Comfortable Bodies

Since I have been an adult, my relationship with my  body has probably changed much more than my actual body has. I may have gained or lost a few kilos here or there, but not noticeably. What's far more noticeable - to me at least - is how vastly fluctuating my feelings about my body have been over the years, and how tied up with fatness those feelings always are. Rationally, I don't think being fat is a bad thing, but like most people I have internalised a lot of fat-hatred, especially self-directed fat-hatred, and much as I fight against it, I tend to equate fatness with badness and thinness with goodness, at least in myself.*

Recently, however - as in the last few years rather than few days or weeks - I think I've had a much healthier relationship with my body. I've been more comfortable with form-fitting clothes; I've been happier to expose my body to others (swimming costumes, sex, 'public' changing rooms etc); I've been less willing to denigrate my body either publicly or privately. I don't engage in fat-talk, about myself or anyone else. Happily, this is a self-perpetuating practice. I think these deliberate behaviours contribute to a general feeling of comfort and self-worth when it comes to body image. I don't feel better about myself because I'm thinner: I feel better about myself because I've realised that it's ok to not be thinner.

Importantly, for me at least, this 'feeling' is all that I have to tell me about my weight. Although I occasionally get into using scales, mostly I only know my numbers when I have to find them out in order to fill in medical forms. This means that I only have a vague feeling of being more substantial than usual, or less, rather than hard little numbers telling me that I'm heavier or lighter than I was the day before. I also get comments from other people, of course, but honestly I've realised that this tells me more about the commenters than it does about me. Someone who perpetually says to me "hey, have you lost weight?" is obviously much more preoccupied with weight than I am myself. I don't like it, but at least it gives me a chance to practice my response to these kinds of comments without engaging in or perpetuating fat-hate.

One of the things that has made me aware of this change in myself is a friend at work whose hugging style might at one time have made me quite uncomfortable. He tends to grip very tightly, sometimes approaching from behind and grabbing me around the middle to lift me up and crush my ribs, sometimes just gripping my middle tightly with his hands to scare me when I'm not expecting it.** This form of physical interaction is one that makes me very aware of my body. S can definitely feel every contour of whatever bit of me he's grasping, and other people who are around will be able to see any bits that spill out of his hands and squeeze outwards around his tightly clasped arms. And this actually doesn't bother me at all. I'm not embarrassed for anyone to know what my body looks like, because I'm not embarrassed about my body. It's a rare and delightful feeling, and makes me beautifully aware of how my relationship with my body has changed for the better over time. I can remember not liking to be hugged, because it would reveal my carefully-concealed fatness to the hugger. I don't feel like that anymore - hugging is my favourite thing! - and it's not because I'm carrying any less weight. It's because I'm carrying so much less care. Trans issues aside (and how I wish they were so easily put aside), my body is comfortable. I'm comfortable with it. And that's a comforting feeling.

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* Incidentally, just last night I had a minor revelation when I realised why I was looking at an unknown fat person with something very like hatred: I think when I'm feeling bad about myself I judge most harshly in other people the things that I dislike about myself. It's not just a physical thing: when I'm feeling low I judge behaviours harshly when I can see that they are similar to behaviours that I myself embody. It's not a kind thing to do, and when I catch myself doing it I feel even worse, so that's something I'm going to have to work on.

** I realise this might sound invasive and frankly terrifying, but S is an old friend and his behaviour is consensual and enjoyable - it's a long-standing interaction between us and this would definitely not be ok from someone I didn't know or have that history with. Having said that, I now realise that S has been doing this for a long time and I haven't always been comfortable with it, but when he started I didn't have the confidence to assert my boundaries. And now that I do, that particular boundary isn't there any more. I wonder if that's significant?

Gendering Sports

Recently I have gone back to judo, a sport that I trained in until I was 17, and have only sporadically revisited since. It's been a long time, and I thought I anticipated the challenges of returning to it. I anticipated that I'd get horribly out of breath, and struggle to remember techniques, not to mention their names. I anticipated that my adult body would take longer to adapt to and recover from training than my adolescent body had. What I didn't anticipate, although I perhaps should have done, was how engaging with sport would highlight my gender.

Menswear Sucks

I think this a great article, thoroughly and eloquently detailing the painful double-bind of rigid gender roles, the ways they hurt people of all genders, and how this filters into sartorial choice. I have no bones to pick with the article; I simply want to expand on my own thoughts on the issue here, particularly the idea that "menswear sucks".

