The Transman Aesthetic is Just Another Toxic Beauty Standard
Sometimes I look at old photos of women who are taking testosterone in an effort to look male, and I’m saddened by how naturally beautiful they used to be.
While women face sexual violence no matter what we look like, it’s often the pretty girls who are sexually objectified so rampantly and persistently.
Beauty is a quality that we should be able to enjoy and celebrate within ourselves and our bodies, but as women we don’t often get to without rude interruption from those who devalue us for it.
I understand wanting to hide it all away behind a full beard, flat chest, male voice, and acne. I understand wanting a fucking break.
It doesn’t make it any less tragic but I do get it.
Female beauty is so pedestalized in our society that many of us don’t sympathize with how it can also be burdensome, and weaponized against us.
Some people might say that transmen are still beautiful, and that may be true.
But honestly when I see a woman who has mutilated her body and pumped herself with hormones to look like a man, all I see is a history of self-hatred and trauma.
It’s kind of like seeing cut marks on someone’s arm. Some people have fresh cuts, and some, like me, have healed scars.
When you see them, you don’t think “Wow that’s beautiful!”. You look at them and just know that something ain’t right, or something went wrong at some point. That’s how I feel when I see (or hear) a woman on T.
Ironically, in undergoing the transition to masculinize yourself, you’re only jumping from pan to fire. Running away from one cult into another.
Either way, the body you’re housed in is treated as though it’s not good enough and you’re desperately trying to change it so that you can be seen, loved and valued in the way you’d like to be.
It’s sad that this sort of trans/nonbinary aesthetic is now being promoted as a new beauty ideal for some women.
It is just as toxic as the butt fillers, lip injections, and chemical relaxers.
Only it’s worse because along with the new look comes a new identity, medical journey, and a bunch of deluded lies from those who claim to care about you.
Instead of society fighting to reject oppressive stereotypes of women and female beauty, it has taken the opposite perspective. Trans ideology treats those stereotypes not as social constructs that are grounded in a politics of sexuality, but as objectively, almost materially, real. Trans ideology couldn't be further from 'non-binary' because it begins with the reification of a polarised continuum of gender stereotypes and imagines an esoteric middle by rejecting the reality of biology. In other words, trans ideology reinforces a stereotypical gender binary, rejects the truth of sexual dymorphism, and demands that women choose a stereotypical side. It creates a social context in which women and men who don't fit one of two oppressive stereotypes must switch to the other, and brutalise their bodies as part of the process.
Welcome to "Misogyny: Upgraded Version". Not only will you hate yourself, but you'll butcher your body in the vain hope that it will help you love yourself more.
This is such an interesting view point. I’ve had cosmetic surgery myself, and I am not unhappy with the results. 20 years down the line and I accept my less than ideal choices made when I was young and the body I have now. I don’t think any cosmetic procedures should be taken lightly or idealised or with any hope for anything other than superficial change. It won’t make you love yourself whatever you believe. As an older woman, I feel compassion to the young women swept up in whatever trend they are adhering to, but also sad as they can’t see their beauty and by the time they realise they had it it will be gone.