The Danish Girl

[whenohwhen]

Currently watching the Eddie Redmayne film The Danish Girl and am struggling with my feelings regarding transgender issues with reference to this particular film.
As a Feminist I felt I had pretty clear lines drawn regarding my own views on trans women.

Fwiw in a nutshell, I thought each to their own, live and let live. I, of course, had issue with the abuse of the system with reference to some male "self identification" as women to access vulnerable females. I also was horrified by young children undergoing gender reassignment treatment. I thought that children should be allowed to develop and mature before they were allowed to make such a decision.

Now, watching this film I'm not sure. I think I feel uncomfortable with transgender as a concept. I'd not really recognised it in myself before and it It feels exclusionary and uncomfortable. I don't like myself for it. But this story seems to have allowed me to recognise it.

As a woman I don't feel differently to a man on an intellectual, spiritual or any other plane. I just don't. I feel that if I wanted to marry a woman and wear traditionally male clothes and call myself Sam, I would and I could. I believe I am as worthy of power and money as every man and will assert that belief as necessary.
I also believe that men have the right to be vulnerable and feminine as men. I believe they should and could fulfil traditional female roles and have traditionally female sensibilities if that is their choice as men.

I don't think any person should feel uncomfortable enough in their own skin and genitalia to surgically change it. I think as a society we should support every single person to learn to view themselves as perfect just as they are, how they were created. Be that in a dress or a suit, they are accepted.

I must be missing something. But I just can't see why any person should feel so unworthy as they are that they would want to change something so fundamental about themselves. I get it in the period that this film was set, I keep thinking "thank goodness people wouldn't need to do that anymore", but they do.

I watched it the other night, and it annoyed me intensely. And not just due to Eddie Redmayne's hammy acted, ridiculous chin down, breathy voiced, tinkly laughed, geisha stepping, eyes averted, simpering CARIACATURE of woman.

But because the actual woman, his wife, a person of intense talent, had her life subsumed in service of him and his issues. Her opportunity for happiness stolen by a gay man who placed himself first.

And, as always, because the truth is so blatantly highlighted by every such case, this is never about personal expression and tastes. What the clothes and makeup and hair look like is secondary to the fact that they are the expected garb of women. Each culture and generation has it's own uniform, and whatever that is, it is the one expected of the female sex that is the desired target. It is about REDUCING women down to garments and makeup and superficial observations by a man, and the arrogance of assuming that women have no more substance than such artificial costume and appearance.

I could find some sympathy for him, yes. But mostly I just feel enraged by the crashing, supercilious arrogance of any man who cannot begin to treat women as actual full human beings, entirely and fundamentally different from men. We are simply costumes to be worn, plasticine male bodies to be shaped, artifice to be adopted.

Anything of our actual existence and lives that cannot be acquired by them, is an irrelevance and must be dismissed, if it even registers in their consciousness the first place.

You could say it made me quite cross.

You said it better than me

I don't like to think of myself as against other people's personal choices. But I fundamentally don't get this choice.

I lasted ten minutes and hadn’t to turn it off. Eddie R was unwatchable - hammy indeed

Had to turn it off

I hated this film. He married her and then suddenly because he "felt female" he could cheat on her??? I hated the fact that he was portrayed as brave for indulging his sexual fetish at the expense of his wife.

Funny isn't it.
That scene in Single White Female where Hedy descends the stairs in the hairdressers revealing a perfect clone of Allison's distinctive hairdo. And Allison discovers that Hedy has been cloning her wardrobe too. And it completely squicks the viewer out because it's horribly creepy to know someone is observing you that closely and mimicking your life, your appearance, your personality in their effort to resemble you - to try to BE you.

But in Danish Girl it's supposed to be #StunningandBraveandTragic when a bloke does it to his wife and the women around him.

I felt pity for him that when he tried on women's clothes and obviously liked them, in that day and age there was no way that he would have been able to continue his life in a frock. These days it would be easier to live life as a man in women's clothes. If women's clothing is what makes you feel good then great, if you're a man or a woman.

I didn't appreciate the following:
wife "won't you consider painting again?"
eddie redmayne "I can't I am now woman".

Or words to that effect.

I watched it ages ago and was gobsmacked. I'd place it as a step on my way to peak trans, actually.

I thought I was going to watch the story of courage and suffering that trans propaganda is always putting out but all I saw was a massive great narcissist ruining the life of a spouse.

I honestly couldn't believe this was the film that was going to show everybody what suffering angels all trans people were. And this was at a point when I was not questioning the transactivist agenda at all.

I believe they should and could fulfil traditional female roles and have traditionally female sensibilities if that is their choice as men.

I wouldn't mind if there was a cat's chance in hell of this happening. But it doesn't.

They don't have 'female' sensibilities. Otherwise they would totally get women's point of view.

And I don't see them taking on women's roles either. Usurping their position and taking reasserting their role as a man, maybe. And with even more power.

Even the nice ones.

Because none is it is about women's actual roles. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from carrying those out as men.

It's about being treated in some fantasy way that they imagine women are treated.

Either put on a pedestal and worshiped, nurtured, centred. And getting excited about all the sex that be pressed on them.

Or getting off on being used and abused.

The ones who appear less sexual and less narcissistic just feel incapable of expressing their femininity without the legitimacy of been female.

Which really isn't anything to do with being a woman.

Which part, exactly, do you disagree with?

Or perhaps you just wanted to shout at some women for not liking a movie about a narcissist?

I'm which case, as you were.

What has been said that's vile?

I have purposefully avoided this film, I think it will only make me peak over and over again. Plus Eddie Redmayne annoys me enough already

I’ve only just watched this recently.

I was struck by how clear the film was that he was getting sexual gratification from dressing in woman’s clothes.

His treatment of her was awful.

I did a little reading afterwards and second round of surgery was a womb transplant.

Yes so bigoted. It was kind and caring of a Doctor to lie to patient to tell them he could become a woman including having a baby and do womb transplant 50 years before anti rejection meds were available. That’s kind and supportive is it?

No what I’m saying is that the doctor gave no shits about the trans person and saw them as something to experiment on. That I think the person was a person. Einer doesn’t seam like a lovely caring partner rather a self obsessed person who only wanted his wife to support him without supporting her.

But because the actual woman, his wife, a person of intense talent, had her life subsumed in service of him and his issues. Her opportunity for happiness stolen by a gay man who placed himself first.

Quite a familiar tale!

I've heard this. Despite all the gushing about how terribly moving it is. I thought it would make me angry so I didn't watch.