Anonymous asked: I wasn't sure if I sent this or not, but I am a cisgirl and my very best friend struggles with their "feminine" body, hating it especially because it doesn't appear as boyish as they wish it did. Being cis, my body struggles don't include this insecurity, so I'm not sure how I can help them. I know they must come to the conclusion of body peace on their own, but is there something I can do to help them? Is there something I shouldn't do that would help them? Thank you.
Well, as I’m cis as well I can’t off the perspective as someone who deals with dysphoria. But my partner does, so I’m speaking from my experience with being there for him.
-Affirm your friend on a regular basis, not just when they express that they’re feeling insecure.
-Validate their dysphoric feelings. They don’t go away overnight, and some times it can be helpful to just hear, “It’s ok that you don’t feel ok right now.”
-Listen, some times just being their quiet, but actively listening, can be really helpful.
-Reminding them that you see them as the gender they ID as in the body they currently have can some times be helpful. But acknowledge you know that might not change how they feel as well.
-Ask your friend what kind of support they appreciate Everyone is different and everyone responds differently to different kinds of love.
-As far as things not to do, just try not to be impatient or to expect too much. As I said, dysphoria doesn’t go away right away and it can be very hard to cope with, so just try your best to be patient, understanding, and empathic.
![wangclub:
*white eurocentric beauty standards i guess? There’s quite a few Black, South Asian, East Asian, Arab and all mixes of people round these hoods who would call themselves European.. And there are plenty of white people in the US so if they meant white why doesn’t it say fuck white beauty standards? is it a reference to kind of the Swedish archetype of tall, blonde, blue eyes?Edit: hmmm the source seems to be a white New Yorker - maybe she didn’t create it, but if i white American did create this then it says something a bit worrying. If it was a white person then it seems ‘european’ is being used as a euphamism so that racism doesn’t need to be faced up to. And if your American please think a little bit about what Europe is actually like.
Hey, so yes, I did create this image. No I’m not European. Yes, I’m white and I totally respect/expect there will and should be skepticism around me writing about racism. But I wanna stand by the wording of this image, particularly because I didn’t make up the term “Eurocentric” nor am I the first to use it in this sentence (I just made it into an image, people of color have been saying this for a lot longer than me). I completely intended to call out racism in this image. I completely mean white Eurocentric beauty standards. I am more than willing to face up to racism and the privilege I experience as a white woman, including in dominant beauty culture. I didn’t include the word “white” because of what Eurocentric means, particularly in academia (and I’m drawing specifically from Black academics here, who have written and continue to write elegantly on the damaging impact of Eurocentrism) which isn’t simply European (because obviously there are tons of people of color in Europe, and there are tons of white people in the U.S, Canada, etc.. [but it could also be acknowledged white people over here pretty much came from Europe]). The word Eurocentric very specifically relates to a process of western, white colonization of people of color’s nations/cultures and the way in which white colonizing involved white folks violently forcing their views on others, and that these white standards are the ones people continue to be held to, greatly harming those who don’t match up to those standards. The word is pretty much never ever separate from whiteness in its use, because again it doesn’t mean European, it means a centralizing of white European ideals via oppression, violence, and colonization (and discussions of deconstructing Eurocentrism typically come from an anti-colonialist viewpoint). So when I wrote “Eurocentric,” that was me writing “white.” Because that’s how “Eurocentric beauty standards” has been used, again, by people of color before me. That phrase is used to mean “expecting people to look white” and it is used frequently in discussions of the racism and colorism that exists in dominant beauty culture. I genuinely had no desire to be euphemistic or to give white folks (including myself) a pass. We are the ones who uphold and enforce Eurocentric (read: racist) beauty standards. We are the ones who benefit.
I hope you don’t mind the long explanation.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/367d1a1f1f44c7dc7aa56c420e32a3a5/tumblr_mley186gyw1qmtl8wo1_500.png)
