Casting a woman as a transwoman

[Hazchem]

So there is a show about to air on the Australian ABC about Carlotta who is an incredibly well known and important entertainer in Australia. She Les Girls, was the first transexual in an Australian soap opera. An icon, someone whose very being has made changes to the Australian cultural landscape. She was original born male and very early on had surgery

So the person they have picked to play her is a ciswomen. Surely there was a trans actor who could have taken the role. My feeling is that a women has been cast because she can be sexy in the Les Girls numbers without making people feel uncomfortable about seeing her as sexy.

Am I over thinking this? Is it gender equality to have a ciswomen plan a transwomen?

I don't know if I agree with all of the things on list It's the sort of thing I was thinking of when I talked about prividlge before.

Het women have the right to marry who they love which isn't the case in most countries. Het women don't have a fear of prosecution for being with a person they want. That feels like a privilege. I don;t think hetro women have to oppress gay women to get those privileges I think it comes from our current system.

Maybe the way I used privilege is wrong in saying I might not understand another experience because I sit in position of prividlge but I;m not sure what other term would work.

No, Het women do not have privilege over lesbians. I am a lesbian, I am well aware of how lesbians are and have been treated in this country. I know lesbians who were committed to mental hospitals, simply because they were a lesbian. Lots of lesbians who have been sacked from a job for being a lesbian, who have been sexually assaulted, attacked, had homes and cars vandalised, etc. You really don't have to explain lesbophobia to me.

But you misunderstand what privilge means. You are straying into the realsm of Tumblr with its list of bizarre privileges.

I agree, calmet, and also when it comes to looking at women who are more feminine, I don't think they have privilege over me.
I think straight women and feminine women have increased status in patriarchy but I don't think that does them any favours in terms of freedom from oppression.
Relationships with men are a huge risk factor for male violence.
Being feminine marks women as targets for sexualised male violence too.

arf @ tumblr. I would self-flagellate for my non-furry privilege but due to my vanilla privilege I couldn't possibly

Calmet Re-reading my post it does sound as if I'm trying to teach you suck eggs that is crappy of me and not what I meant to do.

I'm not sure I have the rhetorical skills to explain properly what I mean. Basically I think that there is privilege to not being the most oppressed group, that whether a group is oppressing or not they still can experience some benefits from not being in the most oppressed position within society. That doesn't mean those benefits will be huge or might not be largely offset by a whole other load of oppression.

For example in my opening post maybe what I'm missing is that having any positive image of transwomen in the media is so important that it doesn't matter who is player them. that I might miss that because I do see women all the time on TV and the media (under represented, but they are there and visible).

people.terry.uga.edu/dawndba/4500Oppression.html Oppression according to Marilyn Frye -

'As the cageness of the birdcage is a macroscopic phenomenon, the oppressiveness of the situations in which women live our various and different lives is a macroscopic phenomenon. Neither can be seen from a microscopic perspective. But when you look macroscopically you can see it – a network of forces and barriers which are systematically related and which conspire to the immobilization, reduction and molding of women and the lives we live…. '
'Human beings can be miserable without being oppressed, and it is perfectly consistent to deny that a person or group is oppressed without denying that they have feelings or that they suffer….'

And Audre Lorde - lgbt.ucsd.edu/education/oppressions.html

'Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression. '

An understanding of oppressions is important because privilege is you have when you benefit from oppression.

Women are 52% of the population. It would be bizarre if they were not on TV at all. But there are plenty of groups of women who are very rarely on TV, such as visibly disabled women.

And actually there are lots of symapthetic documentaries about MtoF's. who is totally missing from the media is FtoM's. And in the UK their numbers are exploding. Most of them were lesbians before transitioning.

I would maintain that among males, those who do not conform to masculine ideals experience oppression (although I don't think all males who identify as transwomen are males who don't perform masculinity - a male who impregnates women or puts women at risk of impregnation is taking part in an institution that oppresses women on the basis of our reproductive vulnerability) but that oppression is not the oppression that feminism should centre. We need to be able to centre female adult humans - while remaining aware of other forms of oppression and ensuring all female adult humans can access feminist groups.
If this thread were in a different topic I would react to it totally differently, but it's a thread asking women to centre males and what males need.

