Wally's Encyclopedia of Trans* Fitness- Landing Page
DISCLAIMER: If you didn't come here from the main site, the disclaimer there applies here too. I am not a doctor, an endocrinologist, a kinesiologist, or a physiotherapist. I'm a guy with a two year college diploma, some standardized certifications, and a dream.
Anything you read or watch here is not intended to be a substitute for individualized professional advice. Any individualized professional advice I give to anyone who hires my services will remain strictly within my professional scope of practice as a personal trainer.
Click here for the main page to learn more about the story of this site/about me.
Enter here or read on to learn more.
***WARNING: if you are cis, clicking the link above may trans your gender. I am not responsible for this.
More About This Part of the Site
It's been a longtime ambition of mine to make a practical fitness resource for trans* people; one that isn't centered around selling services, and which doesn't put the most valuable information behind paywalls.
Trying to educate yourself about fitness stuff can be extra hard when you're trans, because you're probably concerned with a lot of extra factors most cis people would never think of. On top of this, there is a general shortage of data/research. Even a lot of the anecdotal information to be found is poor for what it is.
This site aims to provide you with a concise, no-nonsense starting point/frame of reference for your own personal research. You will find everything from “Fitness 101” type material, to more specified advice relating to common goals people in our community tend to have, as well as information/ insight on how to work with/around things such as the effects of HRT and surgical rehab.
I've done my best to source everything accurately, and provide insight when I feel the sources are dubious. When the information presented is anecdotal/I am working off of minimal data, I will be honest about that. And once again, I'll beat the point over the head that I'm just a fitness professional, not a doctor, and this site is a personal project, not a professional one.
It is not within my ability or resources to personally improve the amount of research that trans health/fitness gets; what I can do is use my knowledge to organize what useful information exists as best I can. It is the reader’s responsibility to apply their own best judgment accordingly.
On Content Warnings, Language, Etc
ON CONTENT WARNINGS Due to the nature of the material this site deals with, it would be patronizing and redundant to add content warnings when sections are clearly labelled. Every link that goes from one part of the site to another will also be clearly labelled, so there should be no surprises.
ON LANGUAGE I talk to my trans audience the way we talk to each other in real life. In any context, I don’t use the prefixes “trans” or “cis” (e.g. trans man or cis woman) unless the distinction is necessary. In the articles aimed at trans people, it is generally assumed that the reader is trans. As in, it just goes without saying that a woman is someone who was assigned male or intersex at birth; a man is someone who was assigned female or intersex at birth, and that nonbinary people are also being taken into consideration. The terms “sex” and “gender” are never used interchangeably. (I know, sensitivity training 101 up in here). If I say “sex”, I’m talking about physiology. For someone who is medically transitioned, this won’t be entirely in line with what they were assigned at birth, and will likely be a bit of a mixed bag that is specific to the individual. (Medical transition alters a lot of physiological characteristics that are relevant to fitness; for instance muscle and bone mass.) On the main site, there are no assumptions made as to if the reader is trans or cis. Statements along the lines of "most women prefer X thing; most men prefer Y thing" are not made under the presumption that trans* people are outliers by default. On the main site or here, use of terms like “male” and “female” when discussing things like specific metabolic calculations; standard terms for equipment typically marketed as such; and so on, are not intended to misgender anyone by implication. I simply believe it is unnecessary to infantilize my readership with a laundry list of disclaimers every time something like this needs to be covered.
MY PHILOSOPHY When I was younger, I’d search the internet for trans- specific fitness content, and couldn’t find much. Most of the advice was so unscientific and poorly conceived that even I, a complete gym newbie, could tell. And to make things worse, it was presented in a way that was either hugbox-y to the point of rendering itself worse than useless, or “brutally honest” to the point where it was obvious the creator had totally lost the reigns of their own insecurities. (I don’t think I need to name names- if you were around then, you know.) I don’t want to do either of those things. The main thing that initially drew me to this occupation was a genuine passion for empowering people with practical working knowledge and strategies to be able to improve their lives through fitness- whatever that looks like for them. For most of us, while fitness can be an invaluable method of finally developing a positive relationship with your body, it also can mean confronting your dysphoria very directly. As such, I have been very careful how I've written this content. When creating material for this site, I have put a lot of effort into using language that is accurate, concise, sensitive, and respectful. In addition, I have done things such as separating sections on nutritional advice from fitness advice, so as to allow you to pick and choose exactly what you want to read about. The thing is, in order to give safe, professional tier fitness advice, it is necessary to discuss aspects of human physiology, including secondary sex characteristics. I have seen numerous individual trainers and collectives attempt to avoid this, and the results are invariably bad. As someone who came of age in the queer world in the early 2010s, I can speak to how toxic “hugboxing” can be. In the interest of doing right by my readership and clients, I am always going to present this information in a way that respects the intelligence and maturity of the reader. In addition, I make my best effort to use language that is resistant to semantic change. In short, I have done everything possible, as a trans man myself, to make the way I cover these subjects as utilitarian and generally painless as possible. But ultimately, this website is meant to be an educational resource, and not a clinical environment of any kind. It is up to the reader to decide if they are in a good place to engage with this content.
