I've seen a few stories of MtF's that have done bodybuilding/weightlifting with or without anabolic steroids. Enough that it seems it isn't that uncommon. I myself had done body building for a few years.

Why is this? These are my ideas, (please feel free to contribute your own. I don't know if I am right or not):

- They just simply like working out. Women can have muscles too!

- Body dysphoria. They are dissatisfied about their bodies but they can't initially pin point it on gender issues so they focus on changing their looks instead in hopes the dysphoia dissapears once they have an ideal male body.

- They know full well they have gender issues but don't understand that it's normal to feel the way they do so they instead reject their feelings of femininity and try to prove to themselves they are a "real man".

Subconsiously thats what happens pretty much...

I used to like sports , still do ...but its been a long time since Ive actually worked out , cause I know that if I do ill end up with huge muscles etc...

My story is that I just started lifting when I discovered I was MtF and had to transition. But for the first time in my life I had muscles! I was actually using testosterone to do something useful for a change. When I transitioned, I decided I had come too far to lose the muscle I've built, so I still lift.

From most of the stories that I've heard, it's a matter of overcompensation. They think that by becoming a man's man that their feelings of gender dysphoria will go away. That maybe if they fit the ideal of the social male role better, that male role will finally feel right to them.

I took weightlifting class when I was a teenager, I honestly can't say if that was an attempt at overcompensation or not. I actually enjoy fitness a bit and I never wanted to do actual bodybuilding not that bodybuilding is intrinsically male, women do it too, but it never really felt like my thing so I just did lots of light reps.

I would say the final option.  At least for me, one reason for my bodybuilding was a way to divert and ignore those feelings.  Of course, there was something wonderful about the bodybuilding culture, the dedication, comraderie, and seeing the physical transformation and mass acquisition...but for me it really was part a rouse, a way to get people off the scent and accept me as a man's man. 

Although I was on the smaller size for male bodybuilders (5'6", 175 lbs), even 10 years after the fact it's still hard to shed the muscle (even at a current 145 lbs); one problem I've encountered is I still have alot of muscle memory (mesomorph physique) - recently I spent several months relocating between cities, necessitating alot of packing/loading boxes, breaking down/reassembling furniture, etc, and seemingly out of nowhere the striations and vascularity was returning (friends who were seeing me off commented that I must have gotten back in the gym).  Yes, there are women (XX) bodybuilders - but their intrinsic bone structure is generally distinct from an XY individual, and so even if they're ripped to the gills - they still will generally have a different appearing physique. 

It's nice to see other (former) bodybuilders on this site.

(One other option I'll put forth - it was a socially acceptable way for me to swap eating disorders - from starvation bulimia to exercise bulimia...a 'man' spending two hours/day in the gym 'pumping iron and gettin' huge' was OK; a guy sitting in the corner, eating 750 calories/day is not.  Bodybuilding was a way to force me to eat, oftentimes incredible amounts of food and protein (usually 200-225 grams/day), but it eventually spiraled out of control...again, body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, highly competitive personality...yeah, not a good combination...in my starvation bulimia days I had internal, personal challenges to see if I could crack the sub500 calorie barrier, and for how many consecutive weeks).

Quote from: summer710 on February 05, 2014, 08:49:05 PM
I would say the final option.  At least for me, one reason for my bodybuilding was a way to divert and ignore those feelings.  Of course, there was something wonderful about the bodybuilding culture, the dedication, comraderie, and seeing the physical transformation and mass acquisition...but for me it really was part a rouse, a way to get people off the scent and accept me as a man's man. 

Although I was on the smaller size for male bodybuilders (5'6", 175 lbs), even 10 years after the fact it's still hard to shed the muscle (even at a current 145 lbs); one problem I've encountered is I still have alot of muscle memory (mesomorph physique) - recently I spent several months relocating between cities, necessitating alot of packing/loading boxes, breaking down/reassembling furniture, etc, and seemingly out of nowhere the striations and vascularity was returning (friends who were seeing me off commented that I must have gotten back in the gym).  Yes, there are women (XX) bodybuilders - but their intrinsic bone structure is generally distinct from an XY individual, and so even if they're ripped to the gills - they still will generally have a different appearing physique. 

