the sun beginning to rise
Dec. 6th, 2007 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaThis is a criticism i hear a lot: that most gallae are hyper-focused on skirts, makeup, high-heels, Barbie dolls, and lipstick.
But considering the way we are portrayed in the media, why should anyone believe otherwise? This, from an article about a shelter that provides a place to sleep for the prostituted homeless gallae of New York City:
This is the way we can expect to be portrayed in the media even when we resist it. Even when we've shown up to talk about serious issues like HIV, rape, discrimination, or domestic violence, we're asked to pose for the camera in front of a mirror with a makeup brush.
Of course they can't get away with treating "real" women in such blatantly misogynistic and dismissive ways anymore (they used to, of course). But, since we gallae aren't "real" women, all we have is our artifice and pretense to convince people otherwise. Right? So, certainly we spend every minute of every day thinking about lipstick and high heels.
I've even at times felt myself bristle a little when i hear another galla squee that someone held open the door for her or called her "ma'am," but this is because of my own internalized misogyny and transphobia.
Serano calls it "traditional sexism," the idea that anyone feminine is fake, frivolous, and shallow. In the GLBT community it's not only gallae who are seen this way; it's also said about "nelly" gay men and "femme" lesbians. The derogation of these people within the GLBT community is just a reflection of the larger social dismissive and hostile attitude towards anyone who displays feminine traits.
What i do outwardly, in the process of my transition, might look to the casual observer like an obsession with the outer trappings of femininity. I had to buy a lot of women's clothing; i wear makeup; i've had most of my facial hair removed; i may yet go on hormones to feminize my body chemistry and body shape; i may someday have surgery.
But if what i seek seems to you to be a retreat into something artificial, frivolous, and purely socially-defined, then you don't really understand what this means to me. Because it is not those outward trappings that mean anything to me - or to the other gallae who talk about such things.
It is about being able to look in the mirror and, instead of seeing some strange guy looking back at me, i see finally my own reflection. When i look at myself, finally what i see makes sense to me and feels right.
And none of that has fundamentally anything to do with lipstick or heels, per se. Hell, i don't even wear lipstick or heels.
I'm not a rebel. I'm not a sexual fetishist. I'm someone trying to be me.
It took me a long time to get here. Not just the expense and the pain, i mean i started out buried under a mountain of denial so heavy i didn't even have words for what i am or what i feel. A hand had been put over my mouth at a very young age, by my parents, by my church, by my friends, by my teachers, by my politicians, by the leaders of my community; and in the absence of my own words, words were written in my mind to replace them.
But underneath all that, at a place in my subconscious, i still saw myself as female. I pretended to be female when i played, as my sister can attest. I am female in my dreams and in my mystical visions. I don't expect to see a man when i look in the mirror.
Any time these thoughts started to creep up into the realm of words and concepts, there were a million ways for me to shoot them down and retract them. I am still, even today, learning how to give voice to my own authentic words, how to tell them apart from the words written in my mind by other people.
And so, when you look at me you see someone artificial, fake, maybe even monstrous, fussing over makeup and hair. I see... something like the sun finally beginning to rise.
But considering the way we are portrayed in the media, why should anyone believe otherwise? This, from an article about a shelter that provides a place to sleep for the prostituted homeless gallae of New York City:
Every Sunday morning in a second-floor apartment in Astoria, Queens, the Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. rouses a half-dozen sleeping bodies from bunk beds in two cramped rooms littered with stiletto heels and skimpy dresses.
The groggy young adults reach for their makeup kits and fight for the lone bathroom. Once their makeup, hair and clothes are just right, they trudge into the living room, holding handbags and teetering on high heels, and sit facing an altar set up by Father Braxton.
This is the way we can expect to be portrayed in the media even when we resist it. Even when we've shown up to talk about serious issues like HIV, rape, discrimination, or domestic violence, we're asked to pose for the camera in front of a mirror with a makeup brush.
Of course they can't get away with treating "real" women in such blatantly misogynistic and dismissive ways anymore (they used to, of course). But, since we gallae aren't "real" women, all we have is our artifice and pretense to convince people otherwise. Right? So, certainly we spend every minute of every day thinking about lipstick and high heels.
I've even at times felt myself bristle a little when i hear another galla squee that someone held open the door for her or called her "ma'am," but this is because of my own internalized misogyny and transphobia.
