One struggle

Trans people. Anorexics. Bodybuilders. What do all of these groups have in common? Far more than you would think at first glance. I’m in a unique position to make these comparisons, being at the very least peripheral to all 3 communities.

The first, and most obvious comparison I’ll make is the prevalence of body dysmorphia. Ask a waifish, 110lb girl who keeps the ricecake industry in business how she sees herself and she’ll call herself fat. Ask a massive bodybuilder with thick, root-like veins covering his thigh-sized biceps and he’ll say he’s small. You get the idea.

Along with body dysmorphia comes ruthless optimisation of one’s lifestyle for an ideal self. A carefully curated supplement stack. Regular bloodwork. Meticulous calorie counting. People often look at body dysmorphia as self hate, but that’s rarely the whole story. Just as often, it’s narcissism and self obsession paired with sky-high standards. You don’t reach a near-impossible ideal with complacency and comfort in yourself, after all.

A particular example I want to mention is more plates more dates. He’s a YouTube channel that primarily focuses on bodybuilding pharmacology. He has a litany of videos about complicated steroid protocols, how various drugs interface with the human body, and other things of that nature. The only other community I’ve met with this much off the cuff endocrinology knowledge despite having never studied it academically is trans people. Nuanced opinions about anti-androgens, knowing which esters have which half-lives, various supplements that affect absorption and SHBG production. SERMs and SARMs. Treating your body as an impromptu science experiment. The only time I’ve seen e1:e2 ratios mentioned outside of the context of transitioning was in one of his videos.

He also has older videos about diet. 14 tips for going on a cut.

5. PB2

6. Stimulants

8. Rice cakes

10. Monster ultra

13. Tinned tuna

Anorexics seem like the odd one out when it comes to pharma knowledge, but they just take different routes. There are women that take anavar to lose fat, but generally their drugs of choice are stimulants. Most models do coke. I know multiple people who’ve abused meth in an effort to have a 2 digit weight on the scale. Laxatives and diuretics are also common, and this also holds for bodybuilders shortly before they step on stage. There are also ECA stacks, clen, DNP and the like.

If you’ve ever met a lifter a few months into a cut, the parallels between them and your average MyProAna user are immediately apparent. Weighing everything they eat, down to the condiments. Safe/unsafe foods. An hour of cardio in reaction to overeating by 10 calories. I’m hardly the first to note the prevalence of eating disorders among bodybuilders, you can find hundreds of videos on the topic.

Both groups have a tendency to stave off binges by viewing content they find disgusting. Nikocado Avocado is a common one. Supersize versus superskinny is another. Looking at monuments to gluttony and telling yourself “if I slack on my diet, this is me”. One of the most active threads on /fit/ at any given time is the fat people hate thread. The fasting thread is full of people with obvious eating disorders, too.

Exercise addictions are common in both groups too. Training until exhaustion on a near daily basis, experiencing distress if they can’t. I once knew a guy with a 3500 calorie daily expenditure despite being under 130lbs.

Bulking seems healthier on the surface, but the terms bigorexia and manorexia exist for a reason. “I barely even look like I lift”. “I’m small as fuck”. This applies far less to powerlifters, because they’re content to look like shit as long as they can move a lot of weight. Dirty bulking is equally disordered as the starvation anorexics attempt, in my opinion. Stuffing your face to the point of discomfort in pursuit of strength and size. Vomiting from overburdening their stomachs, then slamming mass gainer shakes to make up for it.

Bulking and cutting has an interesting parallel for trans people too, that being weight cycling. Body recomposition only gets you so far unless you help it along by gaining/losing weight.

I often think of bodybuilders as male to male trans. The two groups are very much two sides of the same coin. Hip/waist ratios. Bideltoid width. Wrist thickness. A human body reduced to a never-ending list of measurements. This brings in another comparison, that being the incel/looksmaxxing communities. On 4chan's /fit/ board there will be several threads whining about height/face/frame at any given time. It doesn’t matter how much I lift because of a few millimetres of bone. Likewise for /lgbt/. My midface length means I’ll never pass. That’s without even going into transmaxxing.

The issue with incels isn’t so much the claims they make, but the conclusions they draw from them. Yes, life is harder in general if you’re perceived as unattractive. You can become more attractive. Personality does, in fact, matter.

Without wishing to reenforce stereotypes, anorexia is typically a very feminine disorder. The prevalence of it, bulimia, and the like is probably an order of magnitude higher among women than men. There are probably innumerable college dissertations written on why this might be the case. I did a computer science degree, not a gender studies one, so my opinions may not be perfectly nuanced, but my take is that one of the primary factors is the societal expectations of female beauty, and how much higher of a standard women are expected to uphold physically. A fat woman is reviled, a fat man is just fat. Reactive trends like body positivity near directly reverse this outlook. Fat women are beautiful and brave. Every male model for a body positive clothing brand still has a six pack.

Anorexia being a feminine disorder means it’s also common among trans women. Being slimmer means a more feminine hip/waist ratio. It means your gendered fat distribution is far less noticable. My BMI started with a 1 during the last couple years of high school and the first year of university.

The commonality of self harm for trans people is worth noting too. The online pro-ana and self harm communities are sisters. Both self destruction as its own form of creation. Men tend not to cut themselves, but exercising until your body aches and you feel like you’re going to puke can be seen as its own form of self harm. Many exercise to excess as a punishment for overeating. Man is both the marble and the sculptor.

Repressing by lifting weights is very common. The logic behind this is that you just want to be female because you’re not seen as a real man by people. Becoming muscular should change that, right? Anorexics and trans women will ask questions like “how do I lose muscle quickly?” with similar incidence.

Tren makes you a chaser. I feel like that ties into all this somehow.