~The clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes~

I don’t understand the big deal about working out in a tank top. Everyone can do it all the “pretty” skinny woman do it, all the “big beefy boys” do it why can’t I do this. Every now and then it is more comfortable to wear a tank top then a t-shirt, or every now and then I want to show off the body I have worked so hard to get. I do not and will not feel bad for it, guilty for it, like a freak for doing it, nor do I or will I care about whether or not my tank top is offending anyone around me. I mean I know my tattoos are really offensive black and red tribal that are of a bull and a bird and a phoenix are very offensive. I understand that I don’t look “normal” or “pretty” when I where them but really who is it bothering. I find it very amusing that something as simple as a tank top can offend so many people. I know I look like a man with tits or some scary bull dyke but lets be real here I am a man with tits. I know this it took me a long time to deal with this and accept this in my life and I have to accept this until I can have top surgery. I don’t understand why others have to accept that too. My gender presentation doesn’t affect everyone else nor does it involve anyone else, it is only about me. I am at the gym I don’t care if people see me as him or her, when I go to the gym I throw my gender out the door. I actually have always felt very androgynous when I go to the gym. I become genderless because for me the gym is my escape from everything including the pressures of having to pass as one gender or the other and all the implications of my gender presentation throughout the day. I love throwing away gender when I enter the gym it is very liberating. It is one of the few times I feel confident enough to say fuck off to all those who have issues with how I look. I am there to be an athlete and only an athlete, throw some weight around then when I walk out of the gym I am a gendered person again. It is really sad that gender is involved in everything that we do. It is something that consumes us and overwhelms us even if we don’t know it. A lot of judgement is made entirely on how some presents their gender and how that skews from what is perceived as normal or appropriate. As pre-transitioned trans man it is keeping up these gender presentations at all times that becomes increasingly exhausting. It is really frustrating to not be guy enough because of what I wear. I know that when I wear a tank top I need to be more lenient with people since it is showy but all I can this of is SO WHAT? What if I called a man that only works out his chest a woman because his pecs look like tits that wouldn’t be cool but how is that different. Myself and anyone else should not have to spend their lives dressing in a manner that would be traditionally hetero and gender normative attractive. The world has so much more to offer, the world comes in so many various forms and so doesn’t the human race and all of those forms are beautiful in their own right. I noticed that once I stopped dressing for everyone else and starting dressing for me I was happier with my appearance but I also met a lot of animosity and disgust. I am only the one that has to look at me in the mirror I am the only that has to be ok and happy with how I look; I just wish I was able to take a step back and actually practice that. I wish I was as strong as I pretend to be and I didn’t care that people care that I wear a tank top. To be free from the restraints of judgment for me is freedom in its truest form.