Transvisibility

In the podcast Transgender 101, the term "trans visibility" was mentioned a few times. I had never heard that term before listening to that podcast and repeatedly, they mentioned that trans visibility is so important to the LGBTQI community. For a while now, the Internet has been abuzz since Vanity Fair did an extensive photo shoot and interview with Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner), who is now officially out as a trans woman. 

As much as everyone is trying to be supportive of Caitlyn, her visibility in the media is also raising some important questions about gender politics and trans visibility in the US. Journalist Peggy Drexler noted in CNN.com that some of these questions are critical of the fact that Jenner asked to be called Bruce and for he/him pronouns to be used right up until the Vanity Fair glamour shoot reveal.

Laverne Cox, the first trans woman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted TV show and an Emmy- nominated actress shared in a Tumblr post, "A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am 'drop dead gorgeous' and...what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves. It is important to note that these standards are also informed by race, class and ability among other intersections.”

What Cox is saying here is that not all trans individuals are able to medically transition, nor do they all desire to do so. Even those trans individuals able to have top and/or bottom surgery covered by insurance would likely not be able to add facial feminization or masculinization surgery to the list. Relating this to Jenner's narrative, many people say that her ability to get surgery is tied to her celebrity and class status. She has the money and the status to make that part of transitioning easily attainable. More than that, transition is a process. A trans woman doesn't “become” a woman only when surgery and hormone therapy are complete; she has already been a woman the entire time regardless of her choice to use hormones or undergo any surgery at all.

Trans visibility, if relegated solely to the covers of magazines, might have much the same effect on trans individuals and their sense of what kinds of bodies are acceptable and desirable. There are unmeetable beauty standards being imposed on women by airbrushed fashion and beauty magazines. Those same standards are having the same negative mental health effects on gay men. 

Cox continued, “Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class.” 

Trans visibility shouldn't only be about celebrating the physical beauty of celebrity trans women. We need to ensure that ALL trans individuals have the resources necessary to live full and productive lives regardless of how well their experiences fit into our preconceived notions of cultural beauty norms. This Advocate article explores the ways in which Twitter might be a better venue for such discussions when compared to sites like Facebook, where articles are often shared and liked without much commentary. Our social media obsessed society tends to easily talk about the latest news, regardless of our knowledge on it. What the Advocate article shows is a few tweets that show how Caitlyn Jenner was celebrated and applauded for her coming out and transition meanwhile, there are hundreds of others around the world that have been out years before Caitlyn and aren't being talked about. Not only that, there are hundreds of others who have came out or transitioned and rather than being celebrated, they have been bullied and committed suicide or have been killed. It becomes a conflicting matter when we want to be happy for someone but you also can't, knowing that there are many others who have had unfortunate outcomes. 

Although trans visibility is very important, we need to be careful about hypervisibility. When a person or group is hypervisible they may also be invisible, in the sense that society treats them as irrelevant. This hypervisibility puts marginalized groups, especially transgender people of color, at risk of  violence by those who do not want trans people to be equal or have equal rights. It should be noted that a large majority of anti-LGBTQI hate crimes are directed at people of color. Hypervisibility is what turns trans people's' lives into spectacle like when the media and the larger society as invasive questions about their surnames or surgical status, as if that was all there was to them. Those are just some example of ways that hypervisibility acts in the day to lives of trans. Many times, media personalities ask celebrities inappropriate questions- even after they are told that they will not be answered- and then get upset when people refuse to answer them. that is something that happens on a day-to-day basis in the life of an average trans but unlike celebrities who can walk away from the interview and move on, trans are sometime loaded with inappropriate questions that impact their personal lives or even end in violence if they don't answer those questions. 

How can we make sure trans individuals of all races and classes have equal access to employment, affordable healthcare and housing, and mental health resources? How can we reduce hate crimes and violence against trans individuals – and especially trans people of color?

This website for an immigration lawyer firm is drawing attention to the plight of immigration detention for trans women who are often placed in cells with men while they await asylum. Even Chelsea Manning had to sue the U.S. militaryto be allowed to begin hormone therapy while incarcerated for whistleblowing. Add to this the fact that majority of incarcerated trans individuals are jailed according to the gender they were assigned at birth, meaning trans women are forced to serve time in men's prisons, where the likelihood of harassment, violence, and sexual assault is much higher. By treating trans women the way we treat "regular" women, we can start making a difference in the safety of trans people of all backgrounds and intersectionalities. We need to stop being scared of the unknown and treat others the way we want to be treated.

Word count: 1150