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originally posted by: windword
Maybe. I hope so. I hope that it doesn't backfire and have the opposite effect, setting trans individuals up to be judged on an unrealistic standard of appearances, and not the quality of their character.
Sorry for Semi-ranting in your rant
I'm just wanting you to understand that you only see half of the transgender people out there. The rest, you never actually "see". Correcting the hormones and undoing the effects of testosterone can have dramatic results in a person and it doesn't take massive amounts of wealth to get that far. In short, her looks are hardly "unrealistic" for many transwomen.
Let’s be clear. Caitlyn Jenner is not your average trans person. Her lifestyle is so rarefied very few could realistically aspire to it. She has money for surgery. The majority of transgender people – who face such hideous discrimination in the job market, not to mention social and familial rejection – do not.
Many trans people are forced into sex work in order to pay for the medical aspects of gender transition, and often this puts them at risk of drug abuse and physical harm. I’ve been there myself. I live in Britain, where transgender people are entitled to surgery and psychotherapy on the NHS – but even here we have to pay for things such as laser hair removal, seen as a “cosmetic” luxury by the NHS, but essential for any trans woman cursed with thick stubble. In the US, health insurance varies from state to state, leaving some transgender Americans covered, others to fend for themselves.
www.theguardian.com...
Transgender people, on a daily basis, are trying to negotiate survival, not their hair and nails. Caitlyn Jenner is probably in a room with a hundred dresses, right now, trying to decide which one to wear when she accepts her "Arthur Ashe Courage Award"!
Maybe we should conduct a search for a transgendered woman who is not famous or wealthy or girly, wearing a corduroy jumper with sensible shoes
:-)
I'm sure any one of them will tell you that their struggle to find themselves had very little to do with glamour.
There's more than one way to approach this - I think it does a disservice to women everywhere - LGBT or otherwise - when we attempt to decide who's life is more valid
Our costumes are not the point
Beyond misgendering Jenner, the AP's fixation on her "cleavage" and "va-va-voom" fashion reinforces a widespread problem with media coverage of transgender people: a voyeuristic fixation on their bodies and appearances. That kind of coverage is degrading and objectifying and treats transgender people as either spectacles or sexualized objects. It adds nothing of substance to news reports while reinforcing the idea that how transgender people look is an acceptable topic for public comment.
--Media Matters
"I've felt frustrated and useless and overwhelmed by opinions on transgender women and how we're 'supposed' to look if we want to be taken seriously," Frasier wrote. "But not all of us adhere to those standards. Not all of us want to. Not all of us can. Some of us do, but only out of fear. Some of us do but we aren't sure why. And whether we fit those standards or not, we're beautiful, and we all deserve to feel beautiful, and be acknowledged by the world."