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!

I just feel it's a wonderful thing that society is clearly becoming a more welcoming and tolerant place. I watched Caitlin Jenner's ABC interview prior to her transformation, and she came across as a very in-touch, sensitive and loving person.

She did more than one interview? Because I'm pretty sure we didn't watch the same one. The one I watched she came across as vain, entitled and fairly ridiculous.

re FAAB ("female assigned at birth")

The problem with that designation is that nobody is assigning anything to anybody in reality. A newborn baby girl is female (not "assigned" female) because she comes out with female genitalia. A newborn baby girl is male (not "assigned" male) because he comes out with male genitalia.

Yes, there are (very few) intersex exceptions to this rule but it applies to the vast majority of the world's human population. It also applies to the vast majority of the world's animal population. No surprise - it is biology, after all.

Male and female are biological terms. They are not about being feminine or not, being attracted to the same sex, opposite sex, both or none. They are not about wanting to dress a certain way.

Cote - it isn't that clear cut, I'm afraid. A person's biological sex can be determined by their external genitalia, gonads, or chromosomes. A newborn baby girl can have female genitalia and testicles or testicluar tissue. Or XXY chromosomes. Or XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity syndrome. Or ambiguous genitalia, a micropenis mistaken for a clitoris, for example. Girl or boy? Someone, generally a medical professional, makes a decision, usually based on phenotype (external genitalia). But - even if you leave out the person's self-identified gender - this doesn't always correspond to chromosomal or gonadal sex. So, yes, biological sex is not innate, it is assigned.

Depending on how you define intersexuality, intersex conditions an range from "very few" (0.018% - if you define intersexuality as chromosomal sex not coinciding with phenotypical sex) to "not all that rare" (1.7% - according to Fausto-Sterling, who lists a number of other conditions in her book "Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality").

The thing is, that cover image isn't really Jenner. Yes, Jenner has had extensive facial surgery, spent many hours in makeup and getting hair extensions as well as eyelashes and taping here and there, and was wearing a tight corset. In addition to that, however, the picture was extensively photoshopped, so much so that it ceased to be a depiction of "what Jenner looks like after transition" and more of a digitized version of what some men think an ideal woman looks like. You may as well have used an image of Jessica Rabbit, the cartoon femme fatale from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

Below is a link to a photo making the rounds that juxtaposes a screen shot from the Vanity Fair video advertising the Jenner Rollout with the cover photo. Not only was the obvious bulge from the penis removed, but the hips and upper thighs were shortened, widened, and curved outward to suggest idealized female hips, the upper arms, shoulders, chest, waist and neck were modified, and the facial features were enlarged and pasted in from another shot. All the comments like "oh, I wish I looked that good!" are silly because this is not an actual photograph, it is fantasy artwork.

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Well, even if you take that 1.7% as being intersex, that still leaves over 98% of people for whom biological sex is absolutely clear cut and innate doesn't it?

So for the vast majority FAAB and is female are the same thing?

As others have been heard to say on here, the fact that some people are born with 1 leg (and that on average, humans have fewer than 2 legs) doesn't make the human race any less bipedal.

I've heard intersex used a lot to justify silencing by trans activists - but very rarely by actual intersex people (not of course that it's any of my business anyway - but I do think it's rude to co-opt others issues)

Chunky - I'm not trying to silence anyone. But I think we sometimes tend to assume that - unlike gender - biological sex is absolutely clear cut and irrefutable. And it simply isn't. So while assigning biological sex on the basis of external genitalia makes sense over 98% of the time, there are a good number of cases where it doesn't. So at what point does the exception to the rule invalidate the rule itself? A definition that can only be applied 98% of the time isn't a very good definition.
I don't think that pointing out that a sizable minority of people are subjected to medical intervention, from hormone therapy to genital mutilation, at a very early age merely to make them conform to a social convention of binary phenotypical sexual difference, counts as co-opting their issues.

I think they are separate issues, and actually have conflicting aims.

I think that medically intervening with babies and kids in order to fit them into a binary sex and therefore gender is yet another symptom of the societal problem that people with certain genitals should dress certain ways and act certain ways. If people can do/wear what they want without worrying about the contents of their pants then there's no need to rush into anything - intersex people can decide for themselves rather than having decisions made for them when babies (no matter how well meaning).

I don't think that declaring that biology is unimportant and it's all in your head helps anyone at all.

I watched Caitlin Jenner's ABC interview prior to her transformation, and she came across as a very in-touch, sensitive and loving person.

Of course, if Jenner was in touch, the name wily be Brenda, Sue, Barbara or Carole. But Caitlyn suggests a person who's also transyoung - completely unable to accept that a man of that age transitioning to a woman in her twenties is as ludicrous as pretending that Bruce Jenner is now, or has always been, a woman.

They are separate issues, Chunky, but I think they're related. One fundamental question surrounding trans issues is "how is gender determined?" Is it self-defined, is it determined by societal and institutional recognition or is it determined by biological sex? You might say biological sex is the determining factor and, while I'd disagree, that's a perfectly valid stance to take. But how do we define biological sex? Is it chromosomal, endocrinal or phenotypical? Again, you might say that external genitalia determine biological sex, or that in case of a mismatch between chromosomes, gonads and external genitalia, priority should be given to phenotype. So having a penis means that you are male. But in some cases, that would imply that female hormones, breasts, the presence of a uterus or ovaries, even menstruation do not necessarily make you biologically female. And that doesn't seem self-evident in the least.

