Content warning for transphobia, body image discussion, binge eating / eating disorder discussions, and potential sexual harassment.
Yesterday, I (26 mtf) came home from work to see an outfit laid out for me as a gift by my parents. The outfit was an extremely masculine pair of swim trunks that extended past my knee, and the world’s plainest Hawaiian shirt cut in a way I knew would make me dysphoric, and in a style which I abandoned the month before I started my transition 4 years ago.
The second I saw the outfit,
full body panic stepped in. My entire life,
my mother (558F) was obsessed with making me try on clothing for her, and that had always made me feel deeply uncomfortable, especially as the pieces never looked like anything I would organically wear and she loved making uncomfortable comments about how my body looked in the clothes. While I believe that this tradition started in good faith,
it got far more frequent after I came out as trans a few years ago, where she picked outfits that seemed tailor made to match my dysphoria. I mention intense shoulder dysphoria and she brags about how broad my shoulders are, forcing me to try on a suit which is all shoulders within the month, i mention my feet and she forces me to go shoe shopping with her. This pattern of behavior is the only constant,
her face lighting up more the more pain I am in. All I knew is my body didn’t feel like my own anymore, and like
I forced to play around as her masculine little fashion model, my tears of dysphoric suffering dueling with her more sinister smirks of joy.
For me, my longest running issues tho, were both my weight, and my constant discomfort with long pants.
I am 300+ pounds, with binge eating being my life’s only coping mechanism, and I feel very uncomfortable wearing shorts that go past half knee length because my legs and thighs are my only body parts which I feel comfortable with, and a 2 decades long fear of
my kindergarten pre k teacher, whom was triple our size, and wore knee length basketball shorts which looked like they could hide 2 students corpses within its legs. This combination of gender dysphoria and childhood fear leading me to exclusively wear the same 5 pairs of shorter shorts on loop whenever I am not at work and creating an explicit boundary against them forcing me to try other shorts (again outside of work and formal settings).
A boundary which was clearly violated by this new outfit.
I decide to ignore it, only for my mom to appear and force me to try the outfit on. I got angry telling her (albeit rudely) that I didn’t feel comfortable doing so, both because of the outfit and because I didn’t want to try on more clothes for her. She kept pressing on and I tried the clothes on hoping that rewarding her will stop this encounter.
I put the clothes on and instantly felt fat ugly and worthless because they didn’t fit properly, the my head compared to my outfits shape looking alien compared to who I really am. This panic attack turned far worse when I look at my leg, startling myself as if I woke up as my old gym teacher. It seemed like a scene out of a nightmare.
I showed my mom in this obviously jumpy and panicky state, yet instead of the usual comments masculinizing me or commenting on how heavy and ugly I was. I saw a big smile.
That smile felt sinister, borderline sensual. In her head,
I am sure she saw it as a checkmate, like she had her ideal kid back from pre transition, but to me it felt like that and significantly worse. I felt objectified, grossed out, and like I solely exist in the state I was in when I got my Eagle Scout award to them, and like I am a little Ken doll for her to dress up and parade around and make stories about instead of an actual person, let alone her daughter whose trying to get autonomy for the first time in her life, existing on her own terms.
I change back to my old outfit, and tell her that I am uncomfortable with the clothing, and felt offended that she continued to do this knowing how uncomfortable it makes me, especially given the prior boundary. She tells me that it was an outfit she got from bjs thinking I would like it, then starting a fight when
I countered with both the boundary and how I cried into her arms over dysphoria from shorts slightly shorter than the one provided. She countered saying she didn’t know despite the inseam length being brightly displayed on the tag. We kept on arguing till I ran away to my room.
The kitchen sits on the path from where I was with mom, to my bedroom, and
on the path I see a nicely presented plate of Walmart brand brownies. I start to binge eating them, just to get panicked when I remember both that this plate broke my month plus long binge eating sobriety, and that my mom loves getting be candy and other food whenever she is about to do something she knows I won’t like, going as far as to have handed me bite size snickers between insults against me in the past. I instantly throw away the brownies.
When I call my parents out on it my dad (66 M) says that they bought their brownies for themselves, yet at the same time the two events always lining up would stop being a coincidence after the 5th time, let alone the 50th. This made my panic attack worse. I fell for the same old game.
They proceed and follow their torture with desert cause they know I will fall for it every time. I decided to throw the brownies all away. While nobody complained, I felt gross doing so
I also cancelled a trip I was planning around them. I was planning on taking them to the movies, as well as treating them to breakfast at my favorite restaurant together. While they ufnerstood, I feel like an asshole for hyping this trip up for months just to take it all away from them.
Whenever I call my parents out on it after; they tell me I am being a spoiled brat, that my pain isn’t real, and that I should be grateful for the clothes. My father tried to take my side, yet I feel like he’s deeply powerless against my mom.
I have had multiple friends tell me that I am in the wrong to feel grossed out by the clothing rituals, and others telling me it’s straight up sexual harassment and I should move out asap. Those lines are probably even more blurred as my parents seem to have showed genuine concern after a particularly intense dysphoria induced panic attack a week prior. Reguardless, I am still afraid I am the asshole, and that that assholish ways will stick with me far after I move out of my house.
Am I the asshole.
tl;dr
I am a trans woman living with my parents, whom have an obsession with making me try on seemingly benign outfits that make me intensely uncomfortable. I have very intense gender dysphoria, a lifelong fear of long shorts, and a life long issue with binge eating. My parents forced me to try on an outfit for them which was seemingly designed to target my dysphoria in the worst way possible, with moms reaction to the outfit making me feel deeply objectified.
I get into a really intense panic attack, just to see a plate of brownies they brought me, leading to me relapsing on binge eating. I cancel a big family plan in response, leading to more fights. Am I the asshole. What should I do.
) and so she switched to making her mother pay as I said earlier.
