Gabbi looks seductively into the camera, she wears nothing on her body but a bra and a skirt. She has tied her blonde hair back so that she can see her tattooed upper arm. Gabbi might be a pretty common fitness model as seen a million times on Instagram, but the snapshot is part of a before-and-after picture that reveals her story: She was once a man. Really muscular man. Gabbi Tuft was previously active as a wrestler in World-Wrestling-Entertainment (WWE) and known under the ring name Tyler Reks.
The before-and-after picture is the result of a year-long process at the beginning of which Gabbi Tuft publicly came out as transgender, that was in February of this year, after which she began hormone therapy. In the eleven months since coming out, she has succumbed to the ideal of female beauty, but maybe that fits in with the otherwise brutal wrestling scene? Even if she still quarrels with trans women in her own ranks.
Every step on her way – including a breast operation, the painful whisker removal and the loss of more than forty kilos of muscle mass – Tuft documents on her Instagram channel. The comparative photo also reveals a glimpse into her past, where physical strength and extreme muscle mass were part of her self-image. Or as she describes it in one of her posts: As a teenager, she was bullied at school all the time until she discovered bodybuilding for herself. Physical strength and a terrifying muscular appearance served as a self-defense strategy. With the beginning of the transition, Gabbi Tuft exposed her self to vulnerability in a double sense: by breaking down the muscle armor and by revealing her feminine self.
Motherfuckers im Gym
This courageous step seems all the more astonishing because Tuft has so far been moving in a hyper masculine world. After the end of her wrestling career, she drove motorcycle races. And the world of wrestling and bodybuilding with apparently superhuman muscular and strong bodies does not look like the ideal place for a trans outing and the associated vulnerability. Commentator and podcaster Renee Paquette then pointed out the still dominant culture of toxic masculinity, especially behind the scenes of the wrestling world, in the context of the outing.
On the one hand, it seems logical that here, where muscle men (but also women) beat each other with objects, no increased sensitivity in questions of gender identity is to be expected. On the other hand, in wrestling there is undoubtedly an aesthetic with regard to the male body that undermines heterosexual standards and norms. Many (but by no means all) male wrestlers carry enormous muscle masses with them. But otherwise they break with the typical hetero-aesthetic: Oiled, shaved and tanned men’s bodies show up in tight panties, you swing your long, oiled hair. Wrestling legend Shawn Michaels staged himself as the “boytoy” of the excited ladies and “Bromances” are part of the standard narrative pattern of storylines, that is, the staged stories in wrestling.
Even women’s bodies in wrestling always subvert the norms that are brought to them, as they prove in the ring that they are by no means as delicate and vulnerable as generally assumed. Japanese women’s wrestling, of all things, is considered particularly tough, although the racist stereotype of supposedly submissive Asian femininity is added to the gender stereotype about female gentleness. In women’s wrestling too, bodybuilding gained in importance since the late 1980s – as with men. In the 1990s, the US bodybuilder Chyna, heralded as the “ninth wonder of the world”, was the best-known embodiment of a new type of female wrestler whose muscle mass could compete with men. Under the public eye, Chyna went through a transition from a tough fighter who was confronted with the usual insults that she did not look female or “like a man” to a woman who more and more bowed to expectations of femininity – also with the help of numerous surgical interventions.
Wavy, silky hair, glued-on eyelashes, made nails and implants should secure acceptance as – albeit muscular – woman in the ring. Not only in the case of Chynas does the break with the standard image of femininity have to be bought at the cost of over-fulfilling the norms of femininity. Other female wrestlers also amaze on Instagram and in the ring with astonishingly elaborate make-up and sexy outfits.
Gabbi Tuft is now working hard to get rid of her muscle mass. As far as her appearance is concerned, she, too, in a certain sense surpasses the norms of femininity. She also uses the problematic, Instagram-typical image programs that stage women as objects of a “male gaze” – often photographed from above, with a duckface, a clear view of the section or the whole body. Tuft’s body should be read as feminine, and that seems to include portraying it as receptive and available.
Tuft now serves an aesthetic that is very typical for female wrestlers, but also for fitness models: a rather oversexualized representation of one’s own body, which is literally put in the right light and optimized. Here the double-edged sword of the demands on femininity reveals itself in particular: Because trans women may feel a particularly strong pressure to do justice to these images of femininity, also at the expense of the curtailment of the idea of what can be considered feminine far away from clichés.
The transition process also appears as an exercise in female communication strategies, both on the level of the image and on the level of language. Here, too, the before-and-after contrast between Gabbi and Tyler couldn’t be greater: More than a year ago, Tyler Reks asked his Instagram followers: “Mother fuckers. Who’s hitting the gym today ???? “, Gabbi tells today in long emotional posts about the challenges of transition, about self-love and love for her family. In this respect, too, she fulfills the gender norms, which only proves that a trans person can, wants or has to wear the role corset, which means femininity or masculinity.
The devil wears bodysuits
Trans man Thomas Page McBee also talks about this in his book Amateur. As an amateur boxer, of all things, McBee wants to get into the ring at the end of his transition process – it couldn’t be more masculine. But even beforehand he notices how he is adapting certain norms of masculinity without questioning: for example, when he interrupts women or acts as the defender and savior of his girlfriend. McBee understands that dealing with gender performance, with actively living out one’s role as a man, is part of the process of becoming a man. That is Gabbi Tuft, in reverse, possibly yet to come.
In any case, what Judith Butler said in The discomfort of the sexes with a view to Simone de Beauvoir’s famous sentence, according to which one is not simply a woman, but becomes a woman, writes: “If gender identity is something you will – but never can be – gender identity itself is a kind of becoming or an activity that should not be seen as a substance or as a substantial thing or as a static cultural marker, but rather as a kind of ceaselessly repeated act. ”Gabbi Tuft also reveals an astonishing continuity from her time as a bodybuilder and wrestler to the present: working on the body appears as Desideratum to stabilize an insecure self, or in other words: A stable self-image requires hard work on the body. This is a common practice in the world of Instagram, and not just for trans people. Instagrammers sell self-love and acceptance of the self in countless postings as the result of body-based work, also with the support of scented candles, hip shapers or other gadgets that promise “self care” in the form of goods. Not only Gabbi Tuft has gone through an amazing process of change so far, but also her Instagram followers. Your outing was commented on with hatred and malice by countless people there. One follower even read her transition as proof that Satan had returned to earth. Meanwhile, however, each of her contributions is accompanied by countless expressions of joy, love and pride. Your new followers don’t want to see a muscle-bound, tough guy, but rather comment on Gabbi’s message of self-love with just as much love. Followers also repeatedly address their own path of self-discovery.
While Tuft meets the standards of social media and positive transition narratives, how does the wrestling world itself react to its outing? You practically don’t read comments from other active wrestlers. Although the wrestling business has seen some outings from gay wrestlers, no trans person has yet been signed. Can you imagine a trans woman in the ring? After all, the frequently put forward argument that trans women have competitive advantages over cis women would be obsolete from the outset. Wrestling knows fights of men against women, of lightweights against heavyweights. Wrestling has always shaped the myth that it is not the body alone that makes the difference between victory and defeat – only an iron will.
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