Gym difficulties

I've kinda been avoiding the gym over the past few weeks, which is hugely counterproductive for me as I'm trying to improve my shape. But I'm just not comfortable at all with their changing rooms and I'm struggling to go back because I want to avoid the discomfort I feel in the ladies' changing room.

I've been avoiding the gym due to a bad attack of dysphoria that I suffered the other week. It was inadvertently triggered when I read a post on a transgender support forum about someone who was dreading the thought of 'dressing out' (whatever that means) at their school/college gym. I've never heard that phrase before and The Googles didn't shed any light on the subject, but I figured it must mean either a) changing your clothes in front of other people, or b) wearing outdoorsy clothes that tend to be rather revealing of the figure.

This made me think back to my own school experiences, and how different things are for me today. Which led me to realise the root cause of the dysphoria I'm currently experiencing in the gym: I've been there before and it started in Primary School (ages 6-13).

Fortunately for me, my schooling took place in South Africa where people are somewhat more prudish than they are here in the UK. Our school gym changing rooms were gender-segregated into separate rooms as they are in most countries, but we had separate, curtained changing cubicles for each student. So you never needed to remove your clothing in front of anyone else, and there were no mirrors in the cubicles… which meant that I didn't feel any more uncomfortable about getting changed at the school gym than I did getting changed at home. The only problem I had was with what I was forced to wear, or more appropriately, how figure-hugging it all was, especially once puberty had had its wicked way with me.

At that time, I was so uncomfortable with my body (especially the hips and breasts) that I used to wear shorts or jeans with oversized t-shirts to try to hide the worst of it. And in case you're wondering why I bothered with shorts at all since they would show off my (admittedly shapely) legs, please bear in mind that I was living in Africa where the daytime temperature could go up to around 40°C (104°F, if you prefer old money) so shorts were a necessary evil. Well, it's not like I could wear a skirt, is it? ;-)

But our school sports kit was tight-fitting and it accentuated the shape of my hips & chest, so I was particularly uncomfortable if I had to run around. Especially since certain anatomical features tend to bounce when you run, if you catch my drift. But the most difficult gym-type experience happened during my last year of primary school, age 12/13.

Our primary school was horrendously gender-segregated and it had a major negative effect on my socialisation which I'll go into elsewhere, but we had a municipal swimming pool a couple of blocks away from our school and during our last year we had to go for swimming lessons every fortnight during the summer months. Due to their very strict enforcement of gender roles, they were also strict about swimming costumes. Boys had to wear boxer-short-style swimming trunks (no Speedos); and girls had to wear one-piece swimming costumes.

Now I should point out that I adore swimming, and would've loved to learn how to do it better during these lessons… but I was so uncomfortable with my body that I would only swim in a bikini with a t-shirt over it. That would give me the illusion of wearing a Speedo on the bottom with a shirt on top; the bikini top was merely due to the necessity of not having nipples showing through a wet t-shirt. To the outside observer, there was nothing objectively wrong with my figure, it was just that I hated the fact that it was a female figure. It didn't matter that I was slim, shapely and pretty… these were not characteristics that I wanted assigned to myself. Well, apart from slim, maybe. ;-)

I told my teacher that I was very uncomfortable with wearing a one-piece swimming costume and asked whether I could at least wear a t-shirt over it. She refused and insisted that I wear the one-piece. I had no choice but to comply, but I felt horrendously exposed so I rushed from the changing room into the pool (I felt a bit better when I was mostly hidden in the water) and at the end of the lesson I would run back to the changing room so I could get my uniform back on as quickly as possible.

It was the first time in my entire life that I absolutely hated swimming.

Then a couple of weeks later, one of my classmates went up to the teacher and told her that she was on her period. The teacher said that she'd have to sit out the lesson because she wouldn't be allowed to swim if she had her period.

I was stunned. Could it really be that simple?

So from then on, I had a 'period' every two weeks, every time we went to the pool. I knew my teacher would eventually figure out that my 'period' was coming far too frequently, so I planned ahead by leaving my swimming costume at home anyway. So when she eventually did call me out on it, I could say that I'd left my costume at home because I was on my period! Genius. There was nothing she could do, and I successfully dodged swimming classes for the remainder of the year.

I was very sad that I was missing out on the swimming lessons, but at least I didn't have to feel so desperately awful every time I went to the pool. And I did go to that pool independent of the school, going for weekend swims with my friends… and when I did so, I did so on my terms.

Fast-forward to today, when I'm now living in the UK. I have two gym memberships: a corporate membership near work and my own personal membership at a gym near home. This is because I live an hour's drive away from work so it doesn't make sense to drive for an hour just to use the gym on a weekend.

British gym changing rooms are much more open-plan than the South African ones I was used to. British people seem to be quite happy to walk around completely naked in front of strangers, which was quite a culture shock for me! So if I go into the ladies' changing room (by necessity, since I don't pass well) I'm confronted by naked women walking around. Which disgusts me. I don't like the female body at all - probably mainly due to my own dysphoria - and I'm not sexually attracted to women, so seeing them naked grosses me out. And it also stresses me out, because it reminds me that the reason why I'm in this particular room is because I happen to share their physiology and I detest that physiology on myself. To add to my discomfort, women are very chatty and they tend to chat loudly and incessantly about subjects that I find absolutely inane: "Oh, I've just bought this new dress from that shop and it was ever so cheap…. you should try going there sometime, their prices are really good and the dresses would really suit you… we're going to visit so-and-so this weekend and she said that she's bought this new mascara that's ever so good…. " AARRGGGHHH!!! I wish they'd either just shut up, or at least discuss something interesting or amusing. But no, it seems women (or some women, anyway) actually do find such topics interesting and they love yammering loudly about them in front of everyone else. Which is fine I suppose; they have every right to do so. But it makes me feel very uncomfortable and it reinforces the fact that I simply don't belong in there with them. Women like that make life for people like me a nightmare. Why does everything in life have to be so damn gender-segregated?!?

I came up with a partial solution for our work gym: they have two sets of changing rooms and the downstairs one is less frequently travelled so I use that one and hope that no women will walk in while I'm there. But the other gym near home has only one changing room for each gender along with a separate disabled changing room (which the staff use as their personal storage room) so I find it difficult to get changed there.

One of the biggest triggers I've had for my dysphoria over the past few years has been the gym. Being forced by necessity to share a changing room with women is very uncomfortable for me. It'd be much easier if we just had single-stall changing rooms (like some of the gender-neutral toilets that are thankfully becoming popular) but that's impractical to set up, so I suppose I just have to feel this way until I get further in my transition.

By the way, I do try to drown out most of the women's natter by using my iPod in the changing rooms, but there comes a point (usually after a shower) where I can't use it because my ears are wet… so I just have to roll my eyes skyward and put up with their inane ramblings while I rush through getting the hell out of there.