Reclaim
Pride on the Page Day #11
Each of the mini-essays I’m publishing for the month of June are part of a creative challenge to share joy during Pride. You can find out more in the link below. You can even participate, if you’d like!
Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay
11. Reclaim
There is nothing in all the world to level the playing field of masculine bodies like going to an indoor waterpark with two-hundred other barefoot dads chasing their kids around the edge of the wave pool and threatening to deprive them of ice cream if they don’t wear their water wings. And there I stood, my body recently morphed like a transformers toy from the 80s, scars emblazoned across my chest, the tiniest of chin scruffs beginning to grow, and a pot belly I couldn’t suck in if my life depended on it.
My conditioning had told me to feel shame about the shape of myself, to take up less space, to feel guilty about eating another slice of pizza when I’m shaped the way I am. Was it outrageous, then, that I would expect that feeling to follow me into manhood, into fatherhood, into these indelible vacation moments we crave and then shy away from because our bodies aren’t right for the occasion?
But there, in the midst of squeals of delight from the Howlin’ Tornado slide and giggles from the bucket dropping water all over those of standing us in line, I began to notice that dad bodies come in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes and forms. Mine was just one among many. I wasn’t the shortest dad. I wasn’t the fattest. I wasn’t the palest. I wasn’t the coolest (please feel free to debate me here).
I was just a dad with dad-bod, a guy spending time with his family, a dude in wet swim shorts waiting in line for the next epic slide.
Your trans friend,
Robin
Love this and all the dad bodies just doing what they do
Robin—this speaks so clearly. I know the weight of those old voices telling us to shrink, to apologize for the space our body takes. For me, it began long before I could name it—layer upon layer of conditioning shaping how I stood, moved, even breathed.
Reading your scene here—a dad simply present in the moment, with family, with joy—it lands as a small act of everyday reclaiming. No explanations, no performance. Just being.
That is no small thing. Thank you for reminding us all: our presence matters, exactly as we are.