Serano calls it "traditional sexism," the idea that anyone feminine is fake, frivolous, and shallow. In the GLBT community it's not only gallae who are seen this way; it's also said about "nelly" gay men and "femme" lesbians. The derogation of these people within the GLBT community is just a reflection of the larger social dismissive and hostile attitude towards anyone who displays feminine traits.
What i do outwardly, in the process of my transition, might look to the casual observer like an obsession with the outer trappings of femininity. I had to buy a lot of women's clothing; i wear makeup; i've had most of my facial hair removed; i may yet go on hormones to feminize my body chemistry and body shape; i may someday have surgery.
But if what i seek seems to you to be a retreat into something artificial, frivolous, and purely socially-defined, then you don't really understand what this means to me. Because it is not those outward trappings that mean anything to me - or to the other gallae who talk about such things.
It is about being able to look in the mirror and, instead of seeing some strange guy looking back at me, i see finally my own reflection. When i look at myself, finally what i see makes sense to me and feels right.
And none of that has fundamentally anything to do with lipstick or heels, per se. Hell, i don't even wear lipstick or heels.
I'm not a rebel. I'm not a sexual fetishist. I'm someone trying to be me.
It took me a long time to get here. Not just the expense and the pain, i mean i started out buried under a mountain of denial so heavy i didn't even have words for what i am or what i feel. A hand had been put over my mouth at a very young age, by my parents, by my church, by my friends, by my teachers, by my politicians, by the leaders of my community; and in the absence of my own words, words were written in my mind to replace them.
But underneath all that, at a place in my subconscious, i still saw myself as female. I pretended to be female when i played, as my sister can attest. I am female in my dreams and in my mystical visions. I don't expect to see a man when i look in the mirror.
Any time these thoughts started to creep up into the realm of words and concepts, there were a million ways for me to shoot them down and retract them. I am still, even today, learning how to give voice to my own authentic words, how to tell them apart from the words written in my mind by other people.
And so, when you look at me you see someone artificial, fake, maybe even monstrous, fussing over makeup and hair. I see... something like the sun finally beginning to rise.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 03:54 pm (UTC)That's a part of why it's so aggravating that media people always want to show transwomen putting on their makeup. I would *never* let anyone see this. So just seeing pictures of transwomen putting on their makeup next to a news story, just screams at me that these poor women have had their boundaries stomped on just so non-transgender folks can get a momentary salacious thrill. In fact, a lot of what i see about transwomen in the media are depictions of some of the most sensitive things i have to deal with, but transwomen in the media don't get to have any privacy or boundaries.
When your boundaries aren't respected... you're nothing as a person.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:57 pm (UTC)understood.. which is why (regardless of my venting at you here) i never showed up to her place "unannounced"...
in my gf's case (from her description of it) she simply did not feel like herself when she had a 5 o'clock shadow and no make up on her face (not putting words into her mouth here)...
this was 20 years ago... the support for transfolk is not at all what it is today and the community looked (literally "looked") a *lot* different as far as what was accepted as "normal" behavior and normal "appearance" by everyone, compared to what i see with my trans-folk friends now days...
when my gf went off of hormones and backed off on her transition (she needed time to think things through), she lost every single fucking *one* of her friends...
in my own case, i didn't leave her.. she left me because i refused to abuse her (i'm not paraphrasing)...
i always respected her right to define herself and find what it is she wanted in her life, but my only request to her was to not swallow any other person's definition of what she was...
if she defined woman as "lipstick" and love as "a fist in her face" then my heart goes out to her, but i don't have to accept them as my own definitions.... the fact that i stood my ground and she realised she had to leave me, or else question her self-destruction, was the only honest thing i could have done for both of us...
20 years later i can still say i love her (and have done so quite recently actually) and she knows damn well what it means to hear *me* say that to her.
as far as the media's depiction (read: exploitation) of (trans)women, the TV-big-wigs can come suck my balls!... its all about what is grotesque, shocking and "novel"... they want us douching with perfume and taping our teats up to stand at attention...
when was the last time you saw a realistic depiction of a plural person in the media?... want to talk about "child alters" and "sex alters"?... its nothing to do with reality... its about the almighty-dollar and that is all the TV folks care about.
Jules & Co.