Hey, I'll try to end it then.
I'm not fond of the idea. It's a sort of lame feminist idea (conjured up when they should have been trying to solve real problems that have real solutions) that to say its stating the obvious would be putting it mildly. So, her is the theory. Good looking people (by whatever standard) get treated better than ugly people do. Here's the proof. Turn on your TV.
And, for the record - all things being equal - will I choose to sit next to the pretty girl who is nicely dressed with a good completion instead of the fat girl, dressed badly and popping her zits in public? Call me shallow, but, yes. Sure. Ditto preferring men who are not fat, dressed well (no tummy bulge sticking out between the stretch waist sweatpants and the food stained t-shirt who is also popping his zits in public? Yes again.
Do people like to be shunned? Not in a general sense - though I'm fond that sometimes me and my friends can get people crossing the street to walk down the other side. But everyone wants to find some acceptance someplace. And you would like to be accepted for what you see yourself as.
And, there is a dislike about feeling - as I understand what Nichole is trying to say - about being 'used' as part of being accepted. No one wants to poster child for anything, its not like being a spokesmodel for Revlon, its like getting your face on the side of a milk carton.
Which gets to the real crux of what I think she was saying, which is the phrase like us with a difference. Because that 'difference' makes one 'the other' not one of the group.
To that end, she admitted something far more honest than almost anything I read on here, which is:
In doing so we have both found reasons to dislike this visceral reaction we have. We are both pretty much embarrassed by our discriminatory feelings about trans-women who don't blend in well with the vast majority of other women.
Far from being something bad, the willingness to confront in ourselves what we don't like in others, is the first explicit step in making one's self a better person. And, you can only get to that point by really examining what you really think. Which is a very good reason to write in the first place.
