It was hard to miss the unveiled Vanity Fair cover with Caitlyn Jenner, the Olympian formerly known as Bruce Jenner, on the cover. Many commented on how beautiful she looked and general support. But leave it to actress and activist Laverne Cox to really put things in perspective:
“A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am ‘drop dead gorgeous’ and that doesn’t represent most trans people…. In certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves. It is important to note that these standards are also informed by race, class and ability among other intersections. I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. … This is why we need diverse media representations of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities.”
Team Blackness also discussed Tom Hanks’s wayward rapper son “Chet Haze” and how the more TV you watch can make you more biased against black people.
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cahuenga
By far, my favorite feature on Google News is the ability to completely filter out any mention of Jenndashianstan from my startpage
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Here’s kind of the weird thing about “cisnormative” beauty standards — they get used against ALL women, not just ciswomen or transwomen. The criticisms that transwomen get for being not feminine enough, or too feminine (breasts too big, hips too big) are the same ones that ciswomen get. Yeah, I’ve been called “sir” more than once, but since I’m a ciswoman, I can think, “Christ, what an asshole” and not worry that I’m not “doing” femininity right.
WereBear
Laverne Cox is completely correct, though. Lots of people use lots of expertise to make those images look so good. And now, through the wonders of photoshopping, even the pretty people aren’t good enough — they get trimmed and enhanced, too!
Heck, the cover of Warren Zevon’s first album was so heavily airbrushed he “looked twelve years old.” (quoting from his biography)
So lookism is rampant — though I understand the classical portrait painters were known to flatter their subjects :)
Joel
Question, if we are to refer to genetically female women as ciswomen, do we need to refer to men as cismen? Where does that leave Jamie Lee Curtis?
Amir Khalid
Caitlyn Jenner did look really good for a 65-year-old woman, and typically Vanity Fair glamorous. But of course I remembered that she was in expensive clothing loaned for the occasion, and that Vanity Fair was paying for a top-notch make-up artist and a legendary photographer. As it would with its cover models generally, since it’s in the business of retailing glamour.
The vast majority of us, the common run of schlubs with ordinary looks, whether cis- or trans-gendered, don’t meet VF’s standards for glamour or celebrity and so would never get near its cover. It seems to me that the real problem is that the media in general favours the conventionally pretty/handsome because that’s who the public wants to see.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Excellent point.
c u n d gulag
Straight, gay, or transsexual, you’re beautiful if you feel beautiful, and think you’re beautiful.
And if you’re beautiful if you’re a loving and caring person.
There are no standards for beauty, because not only have any “standards” changed from era to era, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
As for Caitlyn, I think she looks great! *
* I also appreciate that she didn’t have her name start with a “K!”
Paul in KY
@Joel: WTF are you talking about?!
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Ms. Jenner looked good when she was a man. World class athlete too.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Joel:
Yes, we should be referring to transmen and cismen if we’re discussing issues.
And, if the rumors about her genetic profile are correct, Jamie Lee Curtis would be intersex, not transgender. Two different things with different issues.
Amir Khalid
@Joel:
Yes, when distinguishing them from trans-men.
Jamie Lee Curtis is a cis-woman i.e. female both genetically and in presentation. That has ever been in (ETA: serious) question.
shortstop
Love Ms. Cox. Hey, isn’t OITNB about to start the new season? I think I’ll just look and see.
Eric U.
@c u n d gulag: the most beautiful people “fit in their own skin,” i.e. are comfortable with themselves. Unfortunately, that’s true of too few of us
shortstop
@Eric U.: People love to say that, but I’ve noticed that people who are really comfortable with themselves tend to be the object of extra-special venom if “themselves” is too far off the societal ideal.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
Allure magazine used to do a lot of fun throwaway features where they would play with Photoshop and show how much they changed between the photo and the software. I think their advertisers made them stop, because they were giving away All The Secrets.
kc
Didn’t Laverne Cox just pose for (admittedly gorgeous) cheesecake photos for some rag? I mean . . .
kc
Let’s look at the silver lining: Caitlyn Jenner is the first 65 year old lady to appear on the cover of “Vanity Fair” in her undies.
Undoubtedly the last too, but hey, older women gotta take what they can get.
SatanicPanic
@shortstop: June 12th!
scav
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Can you imagine the detailed chromosomal testing we’ll all have to go through before being allowed to pee in Huckleberryland? Growth Industry!
c u n d gulag
@Eric U.:
Yeah, and sadly I’m one who didn’t used to feel comfortable in my own skin.