Men who do not conform to masculinity, get sanctioned for that and experience discrimination. They do so because of misogyny. They do so because behaving or dressing "like a woman" is seen as an awful thing for a man to do. Because who would want to be a woman?

Super does the last quote mean that all women should understand the oppression of trans women? That it should not be separately spoken of?

Calmet yes women in lots of groups are under represented on TV but that is what this thread is about. It's about whether it's good thing for ciswomen to play a transwomen. It's about why has a ciswomen been cast in that roles.

No Super I disagree that thread is asking us to centre males about what males need. That is not why I asked it.

My concern on seeing the advert for the show was that once again a women was cast in role so she could titillate men without Challenger their current thinking on what is sexy. at the same time a question the casting of a ciswomen because it such an amazing opportunity to cast a transactor and that to me is such a waste but I wondered if that assumption of mine wrong?

I think a MtoF should be played by a man, or a MtoF.

Yes. I have, by freak of genetic accident, white privilege. I look entirely white. Had I looked like the 'norm' for people with my genetic heritage and parenting, I would have a skin colour closer to that of my Indian mother (as my partner, who is of similar origins to me, does have - though his situation is of course skewed by gender and indeed socioeconomics). I am acutely aware of how arbitrary my white privilege, in this - and other societies - is.

That is what I think. I also think they chosen to have ciswomen* is because she is "easy on the eye" to hetromen.

I'm also a bit cross at the ABA because at the same time as having a ciswomen play a transwomen there big home grown comedy is white guy "blacking up" to play a Tongan guy and I think they should step well into the 21st centre. ( this is a whole other thread)

*Is there a less crap way to say a women born a women?

Thanks for clearing up your intention with the OP, Hazchem. Yeah I think wrt what it means for women as a group, you're quite right. Women are objects who signify passive sexuality- to be consumed.

I think men think of transwomen like this too though, largely. With a different layer of assumptions and prejudice than that placed on women. The difference may not have been something that Carlotta wanted to read about/deal with - sure as fuck wouldn't be something I'd want to read about, wrt my life story.

With the Audre Lorde essay, I think it's worth reading the whole thing. I posted it to explain what I mean when I talk about oppression, because that's relevant to how I think of privilege. She's not saying all oppressions should be lumped together but that there's no point in oppression olympics or dismissing one form of oppression because others exist. Plus a lot more, so it's an important essay to read, I think.

How does your privilege play out as a cis woman, compared to me, as a woman who is not cis (read as gender-queer/trans/agender if you're more comfortable, although I wouldn't describe myself using that framework, as the effect on how I'm read by people is similar).
I'm genuinely interested.

I walk down the street past pubs and nobody comments. A feminine woman does the same and gets catcalls. That would terrify me.

I think 'beauty and misogyny' by sheila jeffreys says it better than I could. Femininity serves to mark women as different and deferenct to men, to ensure women compliment and complement men. How are women who adopt feminine practices and identities oppressing me? How are you privileged over me? I can't see it.

Haznet, I am on a phone so I'll break my points down into separate points.

1. You keep denying ways in which women assigned women as a class are treated unequally, despite some of these being major human rights campaigns for women as a class:

Things you have falsely said women have and are privileged by:

Access to education.
Access to services.
Ability to marry who they want.
Access to toilets/sanitation.
Access to public spaces without whispers/stares/comments on the basis of their gender identity- woman.

Your notion that Western media is only viewed by Western women is a reflection of your Western privilege.

In the UK, Trans people can marry who they want. In some countries they can't. Those countries also outlaw same sex marriages.

Being totally honest, I find most women bend over backwards to be understanding of Trans people and non discriminatory. I rarely find those same women doing the same for other groups such as lesbians.

However I also think oppression olympics i.e. who is most oppressed, is a total waste of time.

1. You defining people who simply have a human right as privileged, thus conflating my access to adequate sanitation (something many girls in the UK don't have in schools, another rights campaign) with actual privileges such as white control of global media.

Can you not see the oppression inherent in referring to a human right as a privilege?

1. Playing oppression olympics. A blind person and a deaf person are both disabled. Deaf people are not privileged because they are deaf and some value deaf culture and use sign language. They are not causing discrimination to and denying the existence of the oppression of blind people. Women getting pregnant and attempting to create a safe and valued culture around that, or indeed any other situation connected to the female body are not privileged over trans women or denying the existence of transphobia.