WEAR PINK !!!!

Kids go through phases when it comes to things they like or not. As they get older, some tastes change, others stay the same. As long as what they enjoy does not hurt or endanger anyone including themselves, then of course the best thing to do is to support them, even if it what they like is "weird". Don't force them to stop and then make excuses that you're protecting them from a society that wouldn't understand them. Don't make assumptions based on the boogeyman of the day - transgenders <spooky voice - oooooooooh>.

Copyright J. Crew 2011

That's exactly what a number of national news outlets and commentators have been doing after the release of an email ad campaign from J. Crew, which features CEO Jenna Lyons enjoying a weekend with her young son. Now, it just so happens that her son likes pink, and apparently finds it fun or funny to have his mom paint his toenails pink. Wow, big deal. He's goofing around with something he sees his parent do. He's a bit young to be worrying about what activities lie in the "male" domain or what activities should be prohibited because they are "feminine" (actually, The Daily Show did a great and funny report on this, ending with super-manly champion martial arts fighter Chuck Liddell... and his painted toenails). This, of course, does not stop the talking heads and other people who shoot their mouths off without actually thinking first.

Transgender people are the "big bad" of the moment. Having found that there are too many homosexual people who might rise up against them and voice their outrage, social conservatives have decided to attack transgenders as an affiliated group of people, hoping to color opinions about gays and lesbians by association. From exaggerated worries about vicious attacks on "real" women in the sanctity of the "ladies" bathrooms by transgender women who are apparently held at bay now only because they fear arrest for being in the wrong bathroom, to the commentaries of "Dr." Keith Ablow yesterday suggesting that the J. Crew ad was a piece of transgender-celebrating propaganda, it seems that a lot of people are getting awfully upset over very little. What is so important about maintaining a strongly distinct gender binary?

Let the kid be a kid. Maybe he is transgender - if so, support that, because study after study shows you can't change it. Maybe he is gay - support that, again, because you can't change it, and the statistics are very clear that the more support a GLBT child has, the lower his/her chances of suicide. But far more likely (considering the low probability of being either homosexual or transgender) he's just a straight kid playing around with bright colors, whether on his body (have you seen what 5 year olds will do with finger paints or bath paint/soaps!?) or his clothing, or maybe his artwork. He may always like pink, whether he grows up a "manly man" or not.

I know or have met so many good people in the GLBT community in almost every part of the country I've been to, and I'm very tired of ignorant people trying to chip away at their humanity. I say, whether you're gay, straight, trans, in the closet, or out of the closet, wear some pink on your nails and show some solidarity with a little kid enjoying himself, and against a bunch of small-minded loudmouths who apparently have nothing better to do than criticize a mom playing with her child.

PINK NAILS FTW!  (for the win, if you aren't into gamer-speak)

Darned economy.

Oh my.  If it weren't for the darned economy causing some serious belt-tightening on my finances, I would SOOO love to get this dress, on sale for about $100.  It's a Badgley Mischka, and it is gorgeous.  On the other hand, I don't have the nicely pronounced backside the model has, and my bustline wouldn't be as well filled either.  Still, holding my stomach in all night wouldn't be so bad.  If I actually had someplace to wear this thing.  Rather hard to justify spending money on something that is only going to be worn at home.  On the other hand, just imagine how much more fun it would be doing the housework or working at the home computer in a lovely evening gown!  Hmmm, could I justify it in increased productivity?  :-)

Guys and Gals

from Candy Magazine via
Fashion Gone Rogue

This is Andrej Pejic.  He's a male model with a willingness to do androgynous looks.  This, plus the recent fashion weeks in NYC, London, Milan, etc have me thinking a little bit about, of all things, men's fashion.  Every year, it seems that some designers attempt to feminize men's fashion - skirts, billowy pants or blouses, leggings, etc.  On the one hand, as someone who is part of the transgender spectrum, I welcome ideas that recognize that gender expression can be a complex and a mixture of the traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine.  However, as someone who is pretty much a "standard definition transsexual", I find that these fashions just don't move me.  They aren't something I'd wear, because whether I am presenting as male or female, I don't feel somewhere in between, and I am definitely not avant-garde enough to wear something that fashion-forward anyway.  I'm not a boundary-pusher.  Some of them are just goofy, others seem futuristic and potentially wearable, but more in a costume-y way.  Other than kilts though, skirts haven't caught on for guys despite decades of designers showing them on the runway.  Lots of other feminine touches have made it into men's fashions - why not skirts?  Now that I'm thinking about it, what is it about a skirt that makes it anathema to men?  Is it that the genitals feel relatively exposed?  How is that different from baggy shorts?  Is... a puzzlement.  (to quote from The King and I).

