but is being attracted to someone doesn’t seem like an 100% accurate barometer for whether or not I’m still transphobic. I mean, plenty of straight men are gynophobic.

damn good point! And transmen are more easily thought of as hot than transwomen, as piny detailed on the whipping girl post, so it’s no wonder that a transman can’t do many things wrong, appearance-wise… On the contrary anything ‘off’ about a transwoman can evoke unease, disgust and even hatred. She’s got to be conforming to gender stereotypes, or else she’s not only undesireable but also thought of as performing and faking it-more than other women that is.

But you already noticed that behaviour X is a performance for cisgender women as well.. Such as the bending of the wrist, voice intonation, giggles and mannerisms, they’re all codes of communication and female bonding and are all independent from biology. That’s why when a transwoman, or an effeminate gay guy emulate these behaviours, you’ve got to remember that cis-women are emulating these behaviours as well. They’re not acting out pre-programmed sets of movements and choreography found in any genes, they just emulate the people of the gender they feel more comfortable with. So, if anything, they’re ‘faking it’ too. It’s just that the *motives* of ciswomen to emulate other women are not questioned, because they’re based on easy-to-discern biology (see? the kid’s got a vagina, of COURSE she feels like a woman), while the motives of transwomen *are*.

Note, this also fucks transmen up, because *their* motives and claims to masculinity are disputed too…

Um, so you think being a man is the more natural state of being for a human creature?

Apparently so. And this is why I suspect that my problem is actually a function of cultural misogyny, and should probably be addressed as such.

No, you weren’t being offensive, you made good points.

The forced hierarchy in the transwomen community revolves around how little you look transgendered.. The worst kind of transphobia is reserved for people who don’t pass, which is actually a contradiction of ‘I always knew I was a woman’. Since we always did know we were women, and have been through the ‘no you’re not’ phase ourselves, how can we not recognise the same reality in a non-passing transwoman? Is she less of a woman?

When I started transition, my one and only goal was to be free with my gender expression. I didn’t mind being an unattractive woman, I didn’t mind looking a lot older than my age, there had to be a way to ‘pass’. At the same time, I was horrified of not passing, and would probably have been put off by other non-passing women.

Imagine now a transwoman whose original goal for transition was to become a conservative sexy supermodel whom men adore, and who also accepts the ‘homosexual transsexual’ model of Anne Lawrence (i.e. she’s a straight transwoman). Imagine how little she believes she has in common with an unattractive, non-passing, older transwoman… Also, most such transwomen that I’ve met, have a huge denial concerning transmen. Either they’re totally self-absorbed in their own experience, or I don’t know.

It’s actually an exercise in feminism and sexism, it’s very much like young pretty women who embrace the latter and reject the former… Transfeminism is not needed when you can get favours from the patriarchy using your attractiveness…

To make clear (since I don’t comment very often here), I am a transwoman (and white middle-class). Also, I just bought “Whipping Girl”, but I’ve only skimmed a few pages, so I can’t comment on the book.

I feel like I should tell you that a whole lot of mtf people are also scared of other mtf people for exactly the same reasons. I know I have been (and still sort of am). And it is transphobia, but working in a weird kind of way, because it’s totally about anxiety over gender performance and femininity and all this other stuff.

Exactly. I myself am bouncing back-and-forth on the level of femininity I present, but I’ve been slowly backing off of presenting in a stereotypical feminine manner. I don’t use makeup on my face, I don’t wear skirts or dresses (I used to wear skirts, but stopped), and I rarely wear heels – and nothing that I can’t run in if I have to. I don’t pass, and probably never will, so sometimes I just feel like “Fuck it” to the stereotypes. But sometimes I give in. Where my transphobia comes out is seeing other transwoman hewing closely to a feminine presentation. Like when photos of Susan Stanton and Christine Daniels were published, my thought was “When the hell do we see media photos and stories of m2f people who transition to butch women?” Because butch transwomen exist, and I personally know one who is butch, but the media doesn’t want to focus on anything that breaks the stereotype.

And I understand that for many transwoman, being feminine is a matter of safety. But, for me, no matter how much I try to present feminine, I’m usually read as trans or as “a man in a dress”, and I got sick of the street harrassment every time I wore a skirt.

I saw Transamerica, and I hated it. That one part of Serano’s book, I did read (as a separate essay on the web), and I feel exactly the same way – that the movie totally reinforced that transitioning m2f is just some kind of performance. Even if Bree were still presented as aiming for femininity, they could at least portrayed her as someone who has always been a woman, just not in a female-assigned body.

