In 2023, Valerie Barone stood before a full-length mirror, engaging in what had become a tearful ritual of self-scrutiny. This time, however, something was different. She noticed cellulite, dappled along the backs of her thighs, for the very first time. The tears began to flow, as they often did, but these were not tears of horror or shame. They were tears of pure, unadulterated happiness.
A Moment of Catharsis and Connection
Two years prior, in February 2021, Valerie had come out as transgender at the age of 30. Since starting Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) in June of that year, she had been on an emotional rollercoaster, striving to reconcile her outer appearance with her inner sense of self. The sight of cellulite was a moment of sheer catharsis. "I finally felt at home in my body," she recalls.
Valerie was acutely aware of the pervasive societal messages sold to women and girls: that cellulite is unattractive, undesirable, and something to be eliminated. Yet, standing before the mirror, she felt none of the shame women are often taught to feel. Instead, she was overjoyed and proud to be experiencing something so common among women. In short, she felt gender euphoria.
A Complicated History with Body Image
This moment of joy was hard-won. Valerie's relationship with her body has always been complex. As a child, she struggled with comfort eating and issues with weight. The mirror was her great enemy, a tool for self-punishment over imagined inadequacies. This is an experience she shares with countless women, with one crucial difference: Valerie first spent years of her life perceived by the world as a man.
She describes a lifelong sense of dissonance between how she was perceived and how she perceived herself. Puberty only widened this gulf. "With each change I experienced – every new hair, every inch my shoulders grew – the distance between the burgeoning woman I felt myself to be and the reality of my reflection widened," she explains. Looking in the mirror felt like staring at a stranger.
The Long Road to Self-Recognition
For years, gender dysphoria manifested as a nebulous feeling of absence. Without exposure to trans narratives, Valerie lacked the language to describe the painful sense that something was missing. She felt profoundly disconnected from herself, struggling to understand the social expectations placed on boys and men. When strangers called her 'Sir', she would wonder who they were addressing. This disconnect led to decades of persistent depression and a feeling of passive observation in her own life.
Even after coming out, her relationship with her reflection grew more complicated. Transitioning introduced the impossible standards of feminine beauty levied upon women. She spent countless hours cataloguing how her body failed to meet these ideals: she was 'too fat', 'too broad', 'too masculine'. This left her emotionally exhausted and hopeless, ironically mirroring a common experience of womanhood she had yet to fully embrace.
The Slow, Transformative Power of HRT
HRT began its work slowly, changing Valerie's body in myriad ways over the following years. There was a redistribution of body fat, a softening of her features, and a thickening of her hair. These changes were too gradual to notice day-to-day, and the daily battle with her reflection continued. It was years into her treatment, during one of these routine self-examinations, that she first noticed the cellulite rippling down her thighs and cried with joy.
"I’d spent my life in a prison; now here I was, crying with joy over something many women have been taught to hate about themselves," she reflects. To Valerie, the cellulite was not an omen of undesirability. It was tangible evidence that she was moving closer to a body she could finally call home.
Finding Beauty in the Trans Experience
In that pivotal moment, Valerie recognised the unique beauty in her experience as a trans person. While she lost the ease of navigating the world as the gender assigned at birth, she gained immeasurably more. She was afforded the profound chance to know herself intimately and to become who she always was. She could experience the feeling of watching her body slowly transform into something that no longer caused her pain to see.
She may not have always known when she was suffering from gender dysphoria, but she certainly knew when she found relief from it. "It was like I’d cast off a weight, and in place of that weight was gender euphoria. A storm of butterflies in my stomach. A smile that nearly broke my jaw. Happiness. Bliss. Relief," she describes.
A Lasting Perspective on Womanhood
Now, two and a half years later, Valerie acknowledges that her gender dysphoria is not 'cured'. Anyone who has lived with body dysmorphia understands that self-image can fluctuate daily. However, her perspective has been irrevocably changed.
She has heard from cisgender women, both online and in person, that knowing and loving trans women has given them new perspectives on their own womanhood. It has helped them find new ways to appreciate its joys and divorce themselves from the insecurities packaged and sold to them. Valerie's hope is that by sharing her joy and her hard-won freedom, others might experience a similar shift.
"Perhaps the next time you look in the mirror and see the cellulite on your thighs, you’ll remember my story and the elation I felt," she says. Her hope is that others can learn to see it not as a burden, but as a bounty—a beautiful, unapologetic reflection of womanhood staring back at them.