Now, at 57, I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone says or thinks!
shawn
The exterior of Caitlyn Jenner, to my eye, is not beautiful. Part of me looks at her and can’t help but think people are only saying that she is to support the cause. I mean who cares what I or anybody thinks about it but she does look a little better than Bruce Jenner ended up looking but they both had/have that weirdo plastic surgery… i don’t even know what… mask? She doesn’t look good for 65 or for Vanity Fair. When the “competition” is Helen Mirren though… Again, that’s my BS opinion.
I admit I have a hard time getting on board with the whole cis/trans thing. I got on board with gay rights and gay marriage right away. I guess because it didn’t/doesn’t/and never will affect me. So I was on board in that I didn’t care what gay people did or didn’t do. But I hear trans people talk about it and I just pull a Liz Lemon and roll my eyes out. I can’t muster any empathy for their situation like I (hope I) do with other minorities. I mean I say the right things in public but inside my brian I am just like “get over yourself.” I know, I’m the worst. Maybe it’s because I don’t know any and the ones (yes I hear it, “any” and “ones”) I have seen in documentaries and stuff just seem so ridiculous to me.
I also kind of hate being referred to as cismale or whatever. I don’t know why and maybe it is ridiculous to get annoyed over that. I dont have any issue being referred to as a white man or a male human, but the cis business seriously bugs me. I’ll work on it I guess.
shawn
thats brain, not brian :P sheesh lol
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
(1) thinking of your brother, his daughter, and all of you. In my thoughts.
(2) where did “cis” come from?
And I think it’s a bridge too far to start having to refer to folks as “cis-gender.” Why can’t we just be happy for transgender people, support them, and leave it at that?
Elizabelle
@kc: Yup. This in the wake of last week’s kerfuffle that Maggie Gyllenhaal, at 37 (?), is too old to play a girlfriend (in Hollywood) to a 55-year old actor.
Get over it!! When I hear something like that, I wish all of us looked like Helen Mirren, or Judy Dench, or whomever, and were considered beautiful and sexual, not invisible.
PS: heard the term “Kartrashian” today. Heh heh.
Belafon
@shawn:
Because you’re used to male being the default term.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): And used against assumed cis-girls even before they have all their baby teeth in. I remember my brother in law saying (about wanting his 3 yr old daughter to wear dresses all the time) “We want her to look like a little girl.” (She already looked like whoever she was.) And then the training begins about how not to sit. Followed by: don’t climb trees or do somersaults or play sports if you have a dress on.
Elizabelle
@Belafon: But what’s wrong with that?
shawn
@Belafon: for men who are born men and are men yes. i mean hasn’t the word transgendered been “out” for kind of a while now – like years?
Betty Cracker
@shawn: Please go read this right now.
scav
@Elizabelle: Seriously, a bridge too far to have a word compactly describing a phenomena that might come up in certain exact conversations we might be having. I mean, “newlyweds”, what’s up with that? Or “married” for that matter, ain’t nobody’s fuck but theirs and the taxman what their legal status is, what’s with the flaunting it? It’s not like it’s mandated in every conversation, but it can be handy to have. Rather like a word distinguishing those people that have never lived outside of their home state and those that have lived abroad. In certain circumstances, that can really provide a wealth of information about the experiences and probable prejudices they bring to the table.
gogol's wife
@shawn:
“Maybe it’s because I don’t know any”
Yes, that is your problem. You would feel differently if you did.
Elizabelle
@scav: And asshole? What’s up with that word?
Betty Cracker
@scav:
That’s my understanding of it — you use it when you’re having a conversation in which the distinction is material, not all the time.
scav
@Elizabelle: I don’t know, it’s your mirror too.
ETA. I mean, objecting strenuously to a word?
Belafon
@shawn: Is a transgender male not male? If you were talking about a group of people, would you go “there were three men, two women, and two transmen”?
When you do need to differentiate between the two, for reasons like scientific discussions, male is not specific enough, thus cismale.
Genetic gender, sexual orientation, and gender identification are no longer the same thing, and we need ways to differentiate between the terms.
Elizabelle
Peeps: I had to look up the term “cis” so I knew what Mnemosyne was talking about.
It would not seem to be a term that’s generally known. Haven’t even seen it in a Guardian headline.
Get over yourselves.
Can’t we just say we’re glad Caitlyn is happy with herself and free to be who she is, and not have to rename our genders?
Where does it end?