It's nice to see other (former) bodybuilders on this site.

(One other option I'll put forth - it was a socially acceptable way for me to swap eating disorders - from starvation bulimia to exercise bulimia...a 'man' spending two hours/day in the gym 'pumping iron and gettin' huge' was OK; a guy sitting in the corner, eating 750 calories/day is not.  Bodybuilding was a way to force me to eat, oftentimes incredible amounts of food and protein (usually 200-225 grams/day), but it eventually spiraled out of control...again, body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, highly competitive personality...yeah, not a good combination...in my starvation bulimia days I had internal, personal challenges to see if I could crack the sub500 calorie barrier, and for how many consecutive weeks).

I'm just wondering How much did you weigh when you had problems with under eating?

I find that as I lose weight I'm becoming more and more ripped and my muscle hasn't decrease nearly as much as I thought it would. I've been eating a high nutrient diet of 1000 calories a day for a month and I thought my muscle would melt off by now but I haven't lost much muscle mass at all, just fat. I guess the male body fights to maintain muscle in times when food is scarce?

Lifting weights was the last attempt at being a man, so probably number 3 for me. I actually failed to gain a lot of muscle but it did give me something to guy-talk about.

It actually became one of my final meltdown triggers. I looked in the mirror and thought to myself 'why do I even want these muscles?' And then I realised I didn't and went on a diet trying to lose it.

For me it was a combination of my military service, i never knew if i would be using an M16, an lmg, a rifle or an AK type platform so i needed to be strong enough to carry any of them and possibly an injured brother, but i also got into MMA while in the military so lifting helped a lot with throws, pins and holds. At my biggest i weighed 225.at 5'9" and it was mostly muscle.

Now im just fat and lazy lol.

I've always focused more on endurance and calisthenics type stuff.

Here's my main workout, for several years. Helped me lose 100 pounds:

Use a 3+ floor staircase.

At the bottom, I hold a wall sit for 2 minutes (started out doing 30 sec).

Go to the top, whatever pace you want.

At the top, 10 pushups and 10 dips using the rails of the stairs (so it's not a full-weight pushup)

Go back down the stairs at whatever pace for the wall sit, and repeat all of this for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

I do not do "bodybuilding" in an extreme way, but a jogging once a week and workout with weights once or twice a week too, focused almost solely on legs, waist and surrounding area, for me its about helping shape my body in a more female way (I have/had really broad shoulders and slim legs), and frankly I think it's helping and I've gotten positive feedback from friends and SO so far after a few months. Can't wait to turn it up a notch next time I buy more weights and get that body better and better shaped, as the female body it is becoming .

Guilty as charged! I was an avid bodybuilder in my youth and then into late thirties.

What led me to be so entrapped by this, after all my TS was with me since birth?
IT was a mechanism of denial, that if I try hard enough and overcompensate, build a monster of a dude, I shall crush disphoric tendencies with brute force!
LOL, wishful thinking !!!

As I have become 227lbs lean mean muscle machine, I also became increasingly crushed by the reality of perception, that what I had done, didn't take dysphoria away and by then, my body was so masculine that to think I could transition my Avatar into a genuine woman was rather in the realm of impossibility

Ummm... I would venture that a lot of people here are bodybuilders currently, and into the future, too. They're just building a different type of body. The right one. Through different methods.

I have been seriously into weightlifting a few times in my life, but it was part of much broader effort to embrace hyper masculinity. I bought a Harley and got into really dangerous sports like hang gliding and rock climbing (I am actually afraid of heights, go figure). I don't know if I overtly thought that acting that way would make me more of a man, but I was clearly trying to run from my gender feelings.

I'd say it was option three, the attempt to be more masculine; to deny gender issues and femininity

The FtM's have a thread that covers the same concept

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,158944.0.html