Jezebel 
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New York, 6:17 AM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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Just thinking about the fact that there are guys out there who are more attractive than me in every feminine way is rather depressing.
Maybe I'd make a better man.
I wish there was a pageant where women/men were not allowed to wear make-up or have any prior plastic surgery. It would be very interesting because it would have to do with the person's authentic beauty, rather than how they look when doused in make-up and fake finger nails.
11/02/09
Transexual men and women don't do these things BECAUSE they'd look more beautiful as a woman, or more manly as a man. They're BORN in the wrong body. These ARE women. #pageants
11/02/09
I am a woman, I was born as a woman and I don't think taking pills, cutting off my breasts, and putting a member between my legs will truly change that.
Would a man be considered a monkey if we cut off his arms, legs and other body parts and replaced them with a monkey's? What if he started eating a monkey's diets and interacting with other monkeys? Would that satisfy the requirements? #pageants
11/02/09
Secondly, you can't decide someone else's identity. They decide that. And since this isn't a cross-species issue, if someone decides that they identify as man, woman, or somewhere in between, they are.
Transsexuals are not men/women who cut off body parts and infiltrate your sex. Once a trans woman is socially accepted as a woman, she is no different than you. You would never even know. All that is different is the shape of some of her body parts and her chromosomes. And women come in all different shapes and sizes already, so why hold that against her? #pageants
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11/02/09
It may seem like an extreme example, but it's really not far from the truth. There are scores of cases where trans men and women, sometimes at a very young age, have attempted to physically remove body parts with scissors, knives, etc. because of how utterly unnatural they felt. We aren't trying to play at being women - we ARE women, trying to fix a cosmic mistake that left us in the wrong bodies, being treated as the wrong gender, for as long as we can remember.
It's an argument that's reminiscent of the gay "lifestyle" arguments - the idea that we would willingly subject ourselves to the crushing social stigma, heavy financial costs, and considerable physical danger simply to play at being women is ridiculous. As a former social worker of mine told me, "You realize that you're basically going to become a second-class citizen?"
To the original topic - I tend to come down on the side of the pageant. I'm aware we have highly subjective and often unrealistic standards of beauty for women, and that pageants do little to stop perpetuating them. On the other hand, for every transwoman in this pageant, there are hundreds out there that will never get the chance to show off their bodies as they'd like them to be. Many, if not most, simply can't afford to completely rebuild their bodies and identities from the ground up. I can't begrudge these women the chance to show that they can be every bit as feminine as those fortunate enough to be born into the correct bodies. #pageants
11/02/09
But as women aren't they already privy to all that? Just like not including models of color doesn't keep women of color from absorbing the lessons our society teaches about beauty, excluding transwomen from pageants doesn't save them from feeling society's pressures.
I'm not a transwoman, so I can't speak to their specific problems, but I am a women of color and I certainly feel like I want people like me included in the definition of beautiful no matter how illogical and ultimately demeaning that is.
It's not logical, but I can't help it.
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But I'm tired and cranky today.
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I mean, I would say in a general sense, that logically, you are correct. But I sympathize with the plight of wanting this transformative change to happen your entire life, and therefore becoming consumed with it. So I blame plenty of other people for our fucked up standards, but totally give these women a pass. Does that make sense? #pageants
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It seems to me that showing the world that the trans genered community is beautiful, and that they want to do good things for charity is a good thing. #pageants
11/02/09
11/02/09
I don't necessarily think pageants are "bad". It is bad when parents force their young daughters to do them, but grown women, no more then men, have the right to tell other women what to do. I think they should be allowed to do what they want, and if this is what they want to do, so be it. #pageants
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11/02/09
It would be nice if we lived in a world where transwomen wouldn't have to have their own pageants and they could compete with cisgendered women without having to worry about being discovered or outed.
But we don't, and they're grown women, not children. We don't get to decided what's best for them anymore than we get to decided it for anyone who's up for Miss America.
I may personally find pageants semi-repugnant and stupid but that's why I don't do them. #pageants
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I object to child beauty pageants because of the age of participants. I don't want to instill such a one side vision of "beauty" in young minds. But these women know what fulfills them and if a pageant is it, then I'm glad they've found it! #pageants
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