Kate Gies teaches at George Brown College. She likes the colour pink, and has three beautiful cats. She was born without a right ear; she is deaf on that side. It was this last biographical fact that swallowed up all the others — that consumed her life for many years, thanks to a medical establishment (and society at large) obsessed with “fixing” her physical difference with multiple gruelling surgeries from ages four to 13.
Gies, now 46, has documented her lifelong quest for body acceptance in the new book “It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body,” which unflinchingly examines traumatic encounters with cruel bullies and rude doctors, the toll shame has taken and Gies’s emergence into a new era of self-acceptance.
One of the most striking aspects of this book is the fact that you are never asked if you actually want a new ear, despite the many risks. What if you didn’t want a new ear?
What feels sad for me is not being given the opportunity to participate in the meaning of my body. Kids are unfettered by societal norms and contain a purity that adults assume is naivety. A child does not have the same fears and insecurities about different bodies. They have a much better sense and imagination about what a human being can be, and what a body can be.
How has the titular theme of “it must be beautiful to be finished” manifested throughout your life and in this book?
One example that I touch on briefly in the book is how my relationship with my body affected my romantic partnerships. I was well into my adulthood before I could say, “I was born missing an ear” without dissolving into shame. Not only did I feel ugly, I felt unworthy of being called human. My sense of self hinged on this missing piece of my anatomy.
High school was a nightmarish game of figuring out who knew about the ear and who didn’t. And I was convinced that if anyone ever knew “what I really was,” I’d never find love. I could not reconcile the idea of having a missing ear with being sexy or beautiful or loved. This idea echoed in subsequent relationships, leading me to make some pretty questionable choices in partners.
Your line “I do not want to live in this body anymore” rings true for many of us. Why is it important for you to speak openly about this tension?
My body has never felt like a safe place. I’ve never fully trusted my body and thus have felt the need to constantly monitor and discipline it. This relationship dynamic was set up from a very early age. Something was “wrong” with my body. And every surgery that failed was because my body was unruly.
Writing the book allowed me to rewrite the story of my body and build a new, more loving, relationship with it — a compassion, instead of a fear or frustration. I learned to take the “problem” of my body out of my flesh and bones, and point it back to a medical system and society that insisted on well-intentioned violence to assuage its own fears and conceptions of what a body should be.
What is behind the medical industry’s — and society’s — obsession with homogeneity, and making everyone look the same?
It comes down to fear. People are terrified by the idea they don’t have full control over their bodies, that bodies are vulnerable vehicles. I believe the strive for “normalcy” is a way of subjugating this fear.
There’s a doctor I write about who took it upon himself to tell me how asymmetrical my face was, and how I needed surgeries to fix it. I was 13, and I was at the hospital for a post-operative checkup on the ear. I was devastated by his words and they stayed with me for many years. What kind of person decides to spontaneously tell a young teenage girl that she needs her face fixed? It’s bonkers.
How can people be more compassionate about folks with physical differences?
Recognize that any feelings you may be having when encountering a different body are about you and your own fears and conceptions of what a body “should” be. Instead of othering a body, work on your own biases and fears. Don’t make it someone else’s problem.
Also, remember that having a physical difference does not make our bodies public property. Many of us have experienced different forms of abuse related to our appearances, whether it be verbal, physical or institutional. Prolonged staring is a form of abuse. Approaching us to ask questions about our bodies can also be a form of abuse. There is no truly respectful way to ask a stranger about their body.
How is our society enriched by embracing body difference?
My missing ear, my scars, made me feel less than human for many years, but I’ve come to learn that vulnerability and variability is the very essence of humanness. This is what ultimately connects us to each other.
The one thing all humans on this planet have in common is a having a body. The multiplicity of how bodies are expressed allows us to dream big about what it means to be human. Turning those with different bodies into the abject other instead of embracing the beauty, messiness and complexity of human expression is short-sighted and, frankly, dangerous.
Everybody suffers when marginalized bodies are oppressed. When we try to erase difference, we all lose. “Different bodies” elevate the human experience, breaking open the collective potential for us all.
