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That was all a long time ago. Yet as I write this now, I have little reason to believe that things have changed significantly, or at all. Media coverage of women’s sports remains primarily concerned with the physical appearance of athletes. When I was looking for information about Victoria Pendleton, Great Britain’s most successful female Olympian, recently, Google helpfully completed my search with “hot.” Reporting on the 2012 Olympics, the Melbourne Herald Sun saw fit to run side-by-side photos comparing what swimmer Leisel Jones’s body looked like that year to what it had been in 2008. Body shaming comes with the territory for female athletes: Just ask Holley Mangold, Sarah Robles, Caster Semenya, Santhi Soundarajan, or countless others.

I do not presume to speak for any experience other than mine, because, as much as I’ve been othered and degendered for my size, as much as I was regarded as “one of the boys” and the girl who wasn’t “quite a girl,” I still had the privilege of being a cis woman. I’ve been spared the brutality of transphobic violence. However, Soundarajan’s story still really hits home with me. Born in a remote village in Tamil Nadu, she grew up to be a world-class runner, winning 11 international medals and becoming a beacon of hope and heroism for India. Then, in 2006, her career was abruptly cut short. She was stripped of her silver medal in that year’s Asian Games and was told she couldn’t compete anymore, because she had failed a “gender-verification test.” Recalling the incident in 2012, she told ESPN, “Everyone was looking at me in this new way. ‘Is she a man? Is she a transvestite?’ It’s very hurtful. It ruined my life and my family’s life.” Sometimes it feels like no matter what our dreams, hopes, or ambitions may be, in the end, we will all be judged on our femininity.

Robles, an Olympic weightlifter, recently wrote on her blog about hateful comments she gets on the internet. One such comment said: “Sarah Robles may be able to lift over 500 pounds, but she is neither attractive, nor feminine, or soft or sensual. It’s a shame to look like this, for a woman. Where is her unique, gorgeous femninity? [sic] Why do we want to be men? :( ” Robles, in response, wrote, “I will not ever apologize for the way I look, and I never expect anyone else to. […] If I have acne or small boobs, or big feet, or calloused hands, or smeared makeup, or messy hair, etc., that’s no one’s business but my own. What matters […] is that I did my best for the day.” In other words, there’s no one way of being a girl or a woman, because how you choose to express or reject your femininity depends entirely on you, and no one else.

At 14, I had a choice. I could reject society’s ideas of “femininity” and become the person I secretly wished I was: an athlete, tall, strong, and proud. Or I could give in to society’s ideals and embrace the toilet, trying to shrink myself into what people told me a “girl” was. I chose the toilet. I chose it because no one told me that being a girl didn’t mean being less.

Shaming girls for not being “feminine” enough is violence. Shaming girls out of doing what they love or trying what they want to is violence. If movement is joyful, practice it in every way you wish. Your strength is not a source of shame, nor is your size. They are a source of power. Your wish to dominate on the playing field is a gift, as is your desire to feel beautiful while doing so. Nothing about you is too much; you are exactly enough. All your dreams and desires, all that you are and wish to be, are all part of you, and you had better make room for them all in there!

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I was 18 the first time I swam. I took a step into a sectioned-off part of Calcutta’s biggest lake, and I was scared. Floundering in the murky water, weeds tangling in my feet, gawked at by a rabble of children and old men, I felt self-conscious and clumsy.

For some reason, I went back the next day and tried again, with the same result. I found a teacher. I kept trying. It took five days for me to finally swim on my own—awkwardly, gracelessly, my belly swollen with the water I had drunk, but I was swimming!

Would I ever become the Olympic swimmer I’d dreamed of becoming? Certainly not. Nevertheless, water transformed me. A body I’d felt shame in inhabiting became a source of pride. My swimmer’s legs, my tanned arms, and my endurance help me see my body as a beautiful, powerful instrument. I’d never thought I could wear a swimsuit in public, but once I was swimming, I no longer cared. The cellulite on my thighs was irrelevant compared with their tireless motion.

When you feel the power coursing through your legs while you run, a burst of pride when you cross the finish line first, the thrill of seeing new bands of muscle in your arms, or the speed with which you cut cleanly through water like a seal, that is you too, and it is wonderful and amazing. Your body is your instrument—and you get to use it to do whatever you want. Don’t diminish or reshape or neglect it for anyone else. Silence shamers by showing them what you’re capable of. Leave them all behind. What they tried to shame you for, take pride in. Your moment has arrived. ♦