Strap yourselves in kiddies, it's going
to be a long ride. Tighter. No, TIGHTER. Thaaat's better.
Ok, so I've wanted to write about the
transgendered Canadian Ms. Universe contestant for a while.
So as you may have heard on the world
wide interwebz, it turns out that a candidate for Ms. Universe is a
transwoman and she got disqualified for reasons which we all know are
bullshit, but now she's being allowed to compete again because the
corporate suits who run said travesty of a pageant know that
transwoman = controversy and sex, both of which make great
television.
I realize that trans-rights are just
finally coming into the public spotlight and that we're going to have
growing pains like this but really; the media is treating this woman
like a circus freak and it's disgusting. Hollywood has a long
history of sexualizing
and vilifying transwoman, usually in a way that makes us look like
we're either sad men hopelessly posing as woman, (depicting us as
characters) or we're represented as femme fatales; trapping men in
our little sexual web until we thrust out male identifying cock in
their face at the last second. Ha! Fooled you! Now you're a
pervert because obviously no real man would want to be
in a romantic relationship with a transwoman!!!
And now back to our friend, the Ms.
Universe Contestant, Ms. Jenna Talackova. She should obviously have
the right to compete just like every other woman in the pageant.
After all, they all look exactly the same. I mean, they all look
beautiful in that strange, inexplicable way that I can only describe
as being . . . completely generic. Also, they're all probably at
least 50 percent synthetic anyway, so she's just as much a woman as
the rest of em.
Which somehow brings me around to the
subject of beauty.
I think that everyone want's to be
attractive and recognized as such in their own way, and if you've
somehow moved beyond that desire you're probably either -
Crazy, in which case you have
bigger problems.
Beautiful already. If you were
born that way then you have no idea how good you got it, and if you
had to work for it you know just how fleeting it is.
A Buddha, who is beyond such
things, but yeah. Fat chance.
Times will change, but there will
always be pressure on various people who dwell within their
particular social framework to conform to certain standards in
accordance to their place in the society in which they dwell.
Look, what I'm trying to work up to is
that woman face an overwhelming amount of media pressure to look a
certain way. Transwoman experience this same pressure, but due to
how our genetic code has effected the shape of our bodies this
pressure can be even greater. Many transwoman are desperate to fade
into the woodwork of society; to make a nice, new life for themselves
where they where never ravaged with testosterone poisoning and they
can live as they were supposed to be – as a woman. For some girls,
especially those of us who have the fortunate opportunity of going on
on AA blockers before puberty rides in on it's pale horse like Ms.
Universe Canada; (remember her?) through the magic of hormones and
some well placed implants can look just like any other genetic woman
you may pass on the street.
For so many of us however this is not
the case. Many transwoman don't transition until much later in their
lives. Those of us who do at a younger age tend to see better
results. (As far as the feminizing effects of hormones are
concerned.) Those of us who do when they are older tend to have a
harder time, and some of us just look like flipping lumberjacks
regardless.
This brings me to a couple nights ago
when I was staring at my acne ravaged face in the mirror. As I've
mentioned here in this blog before, puberty kicked my ass like Bruce
Lee on a PCP high and left me a battered, whimpering heap upon the
ground. Still I'm actually lucky in a way; while my face was ground
zero for the acne equivalent of WW3 it's like my body has been
rejecting testosterone from the onset. Therefore despite me not
starting HRT until I was 32, my features are rather androgynous and I
seem to be taking to it well.
Still, I only tend to see what's wrong
with my appearance vs. the good qualities, and the more feminine I
look in my own eyes the more I see both the tiny as well as the
(perceived) major flaws in my appearance. A week and a half ago I
got laser resurfacing done to my face. It cost a shit-ton of money
and I'm blowing all my vacation time to recover from it so as you
might be able to imagine; I've had a lot ridding on it.
I'm not happy with the results. Just
typing that really fucking hurts.
I know that it's going to keep getting
better as time goes on and as my face continues to produce new
collagen and shit tightens up and blah blah blah, but while there's
some improvement that I can see I can't help but be disappointed.
