From: M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 02:00:44 +0000 (-0700) Subject: draft: "Apophenia?" X-Git-Url: http://534655.efjtl6rk.asia/source?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c5b768aee868b3fffce24eee60cc491b6a014c04;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git draft: "Apophenia?" --- diff --git a/content/drafts/apophenia.md b/content/drafts/apophenia.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5d88d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/drafts/apophenia.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +Title: Apophenia? +Date: 2016-09-05 +Category: commentary +Tags: autogynephilia + +> Media depictions of trans women, whether they take the form of fictional characters or actual people, usually fall under one of two main archetypes: the "deceptive transsexual" or the "pathetic transsexual." While characters based on both models are presented as having a vested interest in achieving an ultrafeminine appearance, they differ in their abilities to pull it off. Because the "deceivers" successfully pass as women, they generally act as unexpected plot twists, or play the role of sexual predators who fool innocent straight guys into falling for other "men." [...] In contrast to the "deceivers," who wield their feminine wiles with success, the "pathetic transsexual" characters aren't deluding anyone. Despite her masculine mannerisms and five o'clock shadow, the "pathetic transsexual" will inevitably insist that she is a woman trapped inside a man's body. +> +> —Julia Serano, _Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity_, Ch. 2, "Skirt Chasers: Why the Media Depicts the Trans Revolution in Lipstick and Heels" + +Serano is right to call out media producers for inventing and promulgating these harmful stereotypes! One really has to wonder, though, why the media, in the vicious and shallow baseness of its ignorance and transphobia, happened to confabulate those two and only two _particular_ archetypes with which to stigmatize trans women. I mean, it's not as if the emergence of such toxic ideas could be in any way related to some [underlying statistical reality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology), right??