I did not want my body.
Female bodies were weak bodies. My body was not weak. I was strong. I had immense capacity.
Female bodies were targets. There to be viewed, groped, harassed, and assaulted, female bodies belonged to people with power. My body wanted power. I learned to fight and to disgust. I could burp louder than a man, eat just as much and knew how to kill with a well placed hit to the jugular. I wore my camo pants and flattened my chest. I was no one’s girlfriend: I was a comrade.
Female bodies were ill bodies. They bled, got sick and stayed in bed. My body was not a sick body. I could push through any pain, fight through any illness. I found my physical limits and challenged them. I leaned into pain.
Female bodies were subservient. Made by God to be “help meet suitable” they were weaker and more susceptible to sin. I was born under the authority of a man.
There was nothing I could do about that.
I told God he had made a critical error when he made me a woman.
Wasted opportunity.
Much later, in the violence and ruins of a crumbling belief structure, I came home to my body.
Alexandra Ross 