Ever notice how illiterate straights become when they try to write “objectively” about transsexual and transgender people?
There is an article in today’s post that is so patently offensive on just about every possible level that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they imported writers from one the British tabloids to pen this pile of stinking dung.
Read the story at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071506262.html
In comparison to here ultra right wing neo-Klansman racist apologist for slavery brother-in-law, Virginia governor Bob McDonnell Ms. Robyn Deane seems like a neat person who was badly abused by the Post in a manner that goes way beyond sensationalism.
I realize all women are subjected to having the way they are dressed or their appearance critiqued in a manner that few men are ever subjected to but the photo slide show that accompanies this article manages to contain every single possible objectifying image. Putting on make-up, getting dressed, standing in the kitchen to show how she has adapted to stereotypical gender roles. WTF? This is 2010 stories about transsexual people going through transition and changing sex have been in the news for some 60 years.
It is something some people need to do. To quote a popular LGBT/T chant, “We’re here. We’re queer. Get over it.”
We should be past the freakifying of our life experiences. Yeah, yeah some of us particularly those who come out later in life take a while to unlearn behavior that allowed us to survive in our assigned sex/gender roles. And yes for some it takes a while to learn the new roles. But damn it.. It isn’t all about some set list of photographs performing behavior stereotypically associated with the sex/gender we move to. I realize the quest for wholeness is harder to take a picture of as is the desire to feel comfortable within your own skin.
The process of transition is perhaps the hardest portion of our lives when it comes to dealing with transsexualism.
Coming out and telling family and friend. Changing identity and sex or for transgender folks , gender. A pretty radical shift and we have perhaps neglected to teach the straights about it. They maybe sort of get the superficial and that may be why they look to the crutch of those sorts of offensive objectifying images.
Women Born Transsexual 
July 16, 2010 at 5:19 pm
What a horrid picture! But at least they get the pronouns right, even if they start by calling Robyn Deane a “man in the process.” She gets her say in the rest of the article.
July 16, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Robyn Deane asked for the coverage and willingly posed for the pictures. If thee is a complaint here, it might be against Ms. Deane, but it was her choice after all.
July 16, 2010 at 9:18 pm
I agree with Sharon. Whatever her motives, Ms. Deane played right into the stereotype. Those that have transitioned privately and with dignity take another hit whenever someone does this.
There is a common tendency for some to seek attention during their transition, and to do so by playing into demeaning stereotypes.
Such attention is easy to come by indeed. Our existence during the preop period can be downright titillating to many. But in the long run this kind of attention-seeking can be a mistake even for the person involved. The net will not easily forget that someone was a famous TG, nor will it relinquish embarrassing pictures when someone finally achieves correction.
July 17, 2010 at 11:16 am
“Attention seeking”?
You mean like commenting on every blog out there?
Or Sharon’s “Posing for the pictures”? Not exactly how it happens. The photographer asks to shoot then chooses which photos to go with. There are what has evolved into the standard “straight” presentation of our narrative. The obligatory present the trannie as freak for the gratification of the normborns photos. There are lenghty critiques of this practice by both Serano and Prosser.
July 17, 2010 at 6:26 pm
No Susan, not “like commenting on every blog out there.”
More like posing with an eye pencil for the Washington Post. If you don’t let them shoot you in your makeup mirror, they can’t choose the slot.
Thought you invited comments. Sorry.
July 17, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I happen to be a photographer. I know how to get shots to tell a story and control the story. How to create the visual story I want to tell. Now perhaps Robyn Deane could be faulted for not knowing, for perhaps trusting too much but The Post is a tool of the establishment and is far more powerful than Ms. Deane and they are the ones doing the exploiting.
Inviting comments is a given. Being able to notice people who claim such a level of “privacy” when I see them all around the various blogs and note it is the right to point out the seeming contradiction.
Either that or the person posting all over the place is unaware that their IP address pretty much allows tracking to their front door.