Mandated Femininity
May 15, 2012 at 9:36 am Natalie Reed
http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/05/15/mandated-femininity/ (http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/05/15/mandated-femininity/)
Cultural representations of trans women are painfully rare. Cultural representations of butch, or simply less-than-femme trans women, are functionally non-existent.
While cis people like Chloe Sevigny and Germaine Greer do continue to openly denigrate the "exaggerated femininity" or "gross caricature" presentation that "so many" trans women possess, and use that to mock us as nothing more than men playing dress up, a presentation that falls short of expected feminine norms will be used to outright strip a trans woman of even the claim to a "false" womanhood. You're not even trying, dude.
Gatekeeping structures continue to break down piece by piece in certain locales and medical communities, but in others it continues to be demanded that you meet expectations of presenting as female as the practitioner understands it, rather than as the patient herself understands it. The consequences can be an obligation to play along with imposed standards of proper feminine womanhood until such a time as all needed or desired treatments have been accessed and put behind you. Then, and only then, do they get to wear jeans and sneakers.