Juno Dawson article in The Pool

[HomeTerf]

I get The Pool bulletins in my inbox every morning. Today I was in a bad mood before I'd finished my first cup of tea.

www.the-pool.com/beauty/beauty-honestly/2018/13/juno-dawson-on-international-transgender-day-of-visibility-beauty?utm_source=today&utm_campaign=a7392b5b00-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0522b4f78a-a7392b5b00-69698209&mc_cid=a7392b5b00&mc_eid=c50be11d85

clicky link

I can't quite put my finger on why it's so annoying. Perhaps because Dawson is trying to elicit sympathy at the fact that transwomen have to be attractive (or 'fuckable') to get on magazine covers (like women then) and simultaneously objecting to only being used by magazine editors to tick a diversity box and not because they're the best person for the job (ie. attractive.) Perhaps it's the passing token mention of black, Muslim and disabled women, when I'd say that disabled women in particular are far more woefully underrepresented in the media than transwomen (most notably in the New Suffragette feature in which Paris Lees was given a place.) Perhaps it's just the snippy tone.

I've read it through twice and I'm still not quite sure what its point is. Apart from flogging Dawson's book. At least that bit was clear.

I first read it when I was 20 @BeUpStanding and I'm 50 now. Never gets old.

Dawson is being entirely disingenuous. Trans women desperately want to pass. They spend hours learning how to. If they didn't care, they wouldn't have facial feminisation surgery. I think he's surprised and pissed off that he doesn't pass

IIRC this is the transgender advocate who argues that all gay men are actually transgender like he is but too cowardly to admit it.
I do not think there is any coming back from that.

I just was thinking No Shit Sherlock

IIRC this is the transgender advocate who argues that all gay men are actually transgender like he is but too cowardly to admit it.

It is. Datalounge was furious with Juno for weeks.

Isn't that the whole point though? They're 'wearing' our frustration with the beauty industry just as they wear 'our' makeup

This.

It's total appropriation. In their mind it validates their status as woman. They look at women getting frustrated with the beauty industry and male gaze and think that that's what they should do as well to be seen as 'womanly' (see words like 'fuckable').

Except as others have said, the irony is that, with their breast implants, facial feminisation surgery, makeup, long hair and other outwardly 'feminine' stuff, they are propping up the very systems they are moaning about.

I really can't see how it's any different to me blacking up and then writing an article about how frustrated I am at the lack of black women in the beauty industry, with me being one of those black women. Seriously, I can't.

Also, slightly disappointed with the Pool for this article. I really thought they had peak transed, as they haven't had anything for months about trans issues, not even celebrating Paris and her Vogue cover, where they had done quite a lot of stuff on Munroe Bergdorf previously.

Here's Juno on the telly describing the difference between sex and gender. Spoiler alert... "Gender is hair, make up, a suit & tie"

I really hate Piers Morgan but in that clip......

Juno: 'This person prefers the pronoun they'

Piers: 'But they is plural'

YES!

As usual in that clip, Juno seems oblivious to the fact that you can't identify out of your sex, which for women is the basis of their oppression. Women can't identify out of that.

I thought that was a photo of Caitlyn Jenner.

Poor Juno, thinking everyone would fawn over h** attractiveness only to find that that's not the case.

Christ on a bike, the argument is so SHIT!!

The language gymnastics that turn simple communication into a minefield.

Gender is hair, make up and a suit and tie. Sex is different. (Err... Exactly.)

'You don't understand because you're old. Have you ever been on Tumblr?' That bastion of rigorous intellectual argument.

And people are still giving him a platform.

Juno doesn't know what it is like to be non-binary, doesn't know what it is like to be deaf as they are not deaf.... why doesn't this argument continue so they don't know what it is like to be a woman either?

Exactly.

but they did say that mammals are binary (male/female) and that sex is biology, while gender is a social construct!
so near......yet so far.....

The article is to inform us that Juno is attractive and that he passes. Narcissism writ large.

Juno's narcissism blinds him to the fact that he resembles a cross between Widow Twankey and the Bride of Wildenstein.

IIRC this is the transgender advocate who argues that all gay men are actually transgender like he is but too cowardly to admit it.
I do not think there is any coming back from that.

What the actual fuck? There is so much homophobia surrounding this whole thing.

What the actual fuck? There is so much homophobia surrounding this whole thing.

This was the quote:

I think there are a lot of gay men out there who are gay men as a consolation prize because they couldn’t be women.

He really thinks all the gay men are frustrated trans.

Juno Dawson's views on gay men
www.independent.co.uk/voices/juno-dawson-attitude-magazine-interview-transgender-gay-man-lgbt-trans-woman-a7752701.html

Thanks for the quote and link. I am utterly, utterly horrified at those comments. What a wicked, despicable thing to say.

How is this person not being dragged through the mud (on social media) for this when many people are being abused in the street for attending events?
I must clarify that I am not calling for that to happen I’m just pointing out the obvious difference in the two sides of the argument.

I find it extraordinary that homosexuality is now wrong. It will, if this carries on, be marginalised and looked down upon.

All the work that the LGB community has done will be for nothing.

Juno outright says that gender is hair, make up and clothes. And then says you have to change sex in order to express yourself through that medium.

I can't finish watching the clip. But why doesn't someone say hang on a minute. You're separating sex gender, and expressing yourself through gender and saying that it now means sex 'I've always been a woman'.

It's so muddled. And so incredibly, breathtakingly backwards and regressive.

It has been my observation that the only people more homophobic than the religious right are the transgender advocates.

In relation to the TV interview, isn't Juno himself a bit old for Tumblr? I know there are some older people on there, even some who have great things to say, but Juno would most likely be using it the same way most of the teenagers on it do, and I really don't think that's appropriate given the age gap between him and them.

If TRA want to declare that gender is hair, clothes, etc, then OK, but those things are not the criteria we use to decide who has access to which spaces. Maybe if we replaced the standard stick figure/stick figure in a dress bathroom signs with a little cartoon cock and balls and a little cartoon vulva this would be easier for them to understand?

(Where's that sarcasm font when you need it?)

Juno's narcissism blinds him to the fact that he resembles a cross between Widow Twankey and the Bride of Wildenstein.

Yup.

Juno would most likely be using it the same way most of the teenagers on it do

Juno has published a couple of books for the YA market, including one on mental health and is a regular panellist at YA book events. I imagine the tumblr is at least partially for profile for this reason.

I think this trans stuff is the only thing I agree with Piers Morgan on. It feels wrong to be agreeing with him on something

Am I reading this wrong or is Juno equating themselves with the 'supermodel' grouping? Really?