You Can’t Buy an Authentic Self

[BackToLurk]

I’ve long held the view that much of identity politics, including gender identity politics, owes a lot to late stage capitalism. It’s often very much about the primacy of the individual. I found this interesting in relation to the role of corporations in selling ‘authentic selves’ to transpeople, and packaging it as inclusivity.

Freya is apparently a ‘voice of Gen Z feminism.’

https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/you-cant-buy-an-authentic-self

Very interesting article, thank you OP, thanks for the link.

The comments about companies selling expensive 'true selves' to transpeople made me think about the professional 'ladyboy' community in places like Thailand and their relationship with the huge beauty products/cosmetic/'gender reassignment' surgery industries in that part of the world.

There is a million?billion? dollar market for beauty products, over-the-counter hormones, cosmetic surgery, 'gender reassignment' surgery in parts of the world where kathoeys/ladyboys flourish, attracting medical tourists from all over the world, but I'm guessing that keeping a strong local demand is an important part of the business model.

And while respecting the kathoey tradition as being part of the local culture, I wonder whether the glossy, commercial, highly-stereotyped and probably very exploitative ladyboy scene is a genuine development of the old tradition.

Being a professional 'ladyboy' can be a way out of poverty for children with no other options in life, and if that's your job, you're going to need to look as convincing as possible, meaning more hormones, more cosmetics, more surgery, all of which keeps the 'beauty' industry booming.

[I've just thought: what happens, economically, to ladyboys when they grow old and the hormones and the cosmetics and the surgery stop working??]

All this is just speculation on my part but..
I understand the 3rd gender/kathoey thing is traditional, but I wonder how much the professional 'ladyboy' aspect of it grew out of the demand for R&R for US soldiers during the Vietnam war.
Bangkok became one of the centres of this, and the 'recreation' part of R&R mostly meant bars, shows and prostitution.

I wonder if the kathoey tradition meant that there were boys from poor backgrounds who could pass as women and who were recruited into the entertainment and prostitution 'R&R' business, and if the commercial ladyboy scene grew out of that?

In other words, I wonder how authentic the professional ladyboy identity, rather than kathoey, is, and how much it is driven by the cosmetic surgery/beauty products/'reassignment' surgery industries?

And, as with all 'adult services' industries, are the young boys entering the ladyboy industry doing so freely, or because of economic necessity?

Good article. I’m glad that some of the young’uns can see the rampant capitalism at work. The idea of making drastic changes to one’s body and face in order to be one’s ’true/authentic self’ has always been absurdly contradictory. And like the author, I find it interesting that people who are supposedly very much on the left are happy to pay into the machine in such a big way. Stick it to the man! (By giving him all your money because he’s made you feel so shit about yourself).

Good blog. I've always thought that the majority of trans individuals see fulfilling/finding their true selves as adjusting their bodies to the environment around them (other people, gender norms and stereotypes), and then insisting that environment, ie us/other people around them, adjust our responses and behaviour and language towards them.
These people are chronically unhappy because they don't fit into the world around them, so adjust themselves and oblige that world to alter its view of them.
A false premise (the world can't change just because you're unhappy in your own skin/gender structure) leads to an unacceptable demand (when I change or say I've changed, the world must affirm that change even if it means that affirmation inconveniences countless others).
Maybe so many trans true self is narcissistic selfishness. So be it, but I don't see why any woman should have to play along and be disadvantaged as a result.

This is dumb. I like dogs, films, travelling abroad, exotic food, gym work outs, reading books. All these pursuits are an expression of my personality. Inner self is just personality….& all this costs $.

But would you say that you would stop being your authentic self if you couldn't financially afford those things anymore? Woud you say that you must have those things in order to fully express your authentic self?

I would say I'm happier as a person being married and moving from London to a more provincial, community-centered area.
Sure, I'm still a little selfish and self obsessed, but I've leant to think more of others, and have given up certain lifestyles that felt self fulfilling as a selfish loner.
I would say my sense of self has changed, it's much more my interaction with others.
Wasn't always easy, but fulfilling.
My attitudes politically and societally have also changed. Hell, I'm daily on Mumsnet, lol.
And as someone who was deeply into the outer reaches of nocturnal behaviour (and I don't mean ghost hunting), and a highly driven male, I have some familiarity with what the selfish impulses of TIMs result in their comprehension of the world, and how their personal happiness comes before all considerations of greater society, and the unacceptable compromises forced upon women.

I've said before about the parallels of pursuing a trans identity and addiction.

The trans widows threads speak of it lots too.

The element of obsession (potentially autistic fixation) and 'chasing the impossible' of transition.