As a 'female-bodied' person who embraces a whole range of clothing options, I can tell you that clothing sucks in many ways. If you want to wear a men's shirt whilst sporting some major breasts, prepare for a long, dispiriting search. If you want to wear men's trousers whilst wielding some major hips: ditto. If you want to wear women's shoes whilst bearing particularly wide/long feet: ditto. If you want to wear a dress and you are particularly tall/short: well, you get the idea. The fashion industry (and this is as relevant to George at Asda as it is to Marc Jacobs) caters to one kind of body: the kind that is 'in proportion'. Sometimes it doesn't even do that. If you're of average height and thin, you're perfectly catered to. If you're above-averagely tall and thin, you're fine. If you're below-averagely short and thin, you're probably ok, but might struggle in some places. If you're fat, no matter how tall you are, you're going to struggle a lot in most places. And this doesn't even begin to engage with the radical notion that not all bodies are thin or fat in the same ways. I'm not sure how it plays out with 'male bodies' and men's clothing, as I haven't had that experience personally, but I can tell you that searching for any kind of clothing as a 'female-bodied' person is fraught with difficulties.

You might have a big rib cage and small breasts: wrong. You might have wide hips and narrow thighs: wrong. You might have a tiny frame and a large arse: wrong. None of these body shapes, as common as they are, will make for a stress-free shopping trip. You know that ubiquitous bit of advice, dress for your shape? Wear things that flatter your body? Well, if you want to do that (and not all of us do), it starts with wearing clothes that fit you. And for some people, that is nigh on impossible. I, for example, have never bought a pair of trousers that I didn't have to shorten in some way, either with a turn-up or a sharp pair of scissors. And I'm barely below the national average in height. And that's not even a major problem, unlike, say, not being able to find a shirt that fits both your chest and your stomach. My sewing skills are not to be sniffed at, but that kind of alteration is beyond me. Don't forget that we're just talking about clothes that fit, here, not clothes that you require or clothes that you like. It's a minefield, is what I'm saying.

What I want to add to Greta Christina's excellent article is this: menswear doesn't suck - or not nearly as much - if you're not a man. Regardless of the fact that a lot of menswear doesn't fit me terribly well, I can wear it and be thought of (I hope!) as cool and quirky - at least sartorially so. When I wear a men's shirt and tie combo to work, I get compliments - especially when it matches my nail polish! This despite the fact that often my breasts make a mockery of the nice straight lines of a good men's shirt and tie. The sexist assumptions which lead to the poor clothing options in the menswear departments of most highstreet shops extend past the boring clothes themselves to the people who wear them. I could wear the exact same thing as a random office guy, and despite the fact that it probably looks better on him, I would be the one attracting glances and comments, gracing magazine pages with my 'quirky' looks, being thought of as fashionable / stylish / trendy. He would just be a boring office guy in a boring office suit.

Lest you think this is just because of interest in the transgression of boundaries, the same treatment is emphatically not extended to men who borrow garments / styles from traditionally female attire. That guy would probably struggle to get or keep a job, whereas I could waltz into any office in the country dressed in a suit and tie with impunity. Sure, depending on how I did it and what I look like, I might get called a dyke or have my gender identity questioned, but that's not going to be the end of the world for me. Men who transgress into female sartorial territory are at far more risk in all sorts of ways than women who transgress into male territory.

I don't want to get into a big thing about femmephobia, transphobia and transmisogyny, although frankly each of those topics could keep me going for weeks. I'd just like to point out that, although menswear seems boring compared with womenswear, the real restriction lies not with the clothes themselves but with the people who wear them. A boring suit on a woman is not boring, whilst a boring suit on a man is. This is sexism. Yes, it's sexism that also hurts women - as Christina explains, men get boring clothes because women are expected to care about fashion and appearances and, thanks to the complementary model, men are therefore not - but this is an issue that does hurt men.

I can't help but feel that I'm not adding anything to Christina's excellent argument. I'm simply expanding on her points, and agreeing all the way, and yet I still feel somewhat defensive. I guess what I really want to do is defend the clothes themselves, particularly since I like to wear some of them. They don't suck. They don't. Society sucks. Sexism sucks. Femmephobia and transmisogyny suck. Menswear is great; we just think it sucks because we are conditioned to see men's fashion as an oxymoron, as ridiculous, as laughable and pathetic and queer. Well, this queer likes men's clothes. And the problem is not in my boring clothes. It's in your boring mind.

