This is gonna sound weird but I wish we were depicted with features that make us clockable like a brow ridge or shoulders or a blocky silhouette in art defending us.

Like I’ve been looking through comics and almost every depiction of a trans woman looks identical to a cis woman… which like, I get why a trans person would be uncomfortable with drawing dysphoric features, but I feel like it dulls the point of the political art.

Defending trans people who pass is easy, like even transphobes can do that, but defending trans people who aren’t conventionally attractive and don’t pass is much harder. Those are the people who get into confrontations in public bathrooms, and who experience the most hatred and constant micro-aggressions from almost everyone. The stage where you “don’t look good” is when you’re most vulnerable and is an almost universal experience for all trans women that tends to last much longer if you’re underprivileged.

I would just like seeing more stuff that affirms non-passing trans women are still women and that, in general, women don’t need to be pretty to deserve respect and basic decency from other people.

  • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    6·
    5 days ago

    The strange thing is also that transphobes often attempt to argue saying, “Don’t become a monstrosity”. To which I say: well buddy, I want to pass, don’t you want me to pass quickier and more seamlessly too? if people wished i wouldn’t look like a “freak” then just give tit/hair juice & their blockers informedly on the counter, make transplants cheaper, safer & easier in access, and support people exploring themselves!

    Because of the intermittent phase, I tried to make it as smooth as possible by lasering the face & using makeup, putting up more “neutral” clothing (rather than explicitly gendered), and the like, until I started passing. After that I fully switched. That helped and I didn’t get a lot of bad experiences, but still…

    … I feel passing is something one decides by themselves. We have no duty to anyone to pass but to our own desire; it is society’s duty to accept one another, not ours only - we already put up with a lot of dreg.

    About the restroom stuff

    Frankly, the whole restroom shit is silly to me. I think it’d be all easier were it done as:

    • Remove gendered symbols, just slap a toilet 🚽symbol on it.
    • Add bins in the formerly “men’s” restrooms.

    Simple and done, would probably cost less than €50 and improve everyone’s experiences. Queues eliminated & no “wrong people in the bathrooms” nonsense.

    For more:

    • urinals could be replaced with unisex versions, or stalls w/ proper privacy-respecting doors.
    • more leg space, washing bassins that aren’t microscopic. And put the towel stuff above the bassin!
    • accessibility for handicapped and/or people wanting to change their baby’s diapers.