This is why it is important to state clearly that no amount of hormones or surgery can change your sex.

It's an illusive goal that can never be achieved.

Welcome to being a woman. We're all being sold all the time that we're not good enough and that one more purchase (make up, self catering, treatment, surgery) will make us right. You just have to work out what's actually important to you and get a thick skin to ignore the rest.

That's a great post! Thanks OP for linking to it!

doubling down on this narrative that you need clothes, cosmetics and surgeries to discover who you really are.

I must admit that I'm quite shocked at the use of the word "discover" here. I would have understood "express", but "discover"? The idea that the very discovery of who we are might depend on external artifices is downright depressing to me. And yet, I can only assume that Freya used that word because it's the one that fits.

I think that’s manipulating vulnerable people. I think it’s obscene to convince someone who is suffering that it costs this much, financially and emotionally, to be their true selves. And that we should be very wary of teaching the next generation that their identity is something to be bought.

Indeed. The very idea that we can't be ourselves unless we look a certain way is both horrifying and nonsensical. We are ourselves, at every moment of every day! We may not look like we wish we would, but that has no influence on who and what we are. This equation between looks and identity is already toxic enough for non-trans people, especially the young ones (I mean, I do remember thinking I was a worthless cypher because I was fat, as a teenager), but doubling down on this message when addressing a population who is specifically struggling with identity is obscene.

Gen Z is trapped in this constant struggle between curating an artificial self online and then grappling to rediscover an authentic one offline.

That makes me so sad for those poor kids and young people :( Being young is hard enough on its own. Being young in those circumstances... It's no wonder they want to escape this reality!

To be honest I’m not convinced there’s even such thing as a self without other people—let alone an authentic one. There’s a vanity to even thinking there is a self to be found. We are our relationships with others. If you were left alone with all your products and clothes and aesthetic enhancements and never spoke to another person, you would not be your true self. You’d be nothing.

Fascinating! I fully disagree, if only because the existence of deliberate hermits proves Freya is wrong: there are plenty of people who live full lives without depending on relationships with others. But I'm very interested in the various types of personalities that can exist, and one axis in particular seems at work here: introversion vs. extraversion. Freya at one end argues that they would be nothing without the presence of other people, while hermits at the other end argue that they can't be themselves in the presence of other people. This makes me wonder how much that one trait - introversion vs. extraversion - influences whether and especially how someone might be trans...

I guess that takes us back to, "What the hell is our authentic self anyway??" If we live in one way and we think we're fine, but then our circumstances change and we adapt our behaviour to them and we discover we're even happier this way, then can it be said that at any point in our life, we knew what our authentic self was and how to express it best? After all, maybe even in our new, more happiness-inducing circumstances, we're still not at our happiest? Maybe a completely different life would make us even happier? How would we know?

I'm not really going anywhere with this, mind you, just thinking out loud.

Yes, since we change as the world around us changes, maybe trans are going to see to and fro transition as the norm. And society will have to keep adjusting around that.
Ergo, more seriousness by individuals.
Self worth and self centered mean totally different things.
You can't get the former from the latter.

You can’t buy an authentic self. It’s fairly obvious, and this is a pithy and very clear statement of something we’ve been saying on FWR for a long time.

Absolutely it is an extreme extension of consumerist society.

It’s hard to recognise yourself, perceived flaws and all, and come to terms with who you are, if not to learn to love yourself as you are. It’s hard to face the causes of your distress and discomfort with yourself. Much easier to pop a Prozac or get some retail therapy. You’re still the same. You’ve put a fragile barrier between your surface happiness and your deeper dissatisfaction. You’re no more authentic than before.

Not so different with unhappiness that you perceive as gender-related. It’s hard to face the causes of your distress and discomfort with yourself. Much easier to pop exogenous hormones, buy binders or prosthetic boobs, or get some expensive surgery. You’re still the same. You’ve put an even more fragile barrier between your surface happiness and your deeper dissatisfaction. Worse - that fragile barrier depends on others affirming you. You’re no more authentic than before. Probably less.

Just because you can buy it, doesn’t mean you should. How are you different to a hoarder who buys and buys yet is never happier and becomes more uncomfortable in their overcluttered home?

Fantastic post, a brilliant addition to my "personal happiness can't depend on you physically changing yourself and obliging others to accept your change", especially if that change is superficial and bogus at heart.

You don't find inner peace until you reach the higher level of "I don't give a shit".

I'm getting there. I've always hesitated in the final analysis, because I'm so British, and am almost addicted to seeing both sides of every argument.
But the last decade has knocked this reserve out of me, and now I'm unequivocal GC, and will say it as it is.
Am I happier being more forthright? Not sure. But it's more me.
Ooh, I've improved my self, despite being unsure about the concept, lol.

