maybe this will lend perspective...

[asiangurliee]

I pass perfectly, as a person who is openly and proudly trans. If someone looks at me and sees a woman, that's great, if they look at me and see man in a dress, so be it. I'm living my life as who I am. That's what's important to me.

Zythyra

Yes!  That's exactly how I feel!

That is exactly how I feel too.

[Shana A]

I pass perfectly, as a person who is openly and proudly trans. If someone looks at me and sees a woman, that's great, if they look at me and see man in a dress, so be it. I'm living my life as who I am. That's what's important to me.

Zythyra

Yes!  That's exactly how I feel!

That is exactly how I feel too.

Thanks everyone! Today three of us, tomorrow the world  >

Now if we could just get the rest of the world to let us safely live as who we are, and how we wish to express our gender on any given day, I'd be very happy.

Zythyra

[melissa90299]

ummmmmm...I am still trying to get over the shock a couple pages back of a "transsexual woman" saying the words:

"I am a man"

And then repeating that awful, horrible pejorative phrase "I am a woman trapped in a man's body." That is a phrase that I have only heard from trans-misogynists.

Posted on: November 13, 2007, 04:32:59 AM

As one can see when one leaves Western society, the definition of man and woman socially changes radically.

For one example of this-- According to the Vedic definitions of gender from ancient India, you're not a woman until you bear children, and are strictly heterosexual. Adult female lesbians and asexuals are excluded from the definition of women according to the rigid Vedic categories of gender. In that system, all queer people of any sort are placed in the category of tritiya prakriti which means 'third gender'. That includes trans people too. This explains why hijras in India are categorized as "neither man nor woman," even though they have girlnames and are called "she."

Obviously it was patriarchal hetero men who came up with that system--the only thing that matters in a woman is popping out babies, and in the absence of that, she's not even a woman.  I have long been fighting the view of transgender that tries to relegate us all into some "third gender" ghetto. Apparently this is where it originated. According to this system, Portia de Rossi isn't a woman! Get outta here.

So Robbie be careful about drawing boundaries to exclude certain kinds of women from womanhood, because it could get much more restrictive than that--and all this exclusion is oppression. Each individual has a right to identify based on her own inner sense of her self, and is not limited to patriarchal imposed definitions.

Rock on, hypatia.

Posted on: November 13, 2007, 04:36:41 AM

Have you ever seen a  passable trans woman who is an activist?

Yes, absolutely. For example: Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality here in the USA. She isn't a glamour babe, but she looks exactly like what she is--a serious professional woman.


And regardless of my criticism of Kate Bornstein's ideas, as to looks she passes perfectly.

As long as she keeps her wig on, because underneath it she's quite bald. (meow)

Neither of these ladies has a stealth history as far as I know. They've always been out activists.

I don't know about Ms Keisling but Ms Bornstein does not vibe female at all IMO

[Hypatia]

I was talking about looks, not vibes. I haven't seen her live or on video or heard her speak, only seen still pictures.

[Berliegh]

the images of women we see that we strive to look like are not real....and the reality is the unairbrushed versions are better. Why? Becase they are real.
http://jezebel.com/gossip/photoshop-of-horrors/heres-our-winner-redbook-shatters-our-faith-in-well-not-publishing-but-maybe-god-278919.php

Yea, but the wrinkled version of this women still had looks way above anything I could ever achieve. Most magazine picture's are touched up before they go to press but the women still look attractive to start with.