Caitlyn Jenner is 'too good looking'...

[FeijoaSundae]

Is there already a thread on this? I've looked and don't see one, so apologies if I'm repeating.

I've just opened our Saturday paper down here at the bottom of the planet, and there's yet another article where a transgender woman is bemoaning the unfairness of Caitlyn's good looks versus her own less than amazing looks.

A couple of quotes from the article: "...the discussion has quickly zeroed in on her elegant femininity - a look far out of reach or most transgender women".

"Caitlyn's beauty makes it problematic for a fat old queen like myself who ... could never emulate Raquel Welsh or Michelle Pfieffer".

And ... "The discussion remained traumatically offending to transgender people whose own 'accident of birth' will never allow them to be a Caitlyn".

Um ... welcome to womanhood...? The looks of pretty much all women who feature of the cover of Vanity Fair are out of the reach of most regular women.

Is this genuinely surprising ... ? It's akin to Dustin Hoffman expressing dissatisfaction with his Tootsy make-over, and saying no, he wants to be a beautiful women. Not a plain one (to be fair, his subsequent epiphany was rather lovely). Well, don't we all, mate, don't we all.

I apologise in advance to any transgender people who think I'm making light of an issues facing their community. But this is an issue that has faced our community since, well, forever. It's part and parcel of being a woman. We are judged, first and foremost, in our looks. Not our ability, or intelligence, or kindness. We are judged on our looks. Welcome to our world!

If people are saying "this person who has had loads of surgery looks great because they have had loads of surgery, I too would like to look that great, I wish I looked like that" then clearly they are approving of the loads of surgery aspect.

I find it interesting that the "fashion" at the moment (moving away from the specific person in the OP now) is to look quite unnatural, in a lot of areas. Botox usually doesn't make people actually look younger, and actually lots of people who have it are young anyway, it makes them look "botoxed" which is a look now. Incredibly white teeth, also. And of course the surgery, it's often not to look like the same person but younger, but to fundamentally change the appearance, in a way that meets an ideal which in itself looks unnatural.

I wonder if fashions will change and more natural looks will come back into fashion again.

The robbing a bank analogy doesn't work really.

Most people do not have the same moral / ethical / social objections to cosmetic surgery as they do to theft.

I fail to see how you can make the comment that Caitlyn Jenner looks good, it's easier to look good with surgery to the end conclusion that surgery is desirable and has mass approval. I agree with MyFriends for most people , for most women, there is a pay-off. Not the least of which is the end result in the flesh will often be an unatural tautness which is itself is considered by many to be unattractive.

To be honest I think you're over thinking this. Jenner needed plastic surgery to look like a woman. A woman born with xx chromosomes no matter how plain, no matter how far from conventional prettiness does not need plastic surgery to look like a woman.

Women who are conventionally pretty are more commonly getting procedures done, which don't have the effect of making them look younger, exactly, but have the effect of making them look "done".

I find it an interesting fashion - the fashion to look unnatural - and wonder if it will revert. Or will it become such that (like women dying hair in many workplaces, to cover grey) the people who don't do it will start to be the ones who look out of place and it will become the norm, and the ones who don't do it will feel a strong pressure to conform.

I am interested to see which way it goes.

Well yes of course CJ looks ok on the magazine cover. In common with all other magazine cover shots it's clearly airbrushed/photoshopped to within an inch of its life and the model is wearing half a ton of very skilfully applied makeup.

And?

Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars of surgery.

Caitlyn truly is a woman, not only physically, emotionally, spiritually but also in the way she is treated,

I thought she still had her penis and testicles.

If yes, how does that make her truly a woman?

If I put on a pair of trousers, and cut my hair short, does that make me truly a man?
Is it a case of, I think I'm a man, therefore I AM a man? I don't think so.

I got shared an article on Facebook saying (tongue in cheek) how great it is Caitlyn appears out on a vogue cover and is immediately treated like a women; all discussion focused entirely around her looks just like any other female celebratory....

