I have no illusions about myself. I'm pushing sixty and am an overwheight, very white lady. I can't imagine your struggle with these issues. For that matter, I cannot imagine the struggle with which the women I'm about to highlight must have dealt. However, to forge ahead (and help, I hope), I have a couple of personal interactions that might help you find someone who may.
Back in the early 1980s, I was just out of high school and in art school. I had a classmate who described herself as "an hermaphrodite" – something I'd never heard of before. She was around 30; I was just 18. She shared her story with me, though it was told in euphemisms and similie – so, some of what I understood and/or inferred (inexperienced as I still was) may likely not be strictly accurate. It was also a very long time ago that I knew her.
What I knew of her: She was a talented artist. She was open and honest. She was kind. She was sad. And she needed someone to hear her. I listened as she told me her story over the course of that year. This is what I recall:
Her parents, from her infancy, decided she should be a boy and gave her hormones without her knowledge. She was never allowed to go to other kids' houses or have them to hers. She wasn't allowed to play with other kids outside of school. She was raised and baptised as a boy. Her birth certificate listed her as a boy. That didn't stop her from feeling like a girl. When she couldn't bend to their imposition upon her any more, she declared herself to be a girl. They disowned her and threw her out.
She endured much hassling and abuse in foster care and run-ins with the law. No one knew how to deal with her; the convenient lables inevitably resulted in crisis after crisis. And she would run away from the system after every crisis. In the course of these traumas, she spent a couple of years wandering the state, until at just 17, she found herself on the local reservation. No one called the law on her for being a runaway that time. In her 20s, they helped her transition to fully female because the years of hormones and surgical treatments to keep her created penile urethra functional for her mostly vestigial genetalia was harming her health. They helped her get into art school. She related how she was accepted there and validated in ways no mainstream American community would ever offer. They told her she was of the "two-spirit" people and that her "gifts" were sacred.
She said accepting being one of the two-spirit people didn't stop her from knowing she was a woman. But, it helped her deal with her journey and with other people's perceptions of her, and to accept her own uniqueness and to celebrate it.
Her history radically evolved my own beliefs on gender and sexuality. That history became an integral part of my ideals of equity and justice.
To another set of examples: When I was in college, I worked the front desk of the residence halls. In the course of that job, I came to know the women's basketball team. I listened to their experiences dealing with being very tall and often big women. I also had a couple swimming classes (which was my PE choice) with several of them. And yes, they bore comments and critical attitudes about them and their size in their bathing suits. To be clear, as a chubby and busty girl, I bore comments directed at me too. Now, this was in Memphis in the mid-to-late 1980s, so – full disclosure – to my mind, the more insulting criticisms seemed more about their race than their size. But, in the dorms, when I worked over night, the team would often gather in the lobby to study together, next to my desk. Invariably, procrastination would lead from study to conversation. The ladies often included me in their talks. Perhaps it's because we were all women and all struggling with finding cool styles which flattered; but fashion, weight, and girliness – or seeming lack thereof – were often topics of discussion. Your aesthetic concerns remind me starkly of those late night talks. We're women. We wanted to look stylish and our own brand of feminine.
One final example: After college, I worked as a bridal consultant. I became modestly popular among the drag set for finding the gowns and shoes that worked with the bodies of the drag queens who came to the store. For the owner, he never dealt with customers personally, but he liked the drag queens because they were in the store regularly making expensive purchases. Whereas, brides came into the store for one off buys, the drag queens were reliable repeat customers – the value of that outside the main Spring/Summer bridal season kept that little bridal shop afloat. Anway, all the drag queens were larger than life, but still talked about the same acceptances issues.
I hope it's not presumptuous or insulting to you. But I guess my point is, you're not alone. You're seen. You're heard. You're valued. Whatever you decide is right for you, I pray you find a circle of people with whom you can go to that beach and never think twice what other beachgoers might think. And, please keep telling your story with the same honesty and forthright clarity.