Female-Bodied

Today I have such dreadful cramps that when I get up out of my chair, I make an involuntary sound of pain. That's pretty pathetic, right? But I'm not going to talk about how pathetic I am - not today. I'm going to talk about what my body means to me.

As a confusedly-gendered person, I spend a lot of time in conflict with my body. Sometimes I hate my breasts, which no amount of binding would disguise, even if binding wasn't so preposterously uncomfortable that I never even made it out of the house whilst sporting it. Sometimes I hate my hips, which are pretty unhappy about fitting into boy-trousers. Sometimes I hate my legs, which remain uncompromisingly short, and which ensure that I have never worn a pair of trousers that I haven't had to shorten, regardless of what gender they're intended for. And yes, sometimes I have hated my periods, hated them to the point of tears. I'm not going to claim that my hatred wasn't gender-related. In a way, how could it not be? In a culture where schoolgirls are shamed for having tampons or pads in their bags, where grown men as well as schoolboys make jokes about PMS and have gross-out competitions about period-sex, where many non-period-having humans genuinely believe that menstruation makes one "crazy", how can I be sure that my resentment of my periods was divorced from that sexist nonsense? I'm sure that it affected me on some level: one can't grow up steeped in misogyny and expect to emerge unscathed.

However, for the most part, my period-hatred was to do with the inconvenience of it all. I was never the girl who belonged in a Lil-Lets advert, dancing around joyfully with nary a rusty stain in sight. I was the girl whose periods were wilfully irregular, turning up at random with no warning seemingly just to toy with me, bringing with them days of disruption, discomfort and pain. Some of that is still true today - they're still painful and annoying, and my cycle is still anything but regular. And I'm still slightly resentful of the extra planning I have to do to accommodate them. But honestly? I actually kind of love having periods. Although I don't exactly enjoy the pain and the clock-watching, I don't hate it. I like the sense of control that I get from dealing with it, even when it's so fundamentally uncontrollable. Okay, so I can't dictate (or even predict!) when my period is going to turn up, but I can predict the kind of steps I'll need to take in order to deal with it when it does happen. And that makes me feel at peace with my body in a way that has very little to do with gender.

I hear a lot of anecdotal evidence from trans-men, trans-masculine folk and the like who hate having periods, much as they hate their breasts, because for them menstruation is incontrovertible evidence of their 'female bodies', which they often don't like to be reminded of. I have a lot of sympathy for that feeling - I have felt it myself, about many aspects of my body. On the other side of the same coin, I've also heard a lot of people describing that "female bonding" thing of having periods: it's something that all women share, and men don't understand! Actually, no. Not all women have periods, for a variety of reasons, and some men do, also for a variety of reasons. I don't really subscribe to either of these views in their entirety, although I understand the drive behind both. I hope that my acceptance of my menstruation stems from a growing empathy with the idea that no biological functions are inherently male or female, meaning that my periods are not an irrefutable sign of my womanhood. They may be an indicator that I'm capable of getting pregnant, but that's an entirely different kettle of fish.

I'm getting so sick of the essentialist language that is used to describe us. Progressives often use "female-bodied" in a well-meaning attempt to show that they know that not all people who have breasts or uteri are women, and I do appreciate the intent. But it's terribly unhelpful for all sorts of people, particularly trans and genderqueer people, who often don't want or need to alter their bodies, and would rather not be put into any particular box due to their personal choices (or lack thereof). I really don't appreciate being reduced to my biology in any case, particularly when it's just yet another stick to be used to beat my supposed gender into me. On a slight tangent, could we stop referring to male-heavy spaces as "sausage-fests"? A) it's gross, and b) it's factually incorrect, disturbingly erasing and personally insulting.

I like my periods ... they don't mean I'm a woman. I don't have a cock ... that doesn't mean I'm any less of a man. I am not female-bodied, and I never have been.

Best Figure

Here's something I remember from school.

When we finished our GCSEs, my friends and I had a party. Some of us were staying on for sixth form and A-levels, some of us were moving to other places for A-levels and NVQs and the like, and some of us were heading out into the grown-up world of work. (On a side note, I can't believe that it's nearly ten years later and I still haven't headed out into the grown-up world of work. Those guys overtook me years ago. They have jobs and husbands and babies. I am still living in halls. These are the things I worry about when I can't sleep at night, at the ripe old age of 25.)

