Sports Illustrated first transgender swimsuit model

I notice that the anti-telling-the-truth censorship has been.

It's rather bizarre, because stunningly attractive people are often subtly androgynous (think Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt), yet androgynous-phobia is also a thing?

They’re not androgynous!

I have big hands, but they’re female-proportioned. Woman can have a strong jawline, but the proportions are subtly female. It’s really interesting to learn about the subtle difference between male and female proportions.

I see Katy sherpa is now on the thread insulting straight men for not being attracted to the T model.

It will be interesting to see - so far straight men and dude bros have mostly escaped the whole 'genital preferences are transphobic' shtick. Let's see how it goes down with straight men.

Michelle, it's the backlash we've mentioned for years.

I mean, "we told you so" isn't going to have more impact than all the times we did tell them so, but it's true none the less.

So let the men perform their fantasy of what a woman is to each other, and leave us all the hell alone to get on with our lives.

Interestingly, in some countries with highly restrictive social rules for women, there is a tradition of young males being recruited into dancer / sex worker roles where they dress up as women, dance like women and are required to have sex with older men. In Afghanistan, these boys are called ‘Bacha’ and there was a documentary released about them in 2010 called ‘The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan’. Sadly it usually is based on coercion of underage boys rather than consenting participation of young men so it is abusive. The US military have had issues with their soldiers speaking up about the practice and this causing tensions with local leaders. Khaled Hosseini wrote about this too in his book ‘The Kite Runner’.

However I’m sure TRAs would interpret the practice as a sign of how other cultures are so much more tolerant and accepting of diverse gender expression than our own oppressive Western colonialist sex binary-obsessed culture.

I’m probably being a bit thick. ‘Sports illustrated’ - why aren’t they a sportsperson or someone doing sporty things? It’s like having a photo of a bowl of grapes on the cover of horse and hound.

My earlier comment was deleted so I'll rephrase.

I don't care at all that this model was chosen for the front cover, what bothers me is that no one complaining on Twitter (men) are being told to suck or choke on anything.

The double standard of free speech remains (and again I have been told off here for recognising biological reality).

Sports Illustrated know their readership but will the male readers send complaint letters, stop buying it or be told they are transphobic bigots or worse?

Sport Illustrated also do a damn fine job on photoshop. Always have.

But if it’s all about how you feel and if you like link barbies... why bother going through plastic surgery to look like a unrealistic pinup girl?

Ah yes the "beauty standard" which is a barely pubescent stick insect looking type deal.

It's always confused me how this came about, since 99% of adult females look nothing like this.

My 3yo DD "corrected" him that it was a lady.

The model is stunning, can't help but feel they've been set up, some of the comments are grim.
I showed the picture to my (admittedly gruff) DH who gave a cursory glance and said "that's a bloke".

The (males) is my emphasis.

Today 11:12AvocadoBathroom

Let Transwomen (males) do porn then we don't have to. After all they have prostates as teen Vogue say.

This. So very much.

Also. What Floral said.

Stunning TW. Beautiful.

The only issues come when a pretence is tried that a TW is not a beautiful TW but is a biological female. And this is the petard they're hoisting themselves on: when you try and force the TRA political agenda by making really nasty misogyny ok, popular, widespread, fashionable, in everyone's faces in order to shut women up and control them and their spaces.....

at the same time you empower men to let it hang out ever further. And the massive majority are into biological females, won't hesitate to say so, and hey now it's cool and normal to be really foul and vile to people you disagree with.

Whoops.

The comments could be “wow! She’s gorgeous, but I don’t do penis, soz.” which would be a fair thing to say but the fear of being perceived as gay for finding a transwoman attractive is quite pathetic.

But of course a lesbian can’t even say the first statement. Hmmm. What a head scratcher.

Someone in that twitter thread said that she shouldn't have been allowed to be featured, or at least not without a large front page disclaimer that she is trans, because otherwise some poor unsuspecting young straight boy might wank off over her pictures before discovering that she is male which would be "psychologically devastating". I would bet any money that these men give zero shits about how psychologically devastating it would be for a female rape victim to find herself sharing a shelter with a non passing transwomen who the staff insist is really female. Or a female prisoner locked up with a male rapist. Or a parent who has sent their vulnerable daughter off on what they believe was a single sex girl guiding trip only to find she'd been made to share a room with a boy. Or a Muslim woman who can no longer attend her single sex exercise classes because they now accept transwomen. But the idea that men and boys might be tricked into sexually objectifying another man - now that's beyond the pail. Women just exist to be wank fodder, and how dare anyone disturb their pursuit of that.

But yes, as others have said, if men could get over their homophobia, this could be the perfect solution. Het men want someone to perform hypersexualised hyperfeminity. Most women don't want to. Some men apparently do. So let the men perform their fantasy of what a woman is to each other, and leave us all the hell alone to get on with our lives.

Let Transwomen do porn then we don't have to. After all they have prostates as teen Vogue say.

I wonder how much ‘work’ and airbrushing the cover models usually have done? It makes you wonder why they don’t just use a shop dummy or a drawing.

I saw the underpants manufacturer campaign recently (I forget which) who also have a trans women model - a much larger and less ‘traditional beauty’ type, so not much ‘work done’ in their face and body (so many comments around why they don’t have plus sized female women in the same campaign).

interesting. what makes you think that?

Simple jealousy. Let's face it, the youth 'pass' more and Valentina is beautiful and not hiding behind a faceless twitter avatar.
I assume they would also be classed as 'truscum'

Men's reactions to trans women is why they refuse to acknowledge them as part of the male category and happily push them into ours. The very thought that other adult males choose to present as women threatens their masculinity. They need them to be 'other'

I agree with this 100% - I strongly suspect that men no more want transwomen in their safe spaces than women want them in ours. I don’t think it’s because they are concerned that they are gay but because dressing in female clothes is so against what society deems as normal for men they’re worried about what else against social norms a man in women’s clothes would do.

Obviously this same worry isn’t there for trans men because physically they’re not going to be able to overpower a man and it’s more normalised to see women in men’s style clothing and with short hair etc.

Looks male at first glance at the face, never mind the body (which is as weirdly distorted as most models’).
I was brought up religiously, and many pictures of angels (male) have very feminine faces. I was always confused by this, though not as much as the fact that they had wings that were clearly non-functional, and why would they need them anyway? I later realised that many people will believe anything, however unlikely, if they see a picture of it, read about it, or even hear it being talked about, even intelligent people who I would have thought possessed some critical faculties.