It's obvious to me that I'm going to need some major fucking surgery
to get to where I need to be. Or where I want to be?
As I type this up now I'm getting very
emotional because I'm so unhappy and ashamed with my appearance, but
that's the reason I started typing this post in the first place.
It's silly. The way I feel.
Pageant contestants like Ms. Jenna
Talackova (yeah, she's still part of this conversation) make their
living by exemplifying an almost super-human standard of beauty that
the vast majority of us, regardless of whether or not we're genetic
females, will ever be able to obtain without MAJOR intervention. (Be
it surgical or otherwise.) I remember a time when I used to look at
attractive woman with desire. Now most of the time, when I look at
them I think, “I'm so inadequate.”
Uh, that's not a healthy attitude for
any woman, but especially for one who's been female for less then a
year.
Quick story on the most exquisitely
gorgeous woman that I’ve even had the honor of gazing these tired
upon. Dum Dum Dum -
So I was at one of those crappy
Halloween costume stores that pop up every October and wandering the
makeshift isles, which had long since been decimated by overly excited children
and indifferent adults to lazy to put shit back from where they got it from. I rounded a corner and there she was – A
New Creature. As best as I can remember her, She had jet black hair
that was done up in a perfect liberty spike mohawk. She was rail
thin with almost no bust to speak of, and she wore little makeup
except for around her eyes which were black and messy in a very
deliberate way. She was adored with piercing and tattoos, her tight,
torn blue jeans clung into to her her long skinny legs and her combat boots
looked so old that I was afraid that they were going to disintegrate
right there in front of me.
It was like I was in a vacuum. As though nothing in the world existed except for her in all her
grungy gloriousness. She flashed me a beautiful, casual smile and asked if she could help
me find something to which I shyly replied "no". She flashed me
devilish but friendly grin and walked away. I've never forgotten her to this day after but a a fleeting 20 second second encounter. How could one person make such a long lasting impact on me
years later when I run into beautiful
woman on a daily basis? (This is Socal after all.)
There was no
pretense or bullshit. She just WAS. The way she dressed, presented
herself, her awful posture and the almost supernatural amount of confidence she exuded. Really, she was one of the most
beautiful people I've ever seen in my entire 32 years on this
desolate rock.
In the world in which you and I dwell,
we have been conditioned to find beauty in conformity rather than in
individualism. By looking at things with such narrow blinders we of
course miss out on the big picture, the panoramic view of humanity in
all its glorious variety. I'm NOT saying that we should negatively
judge people who make an effort like Ms. Canada (yes, she's still on
the hook) to dedicate themselves to becoming the living embodiment of
what the media tells us is beautiful. We are all just silly human
beings with fragile egos and an imaginary sense of self. We find
self worth through the approval of others. That's not how it should
be.
Try as I might to be mindful of such
things, I find myself constantly forgetting this and I fall into the
same trap that so many other people do. I want to blend in like most
people as to avoid ridicule, especially now because I identify as a
gender that I was not born as and suffice to say, I have a long way
to go if I ever want to blend into the wood work. But why fade away?
Is my happiness really dependent on my ability to conform to what
everyone else thinks that I should look like? And if I eventually manage
to do that, will I truly be happy with myself or will I just be in
hiding, scared that at any moment my genetic status will be
discovered and exposed to the world?
I think that real happiness comes from
letting go of silly things like ego, vanity and jealousy rather than
allowing said imaginary emotional constructs which can so easily dominate your life. And
beauty? IMO, beauty is living a life that brings you happiness.
Beauty is looking like yourself and being confident in however you choose to express yourself through your appearance. If you want to
eventually look different that's cool. In the mean time please know
that you’re still beautiful. (And as painful as it can be and
trust me I understand; try not to set unrealistic goals for yourself.
It's hard, but we're only human.)
I think that's all I have to rant and
rave about the subject of beauty. (For now.) All in all, we make
ourselves uniquely beautiful by expressing our individuality, and if
other people can't recognize it then fuck em. You're better off then
they are.