One thing that I’ve been sensing within the trans and “trans ally” (scare quotes intentional) community is that transwomen are devalued. I can’t point to anything explicit – no one ever says anything like that to my face. But, I march with other trans people in my city’s pride parade, and I’m the only transwoman out of 25 people. 20 are transmen and 4 or so are ciswomen.

And when I go with that group to a restaurant afterwards, and I ask the ciswomen to accompany me to the women’s bathroom (because I’m wearing a miniskirt that day and can hardly use the men’s bathroom), they argue amongst themselves about who’s going to carry out this unpleasant duty. One of them’s the girlfriend of a transman.

So I guess I’m saying that I feel transphobia / trans-misogyny directed towards me from the trans community, and I am at the same time aware of my own trans-misogyny.

Uggghh…I’m rambling.

That’s the only possible arc because she’s a girl, though, right? (I am not sure what you meant to say about this in your last phrase.) I mean, would a male character have to go through this same arc — they’re either weak at the beginning, strong at the end, or strong at the beginning, weak at the end?

Well, then we get into what the movies define as “weak.” Spiderman is a pretty standard superhero movie: Peter is weak at the beginning, strong at the end. Same with Spiderman 2, where he loses his powers and has to regain them.

Also, think of something like Die Hard, where John McClain is “weak” at the beginning, because he’s come to Los Angeles to beg his wife to come back to him, and he has to prove his love (and, not coincidentally, his manliness) by overcoming the bad guys.

So in most films, men having emotions/inner conflicts is coded as being “weakness” that they have to overcome, even if they’re physically strong. Violet has THE classic movie-superhero arc in The Incredibles, which is one of the reasons I love that movie. Notice that at the end of that movie, it’s the two women who save the day (three, if you count Edna’s “No capes!” rule), not the men.

The big genre where you have men who start strong and end weak is film noir: think of Double Indemnity, or Body Heat for a more modern example. Chinatown is a good example, too — Jake starts off as the master of his little universe and ends so weak that he can’t even prevent the crime he sees happening before his very eyes.

Not to mention that every single transperson in Greece is forbidden from changing their legal papers to a feminine name unless they’ve had ‘the operation’(tm) *and* they’ve been ascertained to be infertile by a medical authority.

I’m rather transparent (not a trans parent, although: great documentary!) here, I meant ‘transwomen aren’t allowed to change to a feminine name’. The reason I only thought about transwomen is that transmen here don’t even have the *option* of SRS surgery within Greece, so it’s doubly stupid to expect of them to have a penis before they can function legally as males. But of course, transmen are a joke for the greek society, and they don’t even… exist.

… and spend X thousands of dollars in order to escape the horrible fates of non-passing trans women, which usually involve something like “only being able to socialize with trans people” and “having to live in some kind of trans ghetto” (yes someone actually said this to me) and having to do sex work or being killed like so many trans women.

Which is perfectly recognisable as transphobia, no?
Also, awesome that you’re asian!! Except for the inevitable racism *and* ‘oh all asians are feminine’ part…
About trans communities and diversity: here in Greece the only trans community is a group of people fighting for the right of ‘transsexuals and transvestites’ to be allowed as prostitutes. By ‘transsexuals’ they mean transwomen, and transmen or transwomen who aren’t prostitutes are driven away. I’m all for that group, but it’s not much of a community is it? Not to mention that every single transperson in Greece is forbidden from changing their legal papers to a feminine name unless they’ve had ‘the operation’(tm) *and* they’ve been ascertained to be infertile by a medical authority.

Um, that’s like, ‘we only accept transpeople if they’ve admitted to being third-class human beings and citizens, who aren’t in our eyes men or women but neutered freaks whose stupid ideas we entertain, because they’ve been so obedient and done whatever we asked of them, in order to not disrupt the patriarchal/christian social morals’

this came out a little breathless..

Is not very brave

I am trying to work on it. Incidentally, I don’t have the same anxiety about ftm transgendered people. I know people making the ftm transition and I think it’s faintly medically interesting and then I shrug and move on.

Um, so you think being a man is the more natural state of being for a human creature? Transmen are facing the same shit as transwomen, with even less visibility. On the other hand, if m2f gender expression feels weirder to you than f2ms, then how would you feel about dating a heterosexual transguy? Does his trans status and gender expression still leave you uninterested? If not, then you might have some deeper trans-/homophobia baggage? I don’t mean to be offensive, and what do I know.

Still, you’re braver than most, in thinking about it all…