The Trials and Travails of Transness: Trans-Sexualization
| posted by Guest Blogger | Tuesday, October 13, 2009
by Shaker Alexmac, a transgender woman studying at the University of Florida.
[Part 6 in an ongoing series
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/trials-and-travails-of-transness-trans.htmlI am sorry for the long delay since the last installment of this series, but I hope you enjoy or at least learn something new. The topic this time is the sexualization of trans women, which was spurred by this article, which illustrates beautifully the ways in which trans women are sexualized and fetishized. Luckily, Julia Serano dedicated a chapter in her book to this very topic (which is where I got the title from). She notes that, "trans women are objectified, because our bodies and our persons are female." The sexualization of trans women ultimately comes from plain old sexism. Our transness just makes us more objectifable women. This is one of the reasons why I feel that cisgender feminists should help defend transgender women, because we all face the same bigotry against femaleness.
We can first see how the media sexualizes trans women and removes our agency in multiple ways. The first way is via the "deceiver" trope where trans women are portrayed as luring and tricking men
