursday. He really talked me through all the possible results and effects, and side effects, both of HRT and of gender affirming surgery. It was a wonderful, extremely helpful, supportive, affirming, and informative conversation, but it also really brought home to me what I might lose for ever, what I’ll never have for sure — no matter how hard I try — and what changes would be a mysterious unknown that I’d have to discover and explore — and eventually accept and come to terms  with — along the way. 

I’ve always been drawn to masculine body-types, both as the body I’d like to have and in the bodies I’m usually attracted to physically/sexually. It’s a relatively broad spectrum that goes from androgynous (lean and linear and gently masculine but also possibly including some subtle feminine traits) to slightly more masculine in a young-boy-athlete sort of way (like the Ancient Greek kuros) to the athletic masculine type with a lean and muscular swimmer’s or climber’s body. This latter type of body I’ll never have: no matter how much HRT I do, and even if I do all the gender-affirming surgery possible, I will never be six feet tall with such a wide shoulder & arm span, with such a broad, strong chest. And if I do modify my body by making it look more masculine, I might also never attract (physically/sexually) that type of male to me anymore. On the other hand, if I do decide to pursue this route, I might also lose some aspects of my femininity that I do enjoy. And no matter what, there would be aspects I lose, whether I like them or not.

But that’s all in the future and still only a hypothesis.

For now, in this moment, it’s the loss of the “6-foot athletic guy” that I’m feeling: both specifically relative to myself, as I’ll never be “that guy”, and also in regards to a particular “6-foot athletic guy” that I liked and who now belongs to my past (and whom the incidents of this week have brought back to my mind & yearning).