Apologies for falling into the “he”, when I mean she. My mind was still holding the image of the guy across the table.
The worst make up job and outfit will make me look like a man in a dress. I often read a trans woman’s conception of womanhood, and it’s often so narrow-- so narrow, and so focused on appearance, grooming and, sometimes, helplessness, that it includes her, but it doesn’t include me.
I support transgender women being accepted as women. But in their zeal to be accepted, sometimes it feels like the way they want to include themselves excludes other women. Short hair, broad shoulders and narrow hips, square jaw, unpainted nails, unmadeup face: apparently, these are masculine attributes that the newly transitioned woman must get away from. She must get facial feminization surgery to get rid of that jaw, wear a corset to make her waist smaller, grow her hair, put on makeup, put on nail polish, because otherwise she’s a man. She must try to have men help her do physical tasks whenever possible. But I have short hair, broad shoulders and narrow hips, a square jaw, I don’t use makeup or nail polish or corsets, and I’ve mastered the ability to open a door by myself without help. So now, she’s a woman and I’m not? Yeah, thanks.
^^^This is one of the things I enjoyed about the Amazon Prime series Transparent. There was an assortment of transgender people with varying degrees of modification of their bodies, often none. It didn’t seem to matter to them.
"But in their zeal to be accepted, sometimes it feels like the way they want to include themselves excludes other women. Short hair, broad shoulders and narrow hips, square jaw, unpainted nails, unmadeup face: apparently, these are masculine attributes that the newly transitioned woman must get away from. She must get facial feminization surgery to get rid of that jaw, wear a corset to make her waist smaller, grow her hair, put on makeup, put on nail polish, because otherwise she’s a man. "
The way one particular person “does” herself up excludes other women? How? If I paint my nails or put on lip gloss because I enjoy doing so, that means that I am making a universal statement that all women had better paint their nails or put on lip gloss or else I am decreeing from on high they aren’t women and they should feel hurt and upset by that? Obviously not - so why would it be different if I were newly male-to-female versus being female from birth?
Can we all stop acting as though everyone’s personal actions are universal decrees as to how everyone should behave? I’m going to go ahead and keep painting my nails and putting on lip gloss because that’s what I prefer for me, and Cardinal Fang is going to do neither because that’s what she prefers for herself, and the world will continue to turn on its axis.
" I often read a trans woman’s conception of womanhood, and it’s often so narrow-- so narrow, and so focused on appearance, grooming and, sometimes, helplessness, that it includes her, but it doesn’t include me."
Her conception of womanhood doesn’t need to include you. It’s her own.
'But I have short hair, broad shoulders and narrow hips, a square jaw, I don’t use makeup or nail polish or corsets, and I’ve mastered the ability to open a door by myself without help. So now, she’s a woman and I’m not? Yeah, thanks."
Why would you feel less a woman for not using makeup / nail polish? Who tells you that? Or do you fear that? If you feel you don’t look feminine enough, that’s under your control.
If the point is that many women ascribe to the “standards of beauty,” then we all are guilty, at different times and in different ways. If someone born with a square jaw wishes to revise it, so be it.
I’m still trying to figure what Rumer Willis did. The Spanx industry went wild. I like one style of bra and my bff likes another. Cant we let people make these choices? (So long as it isn’t obsessive or driven for the wrong reasons?)
So let me get this straight. My conception of womanhood should include her, but her conception of womanhood doesn’t have to include me. I should welcome her into a sisterhood that excludes me.
That’s not going to work for me.
No, you may not appreciate her style, just as some of us don’t appreciate Kim’s.
I don’t really see why a statement about transgender is needed.
I can argue that the uber-glam (and the money and celebrity to achieve it and a VF cover) could mislead others into thinking they have to aim for that particular appearance. But really, all our idols risk leaving us feeling less perfect. Human nature. Bugs me too much how good Christie Brinkley looks.
But Caitlyn is just one person. The rest of us can define ourselves and our preferences as we wish. Anyone who overinterprets- well, it’s one thing to raise the question and another, to me, to call it an ideal ( or a fault) for all.
For all we know, so far, she hangs out in ripped jeans and a sweatshirt, when that’s her mood. Or waits a day too long to wash her hair, as we all have.
Pay attention here, Pizzagirl:
She must get facial feminization surgery to get rid of that jaw, wear a corset to make her waist smaller, grow her hair, put on makeup, put on nail polish, **because otherwise she’s a man. ** Not because she likes long hair, makeup and nail polish, but because otherwise she’s a man. Can you not see how exclusionary that is?
