Seeing the world in my skin, I can hear voices behind me. What are they muttering? Is it about me?
Not a word to my face, I can feel the glares on my back. They told me to just embrace, why am I reliving my flashbacks?
“People will always stare, it’s what they always do”. I shouldn’t be the one to care, don’t know why, but I still do.
I close my eyes, shake my head, “just stay strong and don’t run”. But I’m left with tears instead, ’cause it’s easier said than done.
I can’t give up, not this time, not again. I’ve finally decided to speak up, no more hiding, no more pain.
Because at last, I did nothing wrong. I committed no sin; I was just roaming the world, in my own freaking skin.
Yes, I face body shaming.
Just like other people who have faced similar issues, I also obscured myself from the world. And in that pursuit of hiding from the world, I hid from myself. I play sports. I’m more muscular than usual, and I had a “boys-cut”. Those are the “different” characteristics people needed to pass comments about my sexuality.
I was called all sorts of names, laughed at, stared at, pointed fingers at, and avoided just because I had female genitalia and my hair didn’t reach my shoulders. These poignant comments adversely affected me. I always ignored them and ran away, but later I realized that I had started hiding. I had begun avoiding going places because I couldn’t digest the increasing comments and eyes digging holes in the back of my head.
Be it at school or shopping malls; I could see people trying to label my identity with their judgemental minds. It wasn’t very hard, but I wouldn’t say that I was comfortable either. I started hiding behind walls and was masking myself.
However, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had started loathing who I was pretending to be. I came to terms with the fact that people are similar in more ways than we realize. We are just obsessed with our outward appearances and even though I can never relate to what people thought of me, I can understand their point of view. It’s hard to let go of years worth of society’s beliefs and that’s why people saw me in a peculiar way. I understand their point of view and I’ll give them time and space to understand me.
Nobody is wrong; we all have different beliefs. And I don’t need people to make space in their world for me because I’ve already made space for them in my world. I don’t need them to accept me, I’ve accepted myself and that’s enough for me.