There’s a difference though between enjoying things that express your personality, and happen to cost money, and the idea that you must buy things in order to define that personality. Even as an expression of a personality, there’s a difference between, for example, enjoying reading and engaging in the commodification of reading.

@JellySaurus

Not so different with unhappiness that you perceive as gender-related. It’s hard to face the causes of your distress and discomfort with yourself. Much easier to pop exogenous hormones, buy binders or prosthetic boobs, or get some expensive surgery.

Yes. Precisely this. It’s a quick fix in an age that’s looking for quick fixes.

Totally agree. Everything from pharma companies creating a permanently needy market, to private 'medical care', through DEI courses for corporations (so much easier to pay for kudos than to structurally change the system), and frankly, at the utterly pointless end, all the bloody Chinese-manufactured plastic rainbow tat, from flags to lanyards.
End-state capitalism writ large.

This is a fascinating article and it expresses a lot of sensible thought. I've come across a lot of feminist videos and essays by younger women all saying that their peers are being intensively marketed to by plastic surgeons touting the affirming nature of finally looking the way you feel you should. It also doesn't help when you have women in the public eye such as the Kardashian clan who change their appearance frequently via surgery and promote the surgeons who carried out the operations.

Hyperindividualism is being promoted and facilitated as part of late stage capitalism - the human body is on record (from various interviews I've read with Silicon Valley start up entrepreneurs) as the new tech frontier. And women's bodies are the most exploitable by capitalist enterprise because our bodies have the ability to generate and sustain life.

Trans identifying men often say When i looked in the mirror, i finally saw 'her'. Indicating a lot of it isnt an internal sense of gender or whatever, but a look.

I dont think its a coincidence that gender has blown up as influencers have appeared. Especially as the internet can disguise adverts as people just sharing their experiences. Watching content is watching hours and hours of adverts in some cases.

I LOVE reading and over the years I've bought a lot of books (to the point that I have bookshelves all over my house) but I don't approach reading the way that BookTok does - the extreme consumerism that applies to that online community is frightening.

The book hauls, the shelf building/rearranging videos, the e-reader pimping videos, the videos and tutorials about creating the perfect reading nook, the shaming people who can't keep up...everything that is good about the hobby of reading is taken to such capitalistic excess that it totally removes the joy and the benefit of settling down and losing yourself in a good book.

So much that brings joy to people is now being marketed back to them as competition to spend the most money and gain the most attention.

Just wait because they’ll compare it to medical plastic surgery like people who need nose jobs for breathing issues or a breast reduction.

a lot of people in these spaces are the same people in polyamory and BDSM spaces and also have children who I feel sorry for because they are mentally ill

Sorry, thought this very mediocre and in fact saying what every 10 years of so someone says about whatever current trend high end consumers are falling for.

It says more about what seems to be a point of influence for the writer.

So capitalism exploits trends? Why is any one surprised?

From sexualising underage girls, to making older women feel they no longer matter or whatever this always happens.

And of course as trans is so much a constructed persona it just gives capitalism more options.

But in the end none of this fads would happen if the MSM to begin with hadn't created or pretended to say this or that is the current cutting edge which causes the need among some to consume so as to identify with this trend.

Yeah, absolutely, my kid coming out in secondary school, going through years of intense bullying, sexual harassment and constant threats of sexual assault was because of late-stage capitalism.

And trans women who struggle to find employment other than sex work because rampant bigotry? Aye, late-stage capitalism.

It's given them so much! Strange it does so about the age of four, when most trans people work out who they are, but what the hell.

It's not at all that you crave any explanation which would excuse your weird obsession with a tiny minority. And be a way to blame them for their own persecution. Absolutely not.

Never mind that most trans people report they'd rather be cis because of the never-ending threats, bigotry and violence they suffer. And are only trans because it gives them peace, makes them feel whole.

Never mind that being trans is rare but completely normal, and that trans people existed long before Karl Marx was a glint in his mum's eye.

Yeah, absolutely. Reduce people to things, objects. Patronise and compartmentalise and label them. God forbid you could stop seeking origin stories for them like they're fucking Batman.

No-one here is saying that late stage capitalism has helped trans IDd individuals. Quite the opposite, that it's a total curse. For people on both sides of the divide.
Unless you consider all the trans on TikTok telling us how Dylan Mulvaney and the Bud Light commercials, Mulvaney's blog. etc helped with making things visible, and how clinics and hormone suppliers serving this need have become so much more prevalent because of capitalist opportunities.
Profits will find consumers.