My Body Betrays Me

When my daughter asked me what transgender is, I answered that some people feel that they were born into the wrong body. That their bodies had betrayed them. So they change gender. She replied: I feel like I should have had a twin. 

Of course, there was nothing I could do about that, but it did make me think about all the ways my own body had betrayed me. I am a woman and have always been female. My body has betrayed me in many ways.

My body has betrayed me by bleeding at times when I wasn’t ready. Having a female body has attracted unwanted attention from men while I have gone about my own business. I have put on weight when I hadn’t expected to. My body has betrayed me by being short. At times my face has betrayed me by being not pretty enough. I am not particularly athletic. I have frizzy hair. I had crooked teeth and ears that stick out. I fell pregnant when I hadn’t planned to. I broke my tailbone in childbirth. I now have a sore hip from sitting unevenly for years due to the fractured tailbone. I had mastitis when breastfeeding. I had a psychotic reaction (Hoigne Syndrome) to an injection of procaine penicillin which was administered for said mastitis. I’ve had hot flushes from menopause.

Some may feel being physically uncoordinated whilst dancing is a disappointment. Others may have serious diseases, lost a limb in an accident, suffer through a chronic illness or serious disabilities. Some people may feel like their body betrays them because they have a low tolerance to alcohol, or they have allergies. Women who have trouble conceiving, carrying to term or with childbirth, or breastfeeding, feel let down by their bodies. Others are disappointed by their skin colour, hair colour, eye shape or ingrown toenails. We all feel disappointed by our bodies when our plans are disrupted by having a cold or breaking a bone.

At times we are all physically unable to do what we want to do, whether that be to function, to excel, or to have fun. The range is wide.

For me, the biggest betrayal was having leukemia. I never gave my body permission to have a blood cancer. It was sneaky and pernicious. Nobody plans to get cancer and plans to devote time to treatment until it is necessary to do so. Any type of cancer is a betrayal of the body.

People who live long enough to live through a process of aging are likely to experience sore knees, declining eyesight and hearing, general aches and pains, and incontinence. They feel their bodies have let them down.

My experience is unremarkable.

I had reason to think about this again on reading Cate McGregor’s article in which she apolgises to people who were hurt by her condemnation of the Safe Schools program. I appreciate that she is open to learning. What concerned me was this:

'My concept of gender was forged by exposure to the showgirls of the 1970s and 1980s who were my heroines. I had a limited, arguably obsolescent view of how gender variance manifests among contemporary teens.'

I believed that people who want to transition from one gender to another undergo counselling. I assumed this counselling included challenging stereotypes of what is it to be one gender or another, or non-binary. It seems incredible to me that a person could think that being a women in the world today is like being a showgirl. I would expect that some serious consideration would be given to how gender exists within a system of power and an understanding that in moving from one position of power to another a person either moves from a position of oppression to one of privilege, or visa versa. Whilst I’m interested in the experience of people who have navigated this transition and what we can learn from their experiences, surely it should be no shock to them that other people will have other views. Living in male, female or non-binary bodies all carry expectations we may not endorse.

I wonder what percentage of people feel that their bodies betray them when they go through puberty. It is confronting when your body changes from one of a child to one of an adult. It can be a frightening transition, especially since it changes forever how you are perceived in the world and there is no turning back to the simplicities of childhood. No one decides if he or she is ready and no one gives permission for how it happens.

Perhaps feeling betrayed by your body is a common human experience. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect otherwise.

While some people can afford to surgically and medically change their bodies, most people don’t. Meanwhile, other people are betrayed because they don’t have access to what they need to keep their bodies alive: clean water, enough food, safety, or medical treatment. Probably everyone feels like their bodies have betrayed them in one way or another. Nobody feels that their bodies are loyal and supportive to their will in every way. In the end we are all betrayed by our bodies because we can’t live without our bodies. Perhaps we could learn to appreciate them more, in all their many variations, try to keep them healthy, and be grateful for what they can do.

And perhaps we could change our expectations about people based solely on their bodies.