Growing up in the 90s, there were a lot of books seemingly aimed at me, about my health. From “The Body Project” and “Reviving Ophelia” to the seminal “The Beauty Myth,” bookstore shelves were crowded with stories of body image dysmorphia and the skewed version women were forced to have of themselves.
As someone who grew up as the target audience for these books, I felt their importance while assuming they had nothing to do with me.
I was not a woman, and not a girl, though that would not be apparent to anyone else for years. I had always been trans, and had always known it.
But I was also a person who had to encounter puberty, female socialization, and all the coded, destructive language about bodies that goes with it.