If You Can’t Bench 225…
I will say as a
Woman I lifted weights a fuck ton.
A compensating amount.
The sort of weightlifting that made you go
“What is that lady’s deal”
Now I lift weights and it’s
Easier than it used to be, almost makes it
Funny. But—
I’m still just
Me, with a little bit of a boost. Nothing crazy
I still know guys
Half my size
Who are ten times stronger than me I still see
Guys in the gym with
Nothing on them
Who can bench 225 for multiple reps and
Go home and pound the nice, sweet pussy
That didn’t care that much for his lack of muscles anyway but
He thinks he’s the biggest man in the world because
He does the one or two things he needs to in a week
To feel athletic. I see
Trans guys posting vid after vid
Pic after pic
Of how their gender and their sex is somehow
Proved by their fitness but
If you actually spend a lot of time in the gym
You notice it’s an enormous spectrum.
Steroids wax the car, they don’t redesign
The engine. And yet
Trans women in sports are treated as if
They will always and forever be
Schwarzeneggers in every ring.
It’s hard to calmly disagree
With all my perspective and experience
Janae Kroc could still snap me in half and
I doubt she struggles to bench 225
The weight
That many have told me
Is
“If you can’t bench 225 are you even a man?”
I tell you what tho man I have my doubts sometimes just as well
As anyone else, and
The closer I get to that number the more I know
225 will be the top of my range and not
A comfortable, multi-rep middle.
I think it’s unfair to claim that
2-3 years of hormones at varying doses with
Degrees of success being in range of those numbers to make me a “normal male hormone levels”
Will be enough on its own
To even the playing field. I know that it isn’t.
I’m also suspicious that
15-20 years of hormones
Won’t be quite enough
But that by then enough will have stayed the same
For the changes to really start to sink in.
Alas
I keep saying how
Testosterone is a change agent and yet
No one ever talks about
What estrogen does.
It does a lot.
It makes you soft weak and sexy as fuck.
Will there ultimately be
A hormonal and structural difference
Between cis men and me? I find it hard to believe that
Synthetic testosterone for a handful of years
Evens the playing field.
I am of course excited to keep changing but
I dunno man
Until I get to 225
For multiple easy reps and sets
I will be doubting myself and the whole road that I chose
Simply because I see so many young dudes at the gym
Easy breezy beautiful deadlifting 500.
The closest story I’ve found about
Trans men in weightlifting is this one guy
Who can deadlift 500, but
I know lots of women who can do that,
And so does he.
I’ve also seen