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Isn’t it possible that you’re reading too much into it? “Cis” is a widely known term that has been around for quite a while, even if you hadn’t personally heard of it. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that we always have to use “cis” when referring to gender. but in very specific types of discussions, such as this one, it can be useful to make a distinction between two different states.
shawn
@Belafon: I would say yes that there were 5 men, and 2 women (ok I would say 5 dudes and 2 chicks probably). because we have the word transgended we don’t need to add cis to male. i really have to say once they have identified as male or female i kind of just would want to call them men or women that way i can identify them as who they are instead of their gender. i don’t point out gay guys, i just say guys.
shawn
@Betty Cracker: i sent it to myself to read when i get home, thanks!!
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Have you ever looked up all the names for clouds? Or the 20 some odd names for snow in Eskimo? Or the scientific names for all of the beetles?
There’s a reason we sometimes have to make more precise definitions and words.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: I’ve known that term for years.
Belafon
@shawn: Now that you’re using male to describe the group, you really can’t use it to describe one subset. It would be like saying there are dogs, but we further subdivide them into dogs and collies.
Aleta
@Aleta: Come to think of it, for my relatives the dress and other external signs were meant to spare someone–them– the ’embarrassment/humiliation’ of her being mistaken for a different gender. Though they would have said it was to keep her from being confused about her identity. They were already uncomfortable about her attracting attention for other reasons.
And I see this in a different way now, when I think of the childhood of another relative who was made to appear and act as male even though she was not.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Good.
Please tell me: what does CIS mean? Is it an acronym? Where did the term come from?
Betty Cracker
@shawn: Cool! In the article, Dan Savage addresses a reader’s concern about trans folks having surgery, which is different than the issue you raised above. But I think DS’s response does a good job in a paragraph or two of addressing how central gender identity is to people’s sense of themselves, and it speaks to why we should respect that. Maybe someone else has a link to a better explanation…
Elizabelle
I’m curious. When did you all learn of “cisnormative” and what makes you think the majority of people have ever heard the term?
shawn
@Belafon: I’m not using male to describe the group, im using it to describe the men in the group.
shawn
@Betty Cracker: you didnt say it was Dan Savage. I’ll still read it I guess ;) jk I will but I don’t care for that ciscolumnist :P
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: Latin.
Check this out.
gogol's wife
@Elizabelle:
It’s from French (or maybe Latin, I don’t know), and it’s the opposite of “trans.” So “Trans-Alpine” is on the other side of the Alps, and “Cis-Alpine” is this side of the Alps. At least that’s my quick-and-dirty etymology, produced on the basis of guesswork.
I think it probably came out of academic work on gender issues. That’s where I first heard it.
shawn
@gogol’s wife: so Pontiac should have called every other car the Cis-Am?
Elizabelle
@Suzanne:
@gogol’s wife:
Thank you both. And Colbert chimes in with “cis-white”. I love it.
muddy
@Belafon: When I was leading a drafting department, they put me in the company bio book as Chief Draftsperson. But the guys I was in charge of were Draftsmen. I said that person was not a replacement for woman, and so we all had to be draftspersons, or all the original draftsmen. I was quite fine with being Chief Draftsman, it frankly sounds better to me. Not clunky.
Anyway the head of the company was a sexist dick and refused to change it. So when he made me play receptionist one day because “if a man answers the phone it’ll look like we don’t have any real work” I just changed it in the secretary’s computer and then they always printed out the way I wanted and asshole boss never noticed.
Betty Cracker
@shawn: He can be a dick sometimes but is occasionally insightful.
muddy
@gogol’s wife: The Romans referred to both Transalpine Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul, their name for much of Europe (south of Germania).
Laertes
@Elizabelle:
I dunno. Some years back, surely. I don’t remember exactly when because I didn’t freak the fuck out when I learned it. It just became one of the many many things I learned that year, and then I got on with my life without wallowing in bitterness about it.
I’d be surprised if the majority of people knew their elbow from their asshole, so I woudln’t say I’d expect a majority of people to have ever heard the term. A majority are fuckwits. What’s your point?
WereBear
I handled that by not wanting to wear a dress :)
Elizabelle
@Laertes:
Please. Tell me more.
PhoenixRising
@shawn:
And I would say ‘7 people’. Either way, I think we’re safe from the word police. Which aren’t a real thing, contra Elizabelle who is taking these words very much to heart.
Oddly, what I have learned from the Jennertrastrophe is that there IS a real thing on the other side: people freaking out because of what someone else whose undies they’re never getting near has in their undies.