Cardinal Fang, that’s not her conception of womanhood, it’s society’s. And she isn’t claiming that all women (or all trans women) should have to look like her (or can look like her). Nor is she saying that “otherwise she’d be a man”; she’s saying that otherwise society would think she’s a man, and society would exclude her from womanhood. (Not that there aren’t many people who exclude her from womanhood nonetheless, and would criticize her just as mercilessly if she did nothing to conform to those standards – the Catch-22 I described earlier.) You can’t say that she’s being exclusionary in simply doing what she can (because of her financial resources) to conform to societal standards of conventional femininity. Even if she personally identifies with those standards – like millions of non-trans women. Don’t expect the tiny percentage of the population comprising trans woman to bear the burden for changing those standards, especially since being “visibly trans” increases the already-great chance of suffering everything from being ridiculed in the street, to employment and housing discrimination, to assumptions by the police that any visible trans woman walking in certain neighborhoods at night must be a prostitute, to universal rejection by potential romantic partners, to physical violence and murder. TL; DR: it’s really not about you.
I don’t recall that Caitlyn Jenner has said that all women or all trans women need to have long hair, wear makeup, nail polish, etc. Is there someone else who has made you feel “not a woman” for not doing those things?
Why are you making what someone else does about you? I don’t get it.
God, CF, anything that is the least bit “girly” seems to really upset you. Why?
CF- I am with you in that Caitlyn’s vision of femininity isn’t mine and I can’t relate to it. But I can see that this is what SHE feels she needs to do to conform with her vision of who she is inside. It’s really only her, and I think that part of the problem is that we don’t really have the language or experience as a culture to capture all these subtleties, so it comes out as simply her becoming a woman. I think if we make a little more progress in this regard, and accept that womanhood and femininity isn’t one size fits all, it won’t be exclusionary.
Also, I do think that most transgender women will likely have a very different idea of womanhood than I do. I can’t imagine the motivation to change sexes, since its just never been that big a thing in my life, regardless of how I was born. I don’t think it’s just that I don’t realize it because I match. I think for some people they are just not as driven to match certain ideas of gender. People really seem to have a hard time not generalizing and accepting differences.
“So let me get this straight. My conception of womanhood should include her, but her conception of womanhood doesn’t have to include me. I should welcome her into a sisterhood that excludes me.”
Because a woman, who at age 65 finally has the chance to put on makeup and style her hair in a traditionally feminine manner chooses to do so, she has excluded you from the sisterhood that she just joined?
I think these messages that you’re not feminine enough come from other people in your life, not Caitlyn Jenner, who I am assuming does not call you to inquire whether you’re wearing Clinique Black Honey on your lips or Opi Ballet Sluppers on your hands.
I’ve not seen articles about women transitioning that give any other conception of femininity than the narrow screen goddess conception. What is it that newly transitioned women are embracing in their feminine selves? All we see is makeup and high heels. What else does being a woman mean to newly transitioned women, other than nail polish and long hair? Maybe it’s just that the media is doing a terrible job of explaining.
I mean, OK, I get it that the newly transitioned woman now embraces the opportunity to flaunt traditional cultural signifiers of femininity that she was previously unable to flaunt. But surely there must be something more to being a woman than that, and we never hear about it.
What else can / should they do? Bake cookies and dust? How stereotypical. Bear children? Well, that’s not possible. Take on women’s causes?
I presume trans women just want to go ahead and live their everyday lives, go to work, feed the dog, be with family and friends. They aren’t obligated to be or bear the standard for womanhood any more than I do.
I think what really bothers you is that it’s bothersome that a lot of trans women appear to enjoy the stereotypical makeup/ nail polish/dress and it makes you uneasy that you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t. Seems like you are a lot more bothered by others doing “girly” things than others are by you not doing girly things.
Do cis-women even know what that “something” is? I’m confused as to what kind of explanation is desired from transgendered women? What do they need to proclaim they understand about being a woman?
My question is, what else do they want to do? What’s the rest of their conception of femininity, other than makeup and high heels? Maybe it’s just ineffable: they just know they’re women, and there are no words to describe this.
"What is it that newly transitioned women are embracing in their feminine selves? All we see is makeup and high heels. "
A lot of women find looking attractive to be pleasurable/enjoyable, CF.
I did a 5k this morning. I came home, I showered, threw on a casual top and pants and am running errands now. I have no makeup on. That doesn’t mean I don’t like how I look. I look very natural right now, but I still feel if I ran into someone, I have the “raw material” that I am reasonably attractive. Don’t you feel that way about yourself?