Trans feminine armour
In a world of exaggerated gender expression, where the social cues we read in a split second define the person we are looking at, is it possible for a trans woman to exude a gender neutrality and still thrive? Is it inevitable that a trans woman should be hyper feminine, or at the very least expected to be hyper feminine? Or, is the feminine an armour against harm and possible murder? In the critiquing of trans women being a hyper feminine woman, the problem lies in our understanding of why this happens, and the impact this has in trans women themselves.
A dress is armour, make-up brushes rapiers wielded in defence of the self, and the hyper feminine a direct rejection of the prior masculine self. In the armour of womanhood, as exaggerated as it could become, trans women remould and gird themselves to fight a potentially hostile world. In societies where to present as a woman requires as much heteronormativity as possible, where trans female transnormativity is suffused by this, the very act of embracing the hyper femme is an act of survival. It becomes camouflage to escape into the jungle, to attempt to fade into a sense of normality.
This leads to the logical fallacy that all trans women are therefore hyper feminine, and the only gender expression that trans women know is this potential pastiche of womanhood. Janice Raymond and other second wave feminists abhorred trans women like April Ashley as facsimiles of womanhood, emperors choosing to wear new clothes to cast a trans empire over all women. What they forgot in their rush for headlines was that society, and the medical establishment in particular, trapped trans women quite literally in petticoats, for if they deviated even slightly their treatment was stopped. The hyper femme became the only way to access the treatment required to align identity with body.
That this is still the message projected onto trans women when they come out has a direct linage back to this medical gatekeeping. To be a woman required an almost Stepford wives approach to womanhood, with all the attendant buying into the capitalise enterprise of make-up, hair, fashion, glamour, and marketing. Identity is co-opted by those desperate to corral women into the showring, where it becomes all about the trappings, and little to do with the lived realities and experience. To be woman is to be a show pony. Trans feminine is seen as aping this performativity, forgetting that to eschew this takes much teenage experimentation and self-understanding.
To be a woman in joggers and a hoodie is as much part of the female experience, yet the closest we get to this is Nike and Adidas shilling their new line. The target audience is not the trans woman desperately seeking validation as she tip toes out of the closet, whose need for identity and community is ensconced in what is clearly visible in the media. To be woman, to be seen as woman, is sold as the things we adorn ourselves with, not the inner understanding of self.
It becomes apparent when you look at the intersections of identity pressed into service when someone transitions. To know and understand womanhood is completely different from putting on a dress, heels, and make-up. While the rush in the mirror is intoxicating, while the validation is a rush you want to chase ad nauseum, to actually understand and root yourself in womanhood takes self-reflection and time. Yet, time is not on a transitioners side, for it is only with the external trappings of the feminine that validation and identity recognised. A trans woman who presents masc will inherently have her identity questioned at every point, because for the society around her it is the externalisation of self that matters most, not the inner known identity.
Hyper identity becomes armour, becomes a routine rote in the making. If the mask presented at the door is the feminine, the painted face a sign to the world you are truly who you say you are, is the exaggeration of womanhood really a fault, or is it a symptom of how the world expects women to really be? When Abigail Thorn came out on Youtube she made the point to present as the opposite to her former male identity. Kim Petras’s hyper femininity sells the world on her womanhood, her sex appeal cutting through any doubts that the heterosexuals have about their own attraction to her. April Ashley. Christine Jorgensen. Andreja Pejic. Paris Lees. All project a sense of glamour and appeal to the heteronormative version of womanhood because it sells, and they want to make a career. Their womanhood is inherently wrapped up in the armour of the hyper femme because they want to make money, and we will throw it at them because we find the attractive. Sex has always sold, and to be a trans woman in the public eye it is expected that you will be conventionally attractive and as close to heteronormative as possible for public consumption.
That the truth is always murkier, messy and much more complicated is well known to many trans women. No woman can exist as the hyper glamazon all the time, it is exhausting and soul sucking. Yet, if the only reason you are treated half-way decently by the cis world at large is the armour you adorn yourself with, is it a choice or further reinforcement of the old trapped in petticoats? Raymond confused cause and effect, seeing the hyper feminine as the cause of trans women’s supposed subjugation of womanhood, rather than the effect of medicalised gatekeeping. If the only womanhood possible to those who initially transition is the hyper feminine, then that is a damning indictment on society at large.
Conversely, if the joy of womanhood is found in the hyper femme, which is as true for cis women as it is for trans, then is it the very condemnation of the feminine that is really the issue at hand? If femininity, and the hyper version of it, is seen as a problem by society, then that begs the question why. Femininity is seen as lesser than the masculine, a prison of society’s making through which women are kept a step behind. It is not the feminine that is overtly the problem, it is that it is seen as a poor relation to the neutral, assertive, and butch. To be feminine is to be seen as weaker, softer, emotional, a person in need of rescue, not the riding in on a white charger. That trans women must become hyper feminine to access medication, surgery, and validation immediately puts them into this lesser category, in turn invalidating them in a way that is ill-defined and double edged. It is a double bind: become something that others proclaim is a pastiche, or otherwise you will never even get a chance to progress along an affirming gender pathway.
We damn feminine women because they are seen as in need of salvation, in need of the masculine touch. Trans women are thus doubly damned because they assume this mantle willingly, taking up the perceived shackles of inferiority in clothing and cultural normativity. It is a projection that feminism has spent two centuries trying to undo, but because cis doctors insist that it is the singular way to be a woman it ensnares and entraps, rather than is a personal liberation. Femininity can be liberating, can be uplifting, and can be glorious, but if it is the only way to get validation it becomes a trap, snare within which others will hunt and slaughter.
If trans women are hyper feminised, hyper sexualised and made objects of desire simply as an act of survival, then whose curse is that? If the only way you can survive and thrive is to be called a pastiche of the very thing you seek to cleave to, it becomes utterly exhausting and a hamster wheel to chase after. The armour each trans woman wears is of her own making, and as her transition progresses she finds her own voice and way to express herself. Hyper femininity potentially mutes into something morphing into the background, or potentially it gets reinforced and emboldened. And everything in between and beyond. There is no one way to transition, but until the medical establishment stops enforcing hyper femme as the key to unlocking the kingdom, it will be difficult to present a different version of trans womanhood to those coming out of the closet.
Indeed, you could argue that the media narrative of trans women also perpetuates the hyper feminine, for all the books, TV shows, plays, films, and successful YouTube channels featuring trans women showcase borderline hyper femininity. If that is the projected message to those coming out of the closet, then is it any wonder that the girded armour is thus. There are as many ways of being a woman as there as women alive, yet the one sold to trans women is still a reflection of the 1960s psychological imprint that April Ashley faced during her court case. To be out, trans, and publicly validated you must be hyper femme, else societal damnation awaits. This is the paradox of trans female identity that takes years to unwind and unpick, for to become rooted in womanhood takes a an understanding that the external adornment is not a reflection of your inner self knowledge. To be woman in deep rooted within, not the armour you wear outside.