I’ve known people are crazy between their ears about gender for awhile, due to many firsthand experiences of said folks needing to police my gender to determine whether I’m peeing right (pro tip: no man has ever in the history of indoor plumbing waited in line for the ladies’ room, so you can quit staring at me/calling the manager now). But the degree of crazy that this elicits among those who ‘thought they knew him’…surprised me.
Laertes
@Elizabelle:
Wasn’t clear enough? Okay, I’ll spell it out: I don’t remember when I learned to use the prefix “cis-” because it wasn’t a traumatic event for me the way it was for you. And I know you’ve found it traumatic because you assume that everyone else will recall exactly when they learned it.
It’s a useful little prefix, in very particular circumstances. One hardly ever needs to use it, because it’s hardly ever necessary to distinguish cis- from trans-, but when you need to, that’s how you do it.
Any chance you can just get on with your life without letting this knowledge upset your little apple cart?
Elizabelle
@Laertes: I think you and others have been very, very rude. And that it’s not warranted.
“Cisnormative” is a new concept to me, I’d never heard the word before. Ever. I was curious about its prevalence and where it came from. Which is not to say I don’t support people being able to be whatever is true to them. As long as they’re not serial killers. Or gazillionaires buying elections.
Sometimes BJ can be very “kewl kids” and inside baseball.
Way to go with separating out people who are inclined to agree with you and support treating people as people, no matter how they identify or dress.
Give yourself applause, please.
Laertes
No, sorry. You don’t get to do the “poor me” thing. You’ve been snotty, and now you’re sad that you’re getting some back? In the words of a very rude commenter upthread, “Get over yoursel[f].”
Irony Abounds
The woman formerly known as Bruce eloquently made the point that the transition to becoming a women was necessary so that she could be the person she really was. So, as part of that process, she appears on the cover of Vanity Fair in an obviously heavily photoshopped picture that I am quite certain is not representative of what she really looks like. Somehow, I am sure the irony has escaped her.
Sorry, but anyone associated with the Kardashians, as Jenner has been, and anyone who profits from the situation, as Jenner clearly is doing with a reality show of his own, is completely suspect in my view and is unworthy of being any sort of role model or symbol for transgender rights.
celticdragonchick
@shawn:
You know…that might be a little fucking easier if I could use a goddamned public bus without the threat of getting beat down or killed, or could use a public fucking restroom without the threat of somebody reading me as trans and calling the goddamned cops to come get me. It might be easier if our local public school system hadn’t discriminated against my kid because a couple teachers didn’t like me as a trans woman. It might be easier if my spouse hadn’t been stalked and harassed at work by local Baptist preachers after we participated in a forum on a trans issues.
So fuck off. Get over that.
Laertes
@Irony Abounds: Whatever you may think of her decision to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair, and whatever you may think of her fitness as a role model, and whatever you may think of her ability to perceive irony, it’s hostile to call her “the woman formerly known as Bruce” and to use the masculine pronoun. (“show of his own.”)
Is it possible that that’s coming off nastier than you intend?
celticdragonchick
@Irony Abounds:
The correct pronoun is ‘her’, as laertes noted.
Belafon
@shawn: Late back at the party but I was talking about the group of men, comprising both cismen and transmen.
Irony Abounds
@celticdragonchick: @Laertes: Mea Culpa on the “his” as that was a result of typing too fast and not a purposeful use of that pronoun. You will note I use the correct gender reference three other times so if I was purposefully being “hostile” I did a poor job of it. I stand by my utter disgust of the Kardashians and those who profited or continue to profit from an association with them, including Jenner, and being “nasty” towards them merely touches the surface of the low regard I have for all of them and it has nothing to do with their gender identity.
sempronia
To Elizabelle,
I first learned the terms cis and trans in organic chemistry class. They refer to a pair of molecules that are exactly the same in structure except that they are mirror images of each other. Can’t remember the convention for deciding which one is cis and which is trans.
I’ve never heard cis and trans used for geography. When I first heard the term “cis-gender”, I figured it out from context, but I remember thinking that chemical nomenclature was a REALLY dorky convention to appropriate. Don’t actually know if this is where the current usage comes from though.