Anyway, back to the party. It was because we were all going in different directions, and everything was changing and oh my God we'll never see each other again ... it was a very grown-up affair. We had party food and party games and plenty of alcopops. I'm pretty sure someone's parents had gone out for the evening, giving us a house to ourselves. One of the girls had organised a kind of awards thing in advance. There were categories, and we all voted (secretly of course) for a winner of each category. It sounds a bit like what they (you?) do in American high schools - 'most likely to graduate top of the class', 'most likely to go to prison', etc.

The only category I remember was a kind of 'open' one, I think, where we wrote down the thing that we liked most about each member of our group and submitted it to S, who was organising the whole thing. I'm not sure if there were different categories for physical quality and non-physical quality. I'm not sure whether the results were collated and the top one chosen, or whether we all saw all of them in the end. I do remember that I had a little laminated bit of paper afterwards which said Best Listener on it. It still gives me a warm glow to this day, but I guess that must have been something slightly different, because I also remember the disbelief on J's face and her disparaging laugh when she read what I'd written for her. I'd said that her best physical feature was her figure.

Now, in my defence, my intention had been pure. We were a ragtag bunch of teenagers, comprising for the most part all the flotsam that had been rejected from other, cooler groups of kids. I hope that wouldn't insult anyone in our group. I am pretty happy with that definition for myself, but maybe the others wouldn't be. To be fair, some of them were cool in the sense that they had friends outside of our group, fitted in at parties and weren't bullied by the other kids. Most of us weren't that kid. We were the other kid, the one who came to our group for refuge from normality, which had in general been pretty rotten to us. None of us sailed blithely through secondary school unscathed. J, now that I come to think of it, may have been the closest we had to a cool kid. She was brash and confident and sensual, full-bodied, loud-voiced. She was the polar opposite of me, and I thought she was absolutely marvellous. I have a photo of us together at one of our sleepovers. I'm shy, in a vastly oversized t-shirt. J is wearing nothing but a hot-pink bra.

Her scornful dismissal of my clumsy accolade made my heart hurt. I had meant, as I stumblingly tried to explain in front of our whole group of friends, that I loved how comfortable she was in her body - how unselfconscious, how carefree. I did love her figure, all the lovely rolls and curves of it, but I also loved how much she inhabited that figure. How present she was in her beautiful body. That didn't seem radical, back then.

It still upsets me to think of the way she received my words. I think she genuinely couldn't believe that I found her figure attractive. Perhaps she was only embarrassed that I'd mentioned her figure at all, thinking that maybe I was making fun, or that even if I wasn't, my comment would open her up to judgement from everyone else - that our friends would be thinking "great figure? J?" and be looking at her to see if they concurred, appraising her.

It obviously wasn't my first exposure to the ugly, complicated relationship that many women have with their bodies. If it had been, I probably would never have been driven to make that comment in the first place, because J's apparently comfortable habitation of her non-thin body would not have been radical. I wouldn't have noticed it, because it would have been normal. I might even have been comfortably inhabiting my own non-thin body. Instead I was hiding myself in vastly oversized t-shirts, and I thought J's seemingly thoughtless exhibition of her own body meant that she knew that she was beautiful, and thought nothing of having the eyes of others on her flesh. It wasn't just the bra, of course. It wasn't like she was roaming the school halls in her bikini - she wore uniform like the rest of us. But that was just it. She didn't make a big deal of what she wore or didn't wear. To my frightened mind, it was just that easy for J. She had somehow magically escaped the widely-cast net of body shame that so many of us floundered around in, and despite her decidedly non-socially-condoned curves, she was comfortable in her skin.

That was the quality that I tried to capture in my unfortunate tribute. I saw that J's body wasn't the conventionally-attractive type, and I thought she was happy with it, and I loved both her body and her happiness. I wanted her to know that I thought she was beautiful, too. But I hadn't counted on the insidious, ubiquitous nature of body shame, which can turn even the most innocent or well-meaning remark into a barb. Perhaps J's dismissive laugh was to deflect attention from something that she couldn't believe was true, and didn't want anyone else to consider. Perhaps she was simply embarrassed. Or perhaps she was secretly flattered, but didn't want to appear arrogant in front of our friends. Either way, I doubt that J has a little laminated bit of paper in an old box somewhere which says Best Figure. I kind of hope that she does, though.

Clothes

Inspired by this as well as by some recent internet commentary, particularly at No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?, I think it's time to hash out some of my feelings about clothing. Here we go.