It's an interesting discussion, but I'm not sure whether this thread is the right place for it, so sorry if I've been derailing or silencing trans-critical feminists, that was not my intention.

Oh no, and I'm not the derail police, but it's all relevant I reckon..

I think that for me, I'm very much of the mind that it gender doesn't matter (or rather, it shouldn't - society isn't entirely with me on that). That sex matters because that's a physical reality (and should be what laws are about), but gender is entirely up to the individual.

For the vast majority, that's enough, and for intersex, if gender doesn't matter then they can grow up as they like (or best guess by their carers) until they are of an age that sex matters, at which point they are old enough to start making some decisions, and discover what their biological reality is.

Oh, I agree, Chunky, gender shouldn't matter. Obviously, after the revolution we can all go out and build log cabins with our bare, perfectly manicured hands, in full makeup and combat boots, but until then, gender does matter. And I think it's important to think about what constitutes gender and also about what constitutes biological sex. Because both of these categories have a vast impact on people's lives.

If you are going to disconnect gender from biological sex, and call the people who self-identify as female, women, then what are all the other people called? The ones with female biological characteristics, and who either do not have an internal gender identity or are too young to know what if any theirs is?

Under the new rules I am not a woman, which is fine, it's just a word. What am I?

I mean all of this is fairly irrelevant to female children who are having x, y, z done to them because when they were born people looked at their groins and said "it's a girl".

What do we call the group, in order to identify them, when we want to talk about or organise against sex-based (that will need to change too) discrimination and violence?

How are the new terms to be rolled out to people across the world so that everyone knows who initiatives are supposed to be helping, what groups to target, where funds should go, and so forth?

Yy whirlpool. Girls won't be saved from FGM if they identify as boys.

Caitlyn Jenner looks monstrous. Like someone described a stereotypical woman to an alien race and they carved one out of plastic. Imo

Jenner still looks like a man even with the photoshopping and the surgery. I find it hard to believe anyone else believes otherwise but we're supposed to pretend that men can be women and that they are indistinguishable from women or be called hateful bigoted etc.

Whirlpool - I'm not sure I understand your first question. Children without a gender identity could be called children. People like me, who are biologically female, but are not invested in a female identity, could be called people, or non-binary people, or genderqueer or whatever. I'd like that. And victims of FGM are people and children forced to undergo FGM (the mutilation of female genitalia). I'm not being disingenuous here, I just don't understand what you what the problem here is.
And to hark back to my example upthread - "Sworn virgins" in Albania identify as men to avoid forced marriage (or rape. Let's just call it rape). It's not a very good solution (a good solution would be no rape), but it's a loophole this culture has come up with and I think it's worth looking into.

The problem is that there are things that happen to women and girls because they are women and girls. Taking away the words that describe women and girls makes women's issues just random bad things that happen to people instead of the systematic oppression of the female sex. I'm not going to change the way I use the terms "woman" or "female".

Yes, there are Flora, and regular-looking trans women are getting a taste of one of those things now, thanks to Caitlyn's over-photo-shopped, over-exposure.

The point of this thread is not to express any kind of schadenfreude, although I can see it might come across that way. But to express bewilderment towards the idea that this might be an experience that is unique to the trans community.

It most definitely is not. If you want to be a woman, then this is part and parcel of living as a women.

uglyswan I don't think "people" works as then if you are trying to identify a group of people who have something done to them due to what is said when they're born - so for example the group who are born and people say "it's a girl" - if you describe them as "people" then you have lost the focus of who you are trying to support or help. For instance in your example, if you have an area where 0% of girls are educated, and 100% of boys, and you want to address this, how do you do so if you are referring to all of them as "children".

Note that I have read a couple of things that would like the term FGM changed as it links "female" with this particular process done to the vulva / vagina / clitoris / depending on what type of FGM different parts will be affected, some people argue that this is transphobic (as females can have penises).

Yes I think most people on the boards feel the same way flora.

I personally (and this is personal) am happy to use other words or terms as long as it is clear, and everyone around the world knows and is comfortable with using them.

I can't see that happening any time soon TBH. I'm not sure what the answer is. And how can it make sense? So I'm not a woman, yet everyone around me since I was born would identify me as one, and I have been treated in a certain way based on that all my life.

Uglyswan your idea that people who are unhappy with their lot due to oppression, violence etc should consider changing - but most FAAB do not have that luxury. We have missing millions who didn't even make it as far as birth because of what they had between their legs. We need words to describe these groups or we lose the ability to say what the problem is.

For example, if you say there are X million missing girls, then that flags up a problem with teh status of girls in the countries where it's happening. If you say there are X million missing children, then that maybe just gives some ammo to the anti-abortion lobby (something feminists in general are not very keen on doing).

So when I go to work and there are COSHH forms that tell me about handling chemicals which are hazardous to women, I'm pretty sure they don't mean hazardous to my identity.

What word should they replace women with?

OK, now I get it (sorry, bit slow today). Of course, you could say that 50% of the children in the area are uneducated due to their perceived or ascribed gender, but I agree that would be a bit tortuous. I'm going to have think about this.

I'm not trying to undermine the attribution of male/female categories to external genitalia, what would be the point of that? If the goal is to see gender indepently from biological sex (however you define that), then I don't see why calling someone a woman with male genitalia (if it's relevant in any way) can be transphobic. The organs may be male, the person may be female. So the accusation of transphobia re FGM makes no sense to me the organs being mutilated are female genitalia, whatever the person's chromosomes, internal sex organs, or gender identity.

almond - I'd replace that with "the chemicals can cause damage to female reproductive organs". Is that acceptable?