The Mirror Lies: Body Image Struggles in the Queer Community

The relentless pursuit of an ideal that feels just out of reach

A colleague told me about a cracked mirror at his gym. A jagged line splitting every reflection into mismatched halves. Someone had traced the crack with their finger, then laughed bitterly: "At least this one's honest about the distortion."

That image lingers in my imagination. It captures something I’ve been trying to articulate about how we see ourselves in queer spaces. Not because we’re broken, but because we’re looking at ourselves through glass never meant to reflect us accurately. Glass warped by exclusion, cracked by pressure to be both invisible and hypervisible, distorted by algorithms that profit from insecurity.

I remember the first time I truly saw my own distortion. Twenty-three, in a department store dressing room, trying on clothes for my first real job. Under those fluorescent lights, I didn’t just see my body; I saw my core. Every way it had learned to apologize for itself. Shoulders curved inward. Chest carefully unexpanded. A stance that whispered "don’t notice me" …