1. Clothes are nice for thin people

2. Clothes are nice for (relatively) rich people

3. Clothes are nice for people who fit neatly into the gender binary

I am none of those things. And yet I love clothes! I went through most of my life thinking I hated clothes and didn't care about fashion. As it turns out, I love clothes and am pretty invested in fashion - up to a point, anyway. This revelation is linked to my adventures in gender. It's not that I fit into boy clothes any better than I fit into girl clothes - often the fit is worse, actually, due to the fact that I am short, have small feet and abundant hips and breasts. It's also much more challenging to go into shop changing rooms with armfuls of men's clothes when I am clearly be-breasted and be-hipped, than it was to go in with armfuls of women's clothes. It's possible that the odd looks I get are a product of my feverish brain rather than actual looks people are giving me, but the effect is the same. It's hard work.

The love, I think, comes from attempting to achieve a look that I actively like, rather than one that I think I ought to like (or at least aspire to). I may not be any more successful at achieving that look, but I feel better about myself - less conflicted - in this failure than I ever did in the previous failures.

So while I may weep in changing rooms when I totally fail to fit into a shirt of any combination of sizes (regular, tailored or slim fit, formal, semi-formal, work, fashion - what an endless list!) the very act of trying on shirts makes me feel a bit stronger in myself than the trying on of, I don't know, scoop-necked t-shirts or diamante-encrusted jeans.*

Having said that, I do like wearing women's clothes sometimes. One of my most enjoyable post-Ollie moments was going to a friend's barbecue party last summer wearing my favourite battered Converse, a fairly short handkerchief dress, and dangly earrings. But then, not everyone at that event knew me as Ollie at the time, meaning that I felt I had more freedom to present as femme than I did in environments where I always had been 'Ollie, the girl who wants to be a boy'. I came closer to a breakdown in that environment than I ever had before, when I was trying to decide on an outfit for a big event and felt that the whole world of femme was closed to me if I wanted to be taken seriously as a trans boy. I still feel that pressure more often than I'd like. But it's getting easier, as I expand my wardrobe incrementally when the sales are on, and start building a collection of clothes, men's and women's, that I can mix and match until I find a combination that's perfect (or at least appropriate) for the occasion.


*There's that femmephobia creeping in again! Obviously I detest diamante-encrusted jeans, because that's a totally rational reaction to such brazen femininity :-/

On femininity

A few nights ago I was coming home from work, feeling fairly unremarkable. Walking up the escalator at Paddington station, I couldn't help noticing the legs of the person in front of me, which were right in my eye-line. The legs were clad in knee-high white socks with some kind of repeating red design - little cherries or hearts or something. They had a red ribbon at the top which tied at the back of the leg, and on the feet at the bottom of the legs were little shiny red shoes with round toes.

It was a charming get-up, and I absolutely despised it. I don't mean I thought, 'wow, I would never wear that', although I did. What I thought was not exactly clear - I'm not sure there were any comprehensible words. There may have been a sneer on my face. I felt hatred. I hated the things themselves, I hated the person wearing them, I felt disgust for the obvious care which had been taken in the choosing of the things.  What I felt was hatred of femininity.

I know very well how utterly wrong this is. Fine, don't choose femininity (or whatever) for yourself, don't find it attractive, don't feel drawn to it in yourself or others - but don't hate it. Don't fall into that trap, because a trap it most certainly is. Like to think of yourself as liberal, progressive, feminist (gods forbid), open-minded? Don't be reduced to a knee-jerk, femme-phobic, misogynist, reactionary puddle of loathing. It's (dare I say it?) not big and it's not clever. It's stupid, small, petty, insulting, sexist.

It's what we've taught ourselves.

For my own part, in trying to look a little deeper, I came up with an excuse for my pathetic meanness of spirit, and here it is. It's not all that exciting, and it's also pop psychology at its finest. What I think is that my reaction is a leftover of hatred of femininity in myself. Now, I don't always hate my own femininity. Sometimes I adore it; sometimes I'm perfectly fine with it, sometimes it'll do. Sometimes, in the words of delisubthefemmecub, "it's all I have". But sometimes I want to run like hell away from it. Sometimes it's the thorn in my side, when my side is basically all thorn. Sometimes I hate the bits of myself that can be called 'feminine', whether that's clothing or make-up or my own body. Sometimes I want to cut those bits off. And sometimes, when I'm not feeling strong, that hatred turns on those who express femininity willingly (or what I perceive to be willingly - their reality might be entirely different).

