Mr Gay England: The trans man competing 'against an idea of male beauty'

[howard97A]

Another step in BBC’s retreat from reality:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-53936529

The organisers seem fully onboard and positive. It'll be interesting to see the wider reaction. Overall men don't fear the threat of physical and sexual violence from women and are more privileged in their position in society and their responses to trans gender ideology are coloured by that.

Well ... I guess that one is up for the gay men to figure out. Over to you guys!

Good luck to him, hope he wins.

Nothing to do with me.

I too reckon that's one for gay men to work through!

It's not easy to understand a female who asks to be accepted as a man, but who performs as a drag king which by definition means a woman dressing up as a man. TRAs are keen to tell people to educate themselves on trans issues but how can you learn about something that is but simultaneously is not?

I know I'm being over hopeful expecting logic, no need to explain

One of the links to the “stats” about trans murder takes you to PinkNews.

So my assumption would by Mr Gay would be a big muscly hunk. I think gay men like much the same physically in a man as women?

So I thought when I clicked on the article it was going to be about a more feminine flamboyant man competing - to go against the basic standard of male beauty.

But its a woman, who idetifyes as a man, entering a competition for men that are attracted to other men. I would have more respect for him if he entered Miss World. It seems a bit offensive to gay men. But I don't know I'm not a gay man. I can only consider how I would feel if a man who had not made any physical change to their body, entered a female beauty competition to try and show that a man can be more beautiful than a woman.

Somewhat curious to know whether 'except for relationship purposes' applies in the acceptance of this person as specifically a gay man.

I may go and have a look on Datalounge to see what their take on this is. Their moderation is much lighter touch than here and they don’t pull their punches.

The way that article is written is so dumbed down:

It's a beauty pageant that usually crowns a muscular, gay man - a stereotypical idea of what's hot in a bloke - as the most attractive in England.

I know it's a Newsbeat article, so aimed at younger readers, but this was on the British Broadcasting Corporation's front page on the app this morning.

I will be interested to see what gay men make of this. History shows us that men do not like being dictated to when it comes to what they should or should not find attractive

A trans man can never be a gay man so why are they allowed to compete?

From what I can gather some of the debate in the gay community about these issues is as you'd expect - gay men defending their right not to be attracted to vaginas.

But of course a transman with a vagina is not as threatening to a gay man as a transwoman with a penis is to a lesbian.

What I do notice though is a lot of weariness with the domination of the issue. I've seen posts from gay students saying they turned up to their university's LGBTQ group in Fresher's Week and found it was full of people who were basically straight but claiming they were various non-binary genders. And that they didn't have anything against that but it simply had no relevance to their lives.

If "Drop the T" does happen I suspect it will be because of this - that gay people just move away as the organisations supposed to represent them become less and less relevant to their needs.

I was totally confused by that story. I thought the person was attracted to women, not men, looking at their Twitter. Also, the person's not on testosterone, but have they had a mastectomy?

Not sure why it was on the front page! But strangely there seems to be at least one trans story a week on the bbc, if not two...

Sounds good to me, good luck to him!

"I get a lot of judgment for being a trans man but a lot of the time people do not read me as a trans man," Chiyo says.

"I still experience a lot of misogyny from being read as a woman or trans misogyny and brutal violence because they think I'm a different type of 'transness'.

"Trans misogyny" is a meaningless term, it's just misogyny. If you have the "gyny" parts, you can experience misogyny, end of.

Also... brutal violence ?? Sorry but how can you just throw around the phrase "I experience brutal violence" like that with no context?
What, you were misgendered? Your idea about yourself hasn't been validated enough for your liking? Your mum still calls you her daughter sort of thing? Or are you actually frequently punched in the face?

I'd normally think "Oh no how awful" if someone said they'd been subject to "brutal violence". But trans ideologists throw turns of phrase like this and "literal violence" around so often when they actually mean something else entirely it just becomes antagonistic.

Anyway, all that aside, it really is gay men who need to sort out where transmen fit in with them, not feminists.

What struck me about this story, and the language the BBC uses to tell it, is how transgender ideology and controlled speech make it difficult to discern and discuss what’s really happening.

Perhaps there are interesting questions to be asked about stereotypes of masculine beauty, but can a real challenge be presented, as here, by a heterosexual woman?

If you don't admire men in some way, why aspire to be one.
If you don't think there is something inherently good/beautiful/prizeworthy about male bodies, then why try to change your body to be one.

This branch of identity politics could also be described as "identity theft."

being surrounded by constant masculinity and predominant whiteness is very intimidating

Lots of double-speak in this article. First there’s the ‘brutal violence’ that Gncq mentioned. Then there’s the obligatory reference to ‘whiteness’ which can mean a whole host of things. Plus, if being surrounded by masculinity is so intimidating, why enter a gay male beauty contest?

by a heterosexual woman
I think the person in question is attracted to women?

@Gncq

"I get a lot of judgment for being a trans man but a lot of the time people do not read me as a trans man," Chiyo says.

"I still experience a lot of misogyny from being read as a woman or trans misogyny and brutal violence because they think I'm a different type of 'transness'.

"Trans misogyny" is a meaningless term, it's just misogyny. If you have the "gyny" parts, you can experience misogyny, end of.

Also... brutal violence ?? Sorry but how can you just throw around the phrase "I experience brutal violence" like that with no context?
What, you were misgendered? Your idea about yourself hasn't been validated enough for your liking? Your mum still calls you her daughter sort of thing? Or are you actually frequently punched in the face?

I'd normally think "Oh no how awful" if someone said they'd been subject to "brutal violence". But trans ideologists throw turns of phrase like this and "literal violence" around so often when they actually mean something else entirely it just becomes antagonistic.

Anyway, all that aside, it really is gay men who need to sort out where transmen fit in with them, not feminists.

Totally agree with this.

Every time I read something about this it's always "my life, my sexuality is so much more complicated than yours! My trauma is so great compared to yours!"

To be honest reading that article made my brain hurt trying to untangle everything.

“I think the person in question is attracted to women?”

Winter, My assumption was that a transgender person who describes themself as a gay man would be attracted to men.

I could be wrong.

This is a really weird article. I’m not sure why the journalist whilst writing a profile of a trans competitor in Mr Gay UK felt it necessary or relevant to include (dubious) information about the treatment of trans people in the USA. It’s like reading a recipe and finding the statistics for industrial farming accidents included. Just odd. BBC journalism really has seen better days, hasn’t it

@SorryAuntLydia

This is a really weird article. I’m not sure why the journalist whilst writing a profile of a trans competitor in Mr Gay UK felt it necessary or relevant to include (dubious) information about the treatment of trans people in the USA. It’s like reading a recipe and finding the statistics for industrial farming accidents included. Just odd. BBC journalism really has seen better days, hasn’t it

Photo didn’t attach

I think the person in question is attracted to women?

If this is true would this mean that they qualify for gayness by being same-sex attracted and qualify for entry into a male beauty contest by having adopted a masculine identity? That would be an adventurous pitch.

Whatever it is, I think this could be positive. Let Chiyo and Chiyo's supporters bring pressure to bear on gay men to change their standards of beauty so that Chiyo can do well in the contest in opposition to what the gay men would prefer. That would be a very interesting exercise of power to watch.