I have always been skinny. Rail thin.

When I was growing up in a small hockey town in Canada I felt incomperably small next to the other guys. I used to wear baggy clothes and hoodies just to make myself look bigger in the hopes that anyone who thought I'd be an easy target for bullying would think twice about it - and that usually worked.

I've also always been tall. When I was 12 years old I had my growth spurt which left me 6 feet tall and head and shoulders above all my friends and classmates. I didn't gain any weight at the time and after a number of fainting spells my doctors told me to stay off my feet for a while - my heart simply couldn't take what was going on.

When I was in highschool I can still remember how much I weighed because any time I weighed myself I would come up with the same number. 156 lbs. After I first moved out I was in a content relationship and wasn't taking care of myself very well through film school. Over a few years eventually my girlfriend started teasing me about my "belly" which I was surprisingly self concious about! Even though secretly I did like the fact that it was fairly well distributed and even gave me a bit of curve, when I finally weighed myself I was up at 190 lbs.

After we seperated my weight was a big point of self-consciousness for me - which, in hindsight, was really the least of my problems. So I started biking daily, I gave up soda and tried to start eating better.

At the point where I was feeling the most confident of course was when the rest of my problems took hold and before long I was living the drugs and party lifestyle. When I finally had to look in the mirror I was not much more than skin and bones. This was also around the time I decided to transition. Conveniently I was so skinny that any clothes that I wore did most of the work in making me passable as a woman - my face has always been on the feminine side anyways. (one of my girlfriends jokes that in past pictures of me it looks like I'm a lesbian wearing a fake beard, LOL)

Needless to say that I was enjoying the attention I was getting from men around that time. A friend of mine put on a Mental Asylum themed burlesque show and asked me to perform for it. I through a number of costume changes I was asked to come home with one guy before he realized I was a drag queen (- on three seperate occasions!).

I continued to rollerblade almost 10 km daily to keep myself so skinny. I was down to 140 pounds.

However - these days, 2 years into horomone therapy I'm getting frustrated by the polarized opinions. In particular one ex-partner who insisted I put on some weight so that my body would be more feminine. Xe insisted that if I put on 10 lbs it would go to all the right places and I would feel more confident. At that time however, I had found that being so so skinny was becoming difficult working on a movie set. I simply didn't have the strength to do the long hours and heavy lifting. I added a bit more meat to my diet and now I am at... 156 lbs.

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with this decision.

Back when I first started my transition I even said to myself, "If I want to be a passable woman I am going to have to be a bigger woman." - I am incredibly lean for the amount of muscle on me, but still much too broad for a woman so skinny.

But at the same time allowing myself to be feminine has been the first time I've ever felt comfortable, even good, being so thin! Especially knowing inside that I am able to "keep up with the boys" on set.

My work mates tease me about how skinny I am but these days it doesn't bother me. If I squeeze through a tight space they'll tell me to have another donut or they'll say I "need the extra piece of dessert"when we are going through the lunch line. Other people joke that, "that's going to go strait to your hips!" with a friendly laugh - I usually reply, "I could use some more weight there!" My endocrynologist mentioned at my last appointment that he was "expecting more development at this stage" and added that, "there might be more if I was someone with more body fat," adding as well, "but you do have that 'athletic woman' look that we talked about".

I want to be more comfortable in my own skin. But knowing that every woman on the planet picks and pines over their bodies makes me feel a little more at ease. When I was dating women I prefered bigger girls. Is that why I don't feel comfortable as an althetic woman? Then why won't I let myself be a bigger one?

My ex-partner tells me I shoulg give it a go to see what happens and that the results are reversable. He's right. My endo also tells me my metabolism is "through the roof". I imagine it will be for at least a few more years still, being in my mid-late 20s.

TL;DR - Does anyone have experience with adding weight this late into a transition? I think my main fear is that it's going to go to all the wrong places - which is silly considering that even before hormones it made me more curvy. Maybe it just feels weird that I'm self concious about how skinny I am and I feel like I should just relax?

Maybe - just like before - there's more to it than that and I'm fixated on the wrong things. Maybe that scares me the most x)

This felt good to get off my chest though. I'll leave you now with pictures for comparison. Here's me as I am now - and me at my heaviest.