Role models

not me.  flickr JMRosenfeld

I've noticed a change in the women I watch (no, not that way, I mean as role models or sometimes wish fulfillment :-).  From my teens to my early thirties, I think I mostly observed women in their mid-20s.  They had youth, energy, excitement, exuded femininity from their very pores, and all without even really trying.  Plus, so many fashions in magazines I read (e.g. Vogue, Elle) are really aimed at the mid-to-late 20s.  As transsexuals, I think we all want to be accepted, but as a transsexual who was still in hiding, any such acceptance was purely fantasy, and as long as it's fantasy, I might as well picture myself as one of those beautiful lithe young women.  When I dressed, I bought almost unwearably short skirts, wore large cup bras, stupidly high heels.  I was a caricature of a "sexy woman".  But then, at 36, I finally saw a gender counselor and for the first time realistically considered the possibility of living as a woman. Suddenly, I was no longer checking out the fashions of younger women.  I started to look hard at women closer to my age, and then refined that further to women my age with a similar shape (slightly on the tall side - I'm a little over 5'9" - with broad shoulders and small bust).  I also began to realize that lots of women have one or two "manly" features, but because of their overall presentation, no one remotely thinks they might be male.  That realization gave me hope.  Maybe if I can carry myself in a feminine manner and do so with confidence, then peoples' eyes may just pass right over me as well, just another middle-aged woman doing the shopping or whatever.  Having been on hormones for a while now, I'm realizing I'm a small-breasted woman unless I get top surgery, which I'm not too keen on, so instead of 38Cs, I'm getting 38As, and when I feel the need to go shop for my girl self, it's not lingerie and crazy short let's-go-clubbing dresses, it's the kind of casual or business clothes a reasonably fashionable woman my age might actually wear.  Things I see on the moms of my daughter's friends, my colleagues, etc.  Now I probably still dress a tiny bit younger and maybe slightly more dressy than the average woman my age, but that also reflects my personality, so I feel comfortable with it.  I don't see a pretend-woman in the mirror now.  When I'm in my femme mode, however I am dressed, I see a woman in the mirror, and that's definitely a good thing.

Do clothes make the girl?

Christian Dior Dress (cc flickr user unforth)

Whether exaggerated or not, it is pretty well documented that transgendered m2f's usually dress sexier and more overtly feminine than the average woman of their age.  I assume that this has to do with the fact that until hormone treatment and/or surgery, we must rely on external indicators to validate our internal selves.  When a TG gal looks down at her body, the body hair, the genitals, the lack of hips or defined waist, the flat chest, all this combines to fight the self-image in her mind.  Now, as someone who is interested in fashion, I'm well aware that relatively flat chests and lack of pronounced hips does not make a chromosomal woman non-feminine.  But her self-image is backed up by the rest of her biology.  Even if she believes her body to be deficient, she usually doesn't see it as male!

So, what's a tg girl to do?  Overcompensate, especially at first.  Makeup tends to be caked on and often garish, and dress is often over-youthful and rather sexualized.  This does not necessarily imply a sexual component to the costume, just the influence of mass media.  This was certainly the case for me a few decades ago.  But now I'm in my early 40s.  I've been on hormones but only have little sub-A-cup breasts and no real hip/waist definition. And yet, even when I look at myself completely naked, I see the woman in me.  I'm not really happy that I see male genitalia dangling down there or that my belly is sort of poochy, but it doesn't jar me as badly as it used to.  I am much much more comfortable wearing women's clothing than men's, and I do still like dressing up a bit even when just doing chores around the house, but I also sometimes opt to wear just jeans and t-shirts with flats even when I am all alone in my house and could wear something else.  In some ways, I think of it as an evolution to thinking more like a woman than as a trans-woman.

It's sort of funny.  Over the years, I've developed a reputation (as a man) as someone who doesn't like to get dressed up.  I only put on jacket and tie if I absolutely have to.  The thing is, it wasn't about getting fancied up.  It was the overt maleness of the jacket and tie and the big clunky male dress shoes.  As a woman (at least in my mind if not in practice yet), I'd be perfectly happy to have occasion to wear nicer dresses and heels, though as I said, I'm also happy in jeans and flats these days.  I wonder if this growing comfort and knowledge of who I really am makes it more or less likely that I will be able to transition successfully.  Will there be less of a change from my current life than I expect?  Is that good or bad?

Posture

cc licensed / flickr CDrewing 2007

OK, I realize this is old news to some people, but I was narcissistically looking at myself in the mirror last night checking out a new top I just bought and my first thought was, "it's a pretty top, too bad I still look kinda like a guy wearing a lacy blouse."  Then as I turned away, I caught sight of myself and there was an epiphany.  Well, not really.  I mean, I did actually know this already - but I just tend to forget, especially if I'm not wearing a bra.  Anyway, as soon as I pulled my shoulders back just a little, all of a sudden my body looked like it belonged in a lacy top!  I looked almost like a girl even without makeup or doing my hair in a particularly feminine style!  Yay me!  Yay for good posture.  Boo me for just now realizing how hunched over I am typing this right now. Haha, this is going to be a tough habit to work on.  With my little hormone-induced boobs, I purposely hunch very slightly (or at least don't straighten up fully) when in drab mode to keep them from being too prominent if I'm not wearing a compression t-shirt underneath.  Still, seeing myself as feminine without the need for a pushup bra or a swipe of lip color, or even sucking in my gut :-) is definitely a spirit-lifter.