I know this isn't right. It's cruel and hurtful to myself and others. Does it make me feel good to denigrate others in my head? No. For a moment it gives me a feeling of superiority, but it's a nasty, mean-minded feeling, and it doesn't feel good even to me. Even at the time. It's damaging and I don't want to engage in it. When will I stop engaging in it? Will I ever?

My Genital Affirmation

Here is a link to a YouTube video I came across on Genderfork:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_IA1bJH4bU

It is called My Genital Affirmation, and its tagline is A Vagina Dialog: A Transgender Vagina Talks Back. (I use the pronouns he/his throughout (for Simon, not his vagina!), but I don't actually know if that's what Simon prefers. Apologies if I've got it wrong.)

Description: One person speaks from various positions in one room, with one camera angle. He wears a few different outfits in different shots - a suit and tie; trousers and a shirt, a white vest top. Sometimes he wears glasses.

Transcript:

"First things first. My vagina prefers male pronouns. If you don't understand that, then you probably won't understand anything my vagina has to say, and should probably just stop playing this clip right now.

My vagina is tired of the people who assume that because I'm (whispers) a man, I must hate my vagina. He is not hated. He does not hate himself. My masculinity and my vagina live together in harmony. Yes, sometimes they fight; sometimes they get along fine; but regardless, they always do and always will cohabit as me.

My vagina knows that he will be asked over and over again if he is still living down there and if he is, how he's doing. He's fine! I love my vagina and the history he represents. The strength, power, potential life that all vaginas represent. Yes - I'm saying that. He is proud to be a vagina.

My vagina can take a lot, and since he is connected to my hips and my thighs, he can give even more. He can give even more.

My vagina has grown accustomed to tentative bewildered hands and mouths fumbling. He does not expect anyone to know how to handle him at first contact, or even know how to address him without proper instructions. Don't worry, he will instruct you. He just wants an open mind. What he wants and what he needs sometimes changes from day to day.

My vagina wants to be listened to and heard and understood and validated.

My vagina knows that he is misunderstood and wondered about. He is used to it. Don't think he doesn't hear what people are saying. He hears it.

My vagina recognises that many people think that I am weak and less than other men because he is part of me. Sometime this gets to him. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes he is frustrated and angry. Sometimes he is just happy to be alive.

My vagina is silent, and he is sick of his silence.

My vagina is invisible and is sick of his invisibility.

My vagina is ashamed and hidden, but doesn't want to be.

I am all man. I am all man. I am all man. And I love my vagina. I am all man and I love my vagina."

I'm not really sure what to say about it. I love it, obviously. A few of the comments mention 'The Vagina Monologues' - one suggests that Simon tries to get My Genital Affirmation included in that, since it doesn't have any pieces on trans men. My own memories of seeing and reading The Vagina Monologues are positive, but it was long enough ago that it didn't occur to me to question that lack - or even, honestly, to notice it. I wonder what a queer/trans Vagina Monologues would look like.

The section on the "potential life that all vaginas represent" is interesting to me. It seems odd in this context, given the troubled history of equating 'women' with 'vaginas' with 'child-bearing'. Simon is making a powerful case for the diversity of the vagina. I hope I'm not misrepresenting his position, but I read this video as saying 'a man can have a vagina, and it doesn't make him less of a man, or his vagina less of a vagina. But suggesting that all vaginas represent potential life troubles me. What about vaginas that are part of people (men, women, trans, queer, whatever) who can't or don't want to 'create life'? Do their vaginas still 'represent potential life', despite their feelings? Does 'biology' trump desire?

I wonder if Simon is commenting obliquely on that with his immediately-following remark "Yes - I'm saying that". Is he acknowledging the controversial nature of his statement, and reinforcing his belief nonetheless that "all vaginas [] represent potential life"? Is his reiteration a defiance along the lines of 'yes, I'm a trans man and my vagina can create life'? Because that's lovely. I'm just not sure equating all vaginas with potential life is in line with the joyful liberating cry of 'this is who I am, and I love it'. 'This is who I am, and this is who you are' doesn't quite work as well, for me.

I love the sexiness of this video, and I love the pride in the sexiness. I love the unapologetic attitude of it - the 'fuck you'ness of it, if you will. I love Simon's curly hair and his white vest. I think he's kind of a hottie, actually! And, to top it all off, his vagina sounds like a total dude. Definitely keeping an eye on that channel.