Riding In The Body Positive

I don't have the body I had when I was 22.

At that age, my gender affirmation surgery was nearly three decades in my future.  (I didn't know I had a future!)  But that's not the only way in which my form has shifted over the years.

Of course, everybody's body changes over the years.  Some people mourn that:  They wish for the "ideal" body they had when they were young--whether or not they ever fit such an image.

While some segments of society are beginning to recognize that few, if any, of us remain at size four (I'm talking dress, not jersey, sizes!) in our fourth, fifth or sixth decades, acknowledgement has come that some people never mirrored the images presented to us in fashion magazines--or bike ads--even in their youth, through no fault of their own, has  been slower in coming.

The notion that cyclists, dancers and other athletes and performing artists have to conform to a particular body types discourages some from performing such activities.  It also triggers eating disorders and other mental health issues in some participants.

That is something Olivia Ray is trying to address.  The 22-year-old professional cyclist from New Zealand has volunteered to be part of a discussion of mental health awareness hosted by Rally Health, a sponsor of her team (Rally Cycling). "I think we get stuck on an ideal image, the holy grail of a particular body type," she says.  "Finding what makes us happy and what makes us feel most empowered by what we look like is, I think, the biggest thing," she explains.

From ages 3 to 16, she was enrolled in ballet, tap and jazz dance programs.  So she has experienced, in several venues, the pressure to conform to a particular body type.  While she concedes that in some instances, such as riding up a hill, it makes sense to carry less weight, "there is a fine line between what's beneficial to performance and harming yourself."  Obsession with weight can also cause reproductive health problems and other health issues for women, she points out.

One solution, she believes, would be to focus more on nutrition.  "If you're not giving yourself enough energy" during the ride or "enough fuel post-ride," she explains, "you will feel bad, you will feel like crap, and you won't want to keep riding"--no matter how well you fit the image of cyclists perpetrated in popular media.

 

Seeing Myself, Seeing Themselves In Alex

 Last month, I wrote two posts--"The Unbearable Whiteness of Cycling" and "Our Bodies, Our Bikes"--in which I describe how some people are discouraged from bicycling because they don't see themselves represented in images of cycling and cyclists.  Too often, ads and other media show only certain types of people astride bikes.  Usually, they are young and Caucasian--and thin, especially if they are female.  By implication, the folks depicted in those images are, or seem to be, middle-to-upper class professionals or living on trust funds.

And they all seem to fit cultural notions of gender and sexuality as well as they fit the "lifestyle" apparel they wear.  The women might be fit, even somewhat muscular, but they always fit into  standards of femininity and attractiveness of their milieu.  The men likewise fit into their society's ideas of masculinity.  Nowhere does one find any hit of gender non-conformity or "queerness."

In those posts, I also mentioned that I nearly gave up cycling when I started my gender-affirmation process because while I saw dudes on bikes who looked something like the guy named Nick I was--and images of men like that--I didn't see many of middle-aged women and, although I had mental images of the woman I wanted to be, I really had no idea of what I'd actually become, other than a woman named Justine, and whether she would be anything like any of the few women I saw on bikes.  

That, after I spent much of my life cycling--and some of my youth participating in other sports--in an attempt to fit into those notions of masculinity (and heterosexuality) represented, not only in bike-related ads and art, but in the general culture.  And, I must say that I fit in, at least somewhat:  I got respect in my circles of bike riders and other athletes as well as from teachers and professors.  Sometimes I was teased for not bragging about sexual conquests of girls or women, but the taunts could be taken only so far when the taunters and teasers saw me beside a woman.

Now, I've been talking about seeing myself, or one's self in images of cycling and cyclists.  While I am referring to visual and graphic ones, I am not referring only to them:  I know how much all of us--gay, straight, trans, cis, male, female, White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific/Alaskan Native, rich, poor, or whatever--need to hear our stories echoed, or at least paralleled, in the ones told in books, magazines and newspapers, or on websites, radio, television, film or podcasts.