Aleta
@Aleta:
By the way, some make the mistake of calling her trans. She personally does not identify with this. She is a woman.
shawn
@celticdragonchick: “fuck off” is unlikely to get me to hear anything else you have to say. I openly admitted having trouble with this issue and that I needed to work on it and that I want to get better – the kind of better you should want me to be. And your response was “fuck off.” I am sorry for your troubles, but I am not the cause of them and you absolutely know this. I am super encouraged to ever open up about my short comings again or try to look on the other side of the fence and learn when the response is “fuck off.” You will for sure change so many minds with “fuck off.” Get over yourself. Your attitude says one thing, that you want to stay angry. You say want thing to change but when somebody expresses a struggle you tell them to “fuck off.” You don’t want change, you want to be superior. I get it, if what has been done to you had been done to me… It can’t be easy but please try to understand that I am not your enemy. I am the little bit of the rock that is breaking off and after me comes a little more. But when you try to weld me back on to the canyon wall with your “fuck offs” you slow the whole process down for everybody.
Aleta
@Aleta:
Sorry ! Didn’t finish a correction above.
By the way, some make the mistake of calling my relative trans. She personally does not identify with this. She is a woman. This is another distinction I have learned to be aware of.
shawn
@Belafon: it still doesn’t track why i need to be called cismale. a transmale can insist on being called that, though if they want to identify as male why not go along with them on that and just say male, but if they insist on transmale thats fine. But it absolutely doesn’t require that i be called cismale. Why do their needs matter more (or less) than mine? Gay people don’t seem to need me to say I am straight all the time, they probably don’t care and they are right not to.
Elizabelle
@sempronia: Thanks, Sempronia.
Organic chemistry, hmm? Above my paygrade, but good on you.
celticdragonchick
@shawn:
Get over yourself and fuck off again. I couldn’t give a shit about your concern trolling over my attitude and your tone policeing.
charon
@Elizabelle:
The terms exist in organic chemistry relative to the spatial orientation of molecules of (almost) same substance. Cis = on the same side. Trans = on opposite sides.
shawn
@celticdragonchick: so’s your face
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: I first heard that word on a South Park episode.
celticdragonchick
@shawn:
Tone police concern troll got his little feelings hurt. Imagine my concern. Get over it.
shawn
@celticdragonchick: so’s your face
shawn
to give you a real answer, its not your tone, its what you said. i reached out a hand and you slapped it down instead of grabbing it and helping me up. so you lose the right to complain about things not getting better. you still will, but your credibility is gone. if you can’t see that, so be it. i won’t let you keep me from getting better but don’t ever for a second think you were part of the solution when and if this (much larger than you and I) issue is solved
celticdragonchick
@shawn:
Next time you feel like mainsplainin’ to the rest of us how we need to “get over ourselves”…shut the fuck up.
Seriously.
We don’t need to hear your advice from behind your wall of male privilege (that we gave up freely and are now being actively and tangibly persecuted as a result).
Say nothing.
Write nothing.
Listen.
You have no idea what the hell happens to transwomen in America. You don’t live our lives, and you don’t share our beds.
You have no business or authority to say one fucking thing to us in terms of what we should or should not do.
So the next time you want to condescend to us on how we need to get over something, get over that moment in your head, and say nothing.
Write nothing.
Pay attention and listen.
I couldn’t care less if you feel “backed into a canyon wall” by my anger or however you want to parse it. You fucked up. You made an unforced error and you didn’t correct it.
Imagine walking into downtown Baltimore after Freddie grey had been killed by the Police last month and telling African Americans to “get over it”. Think that would fly?
Transwomen are victemized by the police daily. 60% of transwomen report rape or sexual assault. Virtually none of these crimes ever get prosecuted. Transwomen are routinely murdered, and the murderers get away with it using the “gay panic” defense. I can be denied a job for being who I am. i can be denied housing. I can be denied hospital care.
So the next time you want to say something like what you wrote last night…don’t.
Get over it, and don’t say it.
shawn
@celticdragonchick: I am sorry you feel that way.
shawn
@celticdragonchick: also to use your word – listen – you clearly did not read or understand anything i said, i seek to understand (not to say I always do, but i try), you do not (or did not here). you are understandably angry with the situation, but you are taking it out in the wrong way on the wrong people and that does need to be explained to you. you know as little about me as i do about you and the way we learn is by talking and listening. based on your comments you only want to do one of those things. so yeah, i am sorry if i offended you. I am sorry about the so’s your face stuff – that was glib, i can’t help it sometimes – when somebody flies right past what i said and yells at me for somebody else’s actions – i hope tomorrow is better for you
celticdragonchick
I’m done. You can keep your “Sorry if you got offended” passive aggressive non apology. There is nothing else to say.
shawn
so your thing is you need the last word even to say nothing at all, just for one last dig – i guess mine is too