Correction:

thought this person still had her penis and testicles.^

Still wrong.
this person still has a penis and testicles.

Going back to the point in the OP about the transgender experience having unforeseen consequences, I gather Caitlyn is appealing against the decision made by her golf club, that she can no longer use the men only bar and other men only facilities!

If you have your Penis aren't you still a man?

What makes someone a woman?

No, you aren't still a man. The idea is that your sex is not linked to your biology, but to whether you feel male or female (or neither or something else). So if you feel like a woman you are a woman, irrespective of what your body is like.

This way of thinking of course causes a lot of problems for quite a lot of people for a variety of reasons.

So bloody bored of this tripe.

"So if you feel like a woman you are a woman, irrespective of what your body is like"
I felt like some fish and chips earlier. I will shortly transition into a bowl of strawberries and ice cream.

"The idea is that your sex is not linked to your biology, but to whether you feel male or female (or neither or something else)"
No, your sex is the same as your biology. Your gender is the ideology that has been drummed into you from birth.
francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/the-confusion-between-sex-and-gender/

The idea is that sex (male female) is not linked to biology, but how you feel. If you feel like a man then you are a man.

What it means to feel like a woman or a man is another point of contention. Many people feel like people, a thread on MN showed that most women on MN identified (from a feeling POV) as a person, and not particularly male or female. Thus the majority of posters on MN are, I think the term is agender or gender queer. In terms of their sex, as this is linked to feeling, I suppose they are neither male nor female, not sure what the term for this is, as asexual means something else entirely.

We do need a word for the group who when they are born the people around say "it's a girl", and then they are treated accordingly which is different and usually way worse than those who are born to "it's a boy". Clearly for children labels such as "cis" and "trans" are inappropriate until the point where they are at an age where they can self-identify. But of course that doesn't stop people in many countries, having spotted their genitalia, acting in certain ways irrespective of how they might eventually identify, based on what they keep in their underwear.

The idea is that genitals are irrelevant to sex, but that doesn't help when trying to think about or tackle sex-based discrimination and violence.

Many people feel like people, a thread on MN showed that most women on MN identified (from a feeling POV) as a person, and not particularly male or female

Really? Can you link please. I very definitely identify as female.

Oh blimey it was a few months ago and I'm not sure how to search it without getting millions of threads!

I'm surprised you're surprised though - I assume you want me to find it as you find it a bit unbelievable that most women on MN when asked said they feel like people rather than women? The upshot was that people's internal identities were "me" without a sex attached, and the sex bit was external and related to biological factors. So things like periods, pregnancy, street harrassment were what made people "feel like women" - so biology and how people treat you - rather than any kind of internal female / feminine sense of self.

I was one of those people - I am female (vagina, kids and all that jazz), but not feminine, and the only way I can tell I'm a woman is biological stuff. I have no innate sense of womanhood. If I woke up tomorrow with a penis I wouldn't be horrified (beyond the obvious mechanics of how it happened). I don't feel particularly attached to any of my bits, other than that those are the bits I have. I work in a male profession, I don't wear skirts, I do have long hair - I'm me, not some feminine archetype.

I forget the thread - it was something about how can people tell that they are trans, and lots of us were having trouble understanding because despite being women, we couldn't pinpoint why if not biology.

I think it's going to take years to sort out trans issues. There are so many complicating factors, not least that while gender shouldn't be important, quite clearly it still does matter at the moment. Maybe one day a boy will be able to wear a dress to school in the same way that a girl can wear trousers, but we aren't there yet.

I would be horrified if I woke up with a penis. It would not be me.

Janet Mock describes in her transition how much she hated her penis and the sense of relief when she was operated on. That makes sense to me.

There is a poster on a thread in chat saying she has no gender. I don't understand that. I am female, my sex and my gender are female.

I don't have a gender, I don't think. How are you defining gender, lass?

I read statements like "I have no gender " and they make no sense to me.

What does gender mean to you? When you say your gender is female, what is that based on? You see I read that and equally it makes no sense to me!