Evidence from film, plays, etc of the historical background of casual accepable male violence against transwomen

[seethesuninwintertime]

I am trying to engage more effectively locally and to redirect attention to the real issues transwomen were trying to overcome pre GRA in the hope of highlighting the modern attacks on actual women for what they are i.e. misogny. I'm a great believer that if you gather data and put it on a timeline then it will confess its secrets and show its patterns.

Happy to look at Gender studies literature i.e. stuff written by people I don't agree with.

My tentative hypothesis is that transexuals were a legitimate target of male mockery and male violence until very recently. What I wonder if whether there was always misogyny behind the abuse of transexuals and whether that misogyny has now changed. I wonder if the abuse that was casually directed at transexuals has now been partially redirected at gender critical women but it's the same old thing. I wonder whether all that hatred needed somewhere to go once it became less acceptable to simply mock transsexuals. I dont' know.

Off the top of my head I can think of:
"She-man" in Sopranos series 2
Crocodile Dundee scene where he grabs the transexual's genitals and everyone laughs and mocks
"Rent" (which had a bizarre line about the transsexual being a better woman than other women).
Rocky Horror Show which was how most people born in the 1970s were introduced to transvestism/transexuality.

But someone must have done a phd in this - in fact loads of phds must have been done. so I don't need to reinvent the wheel

In terms of my bona fides, I am a regular but frequently name change.

....also what a timeline would tell us is where the abuse came from. I suspect 99% from men with women mainly showing kindness.

Little Britain was very unpleasant, though Matt Lucas has now done a 180 degree about turn. Conveniently.

@RoyalCorgi

Little Britain was very unpleasant, though Matt Lucas has now done a 180 degree about turn. Conveniently.

it's encouraging that people can learn and change

I was very shocked in 1992 when I saw the film 'The Crying Game'....I can't remember if any violence involved, more the shock that a 'woman' could have a penis. It was a thriller set against troubles in NI/Ireland.

You need to remember that transexuals were few and far between and outside most people's experience.
However situation comedies in the 1970's had well loved characters such as Mr Humphries in 'Are you being served?' who was a gay man, (not a transexual) but no one ever said that was what he was. Most of the humour was 'double-entendre' e.g. Mrs Slocombe's pussy.

Carry On films might be worth a look. Heterosexual groping definitely the order of the day.

Comedians such as Les Dawson used to do sketches 'over the garden wall' in drag.
The pantomime dame is a staple of British culture - why?

As there are a lot of 'apparently heterosexual' men dressing as ugly females for entertainment purposes, it must all be linked into male sexuality somehow.
Dame Edna Everidge (Barry Humphries) is another massively popular comedic act.
Later on Julian Clary?
I have never watched 'RuRu Paul's Drag Race' so I have no idea what the current incarnation of drag as entertainment is. (I dread to think lol)

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?

It's a long time since I have seen it but the film 'Dressed to kill'(1980) by Brian de Parma.

@dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby

It's a long time since I have seen it but the film 'Dressed to kill'(1980) by Brian de Parma.

Apparently has similarities with Hitchcock's 'Psycho' in that the murderer dresses as a woman.

This is a fairly in depth study of the history of pop culture transphobia, with a lot of examples and case studies.

The closing credits of bridget jones 2.

Think there was something unpleasant in Ace Ventura, iirc.

Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street.

I don't think there's anybody transsexual in Rent is there? Angel's a drag performer and might cross-dress as well (I haven't seen it for a bit) but definitely doesn't all the time.

What's your basis for thinking trans women are no longer a target for male violence and mockery?

There was a scene in Trainspotting I think, with Begby snogging a TW in a car then beats them up when they find out.

Trainspotting when begbie gets off with someone he believes to be a woman.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transgender_characters_in_television

I don't think Rocky Horror shows violence towards transsexuals in that sense: Frank N. Furter isn't punished for being (as he calls himself) a transvestite but for all the other stuff - like axe murder - he gets up to, and it's in a musical written by Richard O'Brien who describes himself as 'transgender', '70% male 30% female', but is not someone who believes you can actually change sex.

And the Rocky Horror live shows were an occasion when male audience members dressed up in Frank N. Furterish clothing too - for many men a rare chance to go to town, literally, experimenting with the sort of clothing and presentation they normally wouldn't try or risk.

@FatCottonBuds

Trainspotting when begbie gets off with someone he believes to be a woman.

I don't think he does beat her up - he jumps out of the car and looks sick. as I remember it.

I think the issue is far more complex than acceptable public displays of anger and violence; there was also acceptable covert use of drag artists and cross dressers by men's clubs.

An example is shown in Prime Suspect series 3, Keeper of Souls. Organisations such as the police and Freemasons used to organize men's nights, that hired drag acts to entertain.
IMO most men don't hate drag artists or cross dressers; more that they expect them to know their place and will punish them for stepping out of line. Thats a feature of hierarchical systems.
Also IMO patriarchy is a special hierarchical system based on sex. When men remove women from the public sphere, they seem to create a special class of men to play that role.

There is a transwoman calked venus in series 5/6/7 of Sons of Anarchy

I seem to remember a few comments about her from the male characters but she ends up as a friend of the gang and the love interest for one of the gang members

Called

Not calked obviously…that wouldn’t work at all

...just to say reading with great interest.

happy to accept that transwomen are still a target of male violence in reality. But in terms of what people pretend in public, it has changed. Which leaves a lot of hatred and fear that has to go somewhere......

one cliche I have in my mind is the trope of the man believing he is about to have sex with a woman only to find at the last moment that it is a transwoman and therefore becoming violent in the belief that this is somehow necessary/justifiable to protect his own masculinity. I don't know where I got that cliche from but i think it does appear in the movies I watched from childhood onwards (70s,80s,90s).

Transwomen absolutely are still the victims of mockery and actual violence.
When the progressive "left" move on to their next thing, Transwomen (and transmen, and gay men and lesbians) will be left to deal with the backlash alone. And there will be one hell of a backlash. Stonewall will be busy counting their cash. I would suggest that if anyone wants to be a genuine ally that will be the time to demonstrate it. (Just as people standing up for women's rights not to be raped in 2021 are more helpful than the people paying lip service to the idea in 2016).

" RoyalCorgi: Little Britain was very unpleasant, though Matt Lucas has now done a 180 degree about turn. Conveniently."

"it's encouraging that people can learn and change"

I think that's very interesting. Are men learning and changing or is there an inbuilt disgust with non-men that means their hatred has to go somewhere (and middle aged women have a bit of a history of being the target of it don't we?).