At 13 my daughter’s body had blossomed into something truly beautiful. She was perfectly proportioned, with lovely breasts and emerging curves that gave her body a classically balanced profile aligned to our western culture’s standard definition of an attractive female.

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For reasons that are still not clear to me, at 19 she suddenly began the nightmare of disowning her own body. It started with binding, and then testosterone, and now at 23, her determination to get a double mastectomy. Looking back at those years before the nightmare began, I now realize I should have taken a path completely opposite than the one I did. I should have turned her into a fighter.

I should have given her the mission of protecting her sacred body. I would have told her that men, women, and even well-meaning people, even some so-called professionals and medical providers, might want to tamper with her body — some would want to touch it, and some would try to touch it without her permission. Some would ogle it, stare at it, some might try to penetrate it without her permission. Some would obsess about it, and others would try to convince her to alter its essential integrity with drugs, chemicals, hormones and removal of healthy body parts. I would have told her not to let anyone touch or tamper with her beautiful body without her permission.