By Mabel Wellman.
Since I was in primary school, I have enjoyed exercising. I was around ten years old when I got my first set of dumbbells with my pocket money. My step dad bought me a set of weights, dumbbells and barbells from a neighbour too not long after, which I still own and use to this day (with varying times of being left to gather dust in between).
As a kid I played around with punch bags, karate classes, skateboarding, and in secondary school I daily took walks and jogs through the week – including to the 2nd largest Parkrun in the UK, the one on our Southampton Common.
Exercise had and has, for me, many great benefits. When I was in secondary school, my 6am morning jogs filled me with energy for the whole day. This was a time when I felt very vulnerable and insecure as a closeted trans girl who suffered a lot of bullying; but my running helped me feel stronger. I also believe it benefited my learning, and the initial weight loss made me feel (slightly) better in my body. As a 15 year old I interacted with a lot of great people in Parkrun, who I still spot to this day on their 5km run on the Common.
Due to various circumstances, including studying harder for my A levels whilst working part time and a skateboard accident, I stopped running and left my weights to gather dust. After my A levels, I have started a job which I love and volunteered for several organisations. Meanwhile, my weights continued to gather dust and my running hiatus went on for years as I just didn’t find the time for myself to work out.
Last year, just before my 22nd birthday, I had a doctor’s appointment when starting Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). I had already been on HRT for 4 years but this was the start of that treatment with the NHS – so they wanted to do some general tests for my general health. The results of these tests did not stop me being prescribed oestrogen officially, however it did raise my eyebrows. My heart rate was quite high, as was my blood pressure. I had my weight measured for the first time in a while and learned my BMI was 29 (where a BMI of higher than 29.9 is considered obese). The combination of these results, combined with some concerns of knee and hip pain and discomfort in developing stretch marks on my arms, inspired me to get back into fitness.
So I brushed off the weights, realised I didn’t have any good shoes for running (trip to West Quay!) and got back into going on walks.
Over the past year I have lost two stone and thankfully my aches and pains have vastly reduced. Whilst the weight loss is not as much as I would like (and always the way, you lose weight where you want to a lot less than anywhere else), the mental benefits of exercise have been the best reward. This year has been really painful for me, and I feel if I hadn’t started exercising again to deal with my stress, I would have found myself in a far worse situation right now.
However, getting back into fitness has had its hard parts. Some aspects I feel could be specific to my being a trans person.
As a trans woman, clothing has always been something that is hard for me to access, and in getting into fitness and needing some active-wear that’s appropriate to run in, it was immediately discouraging to have to purchase these clothes and shop between the men’s and women’s clothing sections. When purchasing some running shoes for example, I had to get these from the men’s section so the foot length and width would be comfortable and (most importantly) safe to run in without increasing my injury risk, which could have been the case if I shopped in women’s sections for trainers.
This immediately targeted the insecurities I had about my body, my gender and my presentation which I wanted to try getting back into fitness to help address. In getting some appropriate shorts and shirts I also had to shop (for the first time in a few years) in the men’s clothing section so the lengths of the clothing was most appropriate for my tall statue, and so I was not limited by more “cropped” varieties of shirts and shorts that many women’s clothing stores and departments focus entirely on – which due to body insecurities I have both to being overweight and being trans, I would not be comfortable wearing when jogging and would become an obstacle in getting out and exercising. This clothing issue I am sure affects many other women, including cisgender women, who may also struggle with insecurities around clothing showing their bodies in certain ways.
With strength training I am very lucky to have equipment of my own to work out at home. Weightlifting has provided some of the best mental benefits with working out so far, especially with dealing with my stress in the past year.
I have considered going to a gym or leisure centre to have access to more facilities so I could target more muscle groups and do different forms of cardio (such as swimming). However, as a trans woman, this poses many worries for me. There are many horror stories out there of trans women being verbally abused or assaulted in gyms for being trans. Using gendered facilities such as toilets or changing rooms, even if the gym/leisure centre policies are inclusive, can then cause trans people to be singled out or targeted. I have a friend who has had this experience in Southampton first-hand. This is a real concern for me, and as an introverted person I just do not have the resilience to go to a gym and either use the male facilities so far through my transition, or use the women’s facilities whilst still looking quite masculine, and have the same chance of receiving hostility in both of these scenarios.
The growing list of sporting bodies that are banning trans people (women specifically) for concerns around fairness is only making these risks higher. As a trans woman it is very discouraging to get involved in sports when seeing how many competitions have abandoned their (tiny number of) trans competitors in the last few years. Which only increases the isolation many of us feel. I also worry that any transphobes who could make themselves a problem to trans women in the gym are having their beliefs seemingly legitimated by seeing trans people banned time and time from different sporting organisations.
It is a shame that, at least in this part of my life, I’m choosing to avoid certain things that could help to improve my health, both mentally and physically. Everyone deserves to have access to local facilities to help stay fit and healthy. Buying gym equipment to use at home quickly takes up a lot of space and money, and of course it is not always possible to have some facilities like swimming pools. So gyms and leisure centres need to exist and be accessible to everyone for the benefit of our community.
Even though I am choosing to abstain from certain facilities for my own safety, I still have many concerns even when going outside to go on a walk or a run. Just yesterday I was on a run, I was wearing a shirt which you could see the outline of my breasts through, as well as a hat with a rainbow on, and some leggings under my shorts because it was cold. Whilst I felt confident enough to go on a run through the Common, Portswood Broadway, St Denys, and Riverside Park, I could still feel the eyes of so many people on me either on the streets and paths with me or looking at me in their cars. Whilst no one was visibly hostile to me and I only had a couple of stares, I was still filled with worry that someone could assault me in some way for being visibly trans.
This is a worry I know again many other trans people face every day going outside. The Home Office reported in the year ending March 2023, 4732 hate crimes were reported by trans people – a record high where, again, the negative perspective of trans people in the media could be supporting the beliefs of the perpetrators of these crimes.
This is sadly a problem that I worry is only going to get worse for trans people in many aspects of life, unless people (starting with our allies in particular) take a proactive approach to understand us and see we are just as vulnerable as anyone else can be in society. If not more so from being trans. So there is no need to be hostile (or scared) if you see a trans person also using a shared space such as a public changing room, or jogging in a park.
Therefore, dear reader, I ask this question to you. If you were using a changing room at a gym, and you noticed one other person who was changing happened to be (or you suspected them to be) transgender, what would you do? Would you mind your own business and keep doing what you had to do, or would you feel worried, nervous or just plain curious in some way and feel that you needed to confront this person? And if it is the latter option in that second question, why do you feel that is necessary?
As I finish typing this article, I take a look at the pile of weights near one side of the corner of my room. My legs are still tired from running yesterday, but I did say I was gonna do another workout today. I continue to look at them and think about getting up, whilst also thinking how good it would be to go to the swimming baths today and have a swim instead… If only I felt like I could.
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton