my first post on Cisnormativity got greeted with a pretty serious firestorm of criticism on Reddit’s r/transgender and though the prime hater deleted most of her commentary, the accusation that my life requires a “trigger warning” still stands. at one point the poster famously compared me to “racist white trash” for…well, even i’m not sure. i guess for pointing out that the empress had no clothes…
i know we consider it de rigueur to tear each other down in the “trans community”, a subset of yesterday’s post, given how much it always feels to me a lot like the tearing-down is modeled on a media stereotype of how women writ large behave. the difference, you see, is that i am very familiar with the workings and operation of generalized female jealousy…we tear each other down about little things (sense of fashion, smells like cat pee, saggy butt) and though i am not saying it’s okay or rationalizing it, i know how to deal with it because i grew up with it. we also often are bitchy behind each other’s backs but make nice and get along in public, because, after all, we don’t want people calling us “bitches”, now do we?
i don’t like generalized Western female-sphere cattiness, but like much of the things we do to each other as women, it preserves the hegemony’s grip on us as much as it seems like a good “outlet” for how we feel about something. i don’t willingly play the game, but sometimes subconsciously i get clowned when talking about someone with my co-workers or friends and get sucked in. i dislike myself for a few days afterwards, but oftentimes rationalize it with how i feel about that person, their actions, their gossipyness…in other words, i’m part of the problem, and for better or for worse i realize i’m part of the problem.
tea break: Gala Darling has some things to say about this, and i really think what she has to say is a useful interlude before we go any further. plus, i’m seriously making tea, so the flow of the post will change. go take a gander at “Jealousy is the killer of GIRL LOVE” …it ain’t perfect but Gala usually says some pretty valuable stuff.
before i change the tenor here to talk about the trans “community” and jealousy, i want to interject what one of my friends had to say about current love/hate object Zooey Deschanel, an American actress/musician who has pretty much made a career for the past decade out of behaving like many of us do, basically being a little bit erratic, awkward, and quirky but unlike the rest of us, being gorgeous. said friend’s mantra is that “Zooey Deschanel just makes us jealous and that’s why we hate her, not because she’s a bad person.” (pop culture has been particularly cruel to Ms. Deschanel recently…i’m sure the timing is coincidental and has nothing to do with that her getting divorced has been big “news”, which means that sexist jerks like TMZ and Page Six start policing you for being a rogue woman. so, yeah, hands off Zooey. let her be adorable and quirky if she wants to but let’s not buy into the idea that we should be a jerk to her for being like you or i but more popular and beautiful…hell, we should be happy for her.
the method of tearing down in the “trans community” just feels different to me. i think it’s that there’s often this attitude of competitiveness about being a woman, and…i don’t know how to be competitive at that. i mean, i’ll kick your butt in tennis and i am a formidable goalie in field hockey…but i just don’t know how to compete at being a woman. i mean, aren’t we all already women? i don’t really want to hear comparisons being done using statistics to prove who is or isn’t better; stats have a place and a time, and a value-neutral arena in which to share ones that matter would be great, but much like people who argue about whose SRS surgeon is better, all i really can do in these discussions is sit there and blink vacantly.
this is why jealousy is so hard on me when sprayed in the direction of people i care about. we are whole people, and when you’re jealous of little aspects of our lives, you’re reducing that person to that aspect. it’s cruel, it’s othering, and it often comes with a number of fantasies and values that get projected onto that person. in other words, knock it the fuck off. because we are whole people it’s unfair to let one aspect control your entire perception of a person. there are things which carry enough of a taint (Anne Lawrence being a rapist, say) but small details of a person’s life really shouldn’t. plus, it completely ignores that there might be ways that the person you’re “jealous” of is full of their own differences and insecurities.
it also fails to take into account that we are all different. i am awkward, weird, and quirky, too. i’m superstitious, very shy around people i don’t trust (and probably too loud around people who i do trust) and i’m eternally scared that i’m not good enough, not smart enough, not (whatever) enough. i’m terrified of new social situations when they matter, and blasé when they don’t, and as a result i often end up impressing random jerks but don’t really excel in situations where there are new people i care to have in my life, and this terror often makes me make even dumber decisions because i’m so scared of screwing up. when someone focuses on one aspect of a person and steamrolls everything else, all these concerns and realities go away and are replaced with their fantasy version of that person. i’m sure fantasy erica is probably way better than real erica, but there’s one little problem: real erica actually exists, and i inhabit her policed body, damaged mind, hand-me-down clothes, and far-too-small checking account. in other words, i can’t live up to those fantasies because they’re an unfair bar.
we have to learn to see the whole person rather than judging over small aspects of a person’s life. after all, it is part of letting go of our hatred for ourselves and our selves as much as it’s about letting go of our hatred of each other, and this, my dear readers, is powerful. respect your inner quirky person, and remember that once we get away from competition, we’re healing ourselves as a community, which in turn helps more of us heal our selves.
I can really relate to what you are saying. It really is an odd phenomenon… Since I have transition other women have even tried to pull me into it, as if “that is just how it is” or some “hierarchy of womanhood”. But I like you decline to play games of “I’m better than you”. I am quirky as well, but as to how social scenarios, I was always listed, seen, or found in the company of women. Most of my friends throughout my life have been predominantly women, or gay men. Don’t get me wrong, I have my own vanities but I realize as any intelligent person should that women come in all shapes and sizes. So I try to avoid marginalizing my own identity in such manners.
On occasions even I feel jealous of other women. In a culture like ours it’s easy to feel you don’t measure up when you let the airbrushed magazine covers invade your consciousness. I think that society’s eyes need adjustment, because our unrealistic and inflated value placed on beauty is what conflates jealousy. And like you said, I agree culture is teaching girls to be that way. However, the women I’ve met who aren’t like that do sometimes quite easily form lasting relationships with other women. I at least in some small part of me feel that a lot of women are as tired of the game as we are, and welcome respite from that sort of behavior.
To me it seems like a game of identity politics, like a game of “Where’s Goldilocks?” much like “Where’s Waldo?” but played against peoples personages. Too tall, too short, too manly, too feminine, too made-up, to plain-Jane, too this, and too that. People thumbing through a crowd to find the Goldilocks the perfect symmetry of culturally adored qualities. But people aren’t little cartoon characters on a page and no such person exists, thus comparing yourself to such an imaginary entity with a narrow minded purpose will only bring despair. The perfect example is the fictional pop start in Japan who was created from the desirable characteristics of multiple women and through CGI made into this ‘artificial’ personality.
Plastic surgery is still the fastest growing industry, and is by far still one of the most expensive elective procedures available in medicine. I am not against people modifying their bodies, I am against the inequality, and unrealistic expectations it produces. The result is the tragic marginalization of people via culturally unrealistic, perpetually unattainable, or economically iniquitous standards. The trans community is no exception to the cultural elements that affect all people, especially when it comes to that. I do appreciate your thoughts being out there to resonate with. I am still fairly new to this world that I jumped into feet first over 2 years ago, but your points are well put and I’d tend to agree.
i think on occasion womenfolk *all* feel jealous of some other woman at some point. for example, i tend to be jealous of taller women…mostly because for a very long time i was the tallest girl/woman i ever saw outside my family. but i know that jealousy is at the heart my own process of settling with my self and myself, if you will.
as for the plastic surgery paragraph at the end, i think you make a good point, but at the same time people have had plastic surgery without buying into its oppressive nature. i am not perfect at all but i don’t want to have someone else’s face…i’ve lived with this one from about 3 months on estrogen onward, it’s clearly feminine, and like almost every woman or girl i know, cis or trans, there’s things i love about it (my eyes!) and things i hate about it (dorky chin!) and that’s all part of me. i know the inequality is troubling but that’s still a means of separation employed by people who fear our unity and strive to uphold kyriarchical principles and keep us all in the dark.
i love my sisters and brothers equally if they alter themselves, from covering disability (something pushed at me to “correct” my lovely eyes) to increasing their passing utility. i’ve had to pass for my entire post-transition life, both for employment safety and social safety from certain mindsets, and i do not for a second discount how royally blessed i am that passing for a cis female is an absolute snap for me…i know that’s made my life a lot better.
for the record, i haven’t always thought like this, which i feel the need to admit. i didn’t buy the competitive hierarchies or the “being a better woman” game but at the same time i didn’t believe other trans women would enrich my life at all and that denial or something close to it would control me into old age, especially given my rejection from the narcissistic hateful types who see in other trans women the ability to hurt us like women and degender us as if we were men alike…this is the core of the HBS Bullshit. i’m happy to discover others similarly situated…now to take the power back from the patriarchy-loving types…that’s the next step.