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Protecting the dolls
It has been a complex week for those trying to keep up with Britain’s relationship with trans people. On the one have you have the toxic megadump know as X spewing transphobic abuse in industrial quantities; on the other you have Glamour Magazine putting trans women front and centre on its cover, provoking a raging transphobic firestorm which it defiantly stands up against. More broadly, there is an internal conversation in the queer community about the framing of trans women as dolls, with Abigail Thorn’s think piece about gender performativity providing a third perspective. In it she deconstructs the notion of dollhood, ironically reflecting many of the concerns gender critics have over the term. How we protect trans women is a fundamental question given the dehumanising they are experiencing globally, yet at the same time who we seek to protect is just as pressing.
Dollhood is a slang term rooted in passing politics, conflated with cisgendered aesthetic which only a select few trans women can achieve even with surgery. The nine trans women presented on the cover of Glamour epitomise beauty standards which many feminists have long resented and campaigned against, and both Thorn and many gender critics pointed out the trap it sets up for all women. As someone who appreciates fashion as an art form yet resolutely rejects the beauty industry’s sales and marketing I think this point is valid; however, what…