Alex Showerman in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

That is why I had a brief catharsis in reading about Alex Showerman.  As much as she excelled as a cyclist, as well as in other sports and in school,  "I was not experiencing the world as I wanted to, and the world didn't see me as I wanted to be seen."  This sense of isolation and alienation led to depression, which she tried to numb with alcohol.

In 2015, she began seeing a gender therapist to make sense of who she is.  Last July,  on a bike trip in New Hampshire with two of her closest friends, she "came out" for the first time.  She never felt so free, she said:  She finally could ride just for the love of riding rather than to "outrun her shadows," as a Bicycling article put it, or to pound herself into maleness, as I tried to do.

I am happy that she has begun to live as her true self a decade and a half earlier in her life than I did in mine--and that she realizes that life includes cycling.  She might become the cyclist in an image in which some young trans girl or boy--or other gender or sexual non-conformist--sees him-, her- or them-self for the first time.

Our Bodies, Our Bikes

Two weeks ago, I wrote "The Unbearable Whiteness of Cycling."  In it, I discussed some of the possible reasons why the current "bike boom" is largely a Caucasian phenomenon.  A major factor is the images of cyclists portrayed in advertising and the media in general:  Nearly everyone astride a two-wheeler is white.

And young, unless the cyclist in question is a celebrity--in which case, said cyclist probably looks younger than he or she is .

And easily idenitifiable as male or female:  There is little or no gender amibiguity or "queerness" among  cyclists shown in promos.

And thin, especially if the cyclist is female.

That last issue is the subject of a new video, "All Bodies on Bikes," directed by Zeppelin Zeerip, Its stars, Kailey Korhauser and Marlee Blonskey, remind us of a basic fact:  "To be a cyclist, you just have to be a person riding a bike."

As I watched this video, I was showing it to two other people:  My early-childhood self and the person I was early in my gender-affirmation (what I used to call my gender-transition) process. Before I started running, wrestling, playing soccer and riding long distances, I was a fat kid.  And, when I embarked on my journey from life as a man called Nick to a woman named Justine, I wondered whether I'd have to give up cycling.  I even raised that question to my social worker, a transgender man, and my therapist, a heterosexual cisgender woman--who, as it turned out, were cyclists themselves, though "not like you," as both told me.

I now realize that those fears showed how I'd internalized the images of cyclists I'd encountered, and how they were reinforced by my experiences: Until fairly late in my life as Nick, nearly all of the cyclists I knew were white and male, and if any were at all overweight, it was by only a few pounds.

My social worker and therapist used my question about cycling to re-pose (Is that a word?) another question to me:  How did I envision myself?  When I identify myself as female, how do I see that?  That, of course, is a question any therapist or social worker poses to anyone who believes he or she may be transgender, because it's fundamental:  Are you seeing yourself as Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lopez (icons of the time when I embarked on my process )  or as the housewife or single mother you see in the market--or as your own mother, or someone else?

Although I've lost some weight and have been told I'm looking good, nobody will mistake my body for Christy Turlington's or Rihanna's.  Part of that is, of course, genetics and my body structure:  As I mentioned in my earlier post, I probably never will be smaller than a size 10.  That is true of many other women, including many who, at least to my eye, are quite beautiful.  

So, the issue of body shape is not just one of dress size (a sexist measurement).  It's also one of biology, class--and race.  Members of some ethnic groups, such as natives of American Samoa (which produces National Football League players far out of proportion to its population), are just naturally bigger than other people.  

This question of what a cyclist should look like is an example of what Kimberle Crenshaw defined as "intersectionality." For the most part, what we've seen in advertising and the rest of the media shows us that cyclists are supposed to be young, thin and white--and, by extension, of a certain social and economic class.  If we are to truly gain acceptance from larger society (and less hostility from motorists), the imagery of cycling has to be more inclusive.  "All Bodies on Bikes" is one step in that direction.