November 16 W 1430 Brooklyn

My weight is probably on my mind more than I realize. Growing up, my mother told us not to overeat or we’d become fat, and she would comment on other people’s weight in a way that seemed kind of cruel to me. One time in middle school a friend and I were getting into my mom’s car and my mom said in Vietnamese “Wow, she’s so fat!” I remember snapping at her and hoping my friend couldn’t figure out what was being said.

On the other side of my bathroom wall was my sister’s bathroom. When I was around six or seven I could hear her throwing up every day but didn’t know why. I asked my brother, “Why does it sound like Jen throws up all the time?” He made a face and said, “You should ask her,” but I knew better than to do that. My brother also used to oink at us, which in hindsight is a shitty thing to do to a sister with an eating disorder. She wasn’t even overweight.

My mom was always on the thin side but whenever we’d go out to eat, my dad would tell her not to order dessert because he didn’t want her to gain any weight. “You don’t need dessert,” he would say. I remember thinking this was really fucked up because if anyone needed to be mindful of their weight, it’s the one with diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, not my mom.

Whenever my mom calls, she invariably asks me how much I weigh. For example, I spoke to her a few weeks ago and she asked in Vietnamese, “Are you fat? Skinny? How much do you weigh?” When I told her how much, her response was, “Okay, that’s fine.” Maybe it’s her way of asking if I’m eating well. In any case, now that I reflect on it, weight is a thing in my family.

As an adult I’ve been mindful of my weight but for my own reasons. Men and women have a different distribution of fat cells in their bodies and I noticed that whenever I gained weight I looked more feminine, which made me hate my body more than I already did. I consequently made a habit of keeping my weight in check so I could look more androgynous. (This was before I began transitioning.) Whenever I’ve made off-hand comments about wanting to lose weight, the response I get is that I’m fine the way I am. I don’t think people realize that I’m not worried about being overweight, I’m worried about looking feminine. Is this part of the reason I weigh myself every day? Probably, but I know for certain I want the data to make my graphs.