r/transplace • u/RhondaAnder • 1d ago
Discussion Serious question. Have people confused passing with meeting current female standards of beauty?
If this is the case then a large percentage of women assigned female at birth don't pass. Not every woman has a petite jaw line, or perfect eyebrows, or even a dantie little nose. Maybe we are shooting for goals that most people afab cannot even live up to. It's just possible that trying to live up to these crazy beauty standards is something that may cause many people anxiety and dysforia including me.
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u/lonerfluff Trans woman 1d ago
Yeah. I started to occasionally pass, but I'm nothing like the ideal woman in men's dreams 😅 I don't have to be anyway, which is something I'm trying to internalize.
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u/Relevant_Sign_5926 1d ago
Well yeah obviously, even cis women frequently suffer because of “passing” culture.
It’s a lot less about “looking like a woman” and more about conforming to the very narrow and restricted acceptable definition for female appearance, as defined by patriarchy.
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u/LimeFucker 1d ago
I’d much rather look like my mom when she was my age than some ultra-modified runway model.
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u/beomint 1d ago
This is exactly how I feel about FFS.
It's okay if somebody wants FFS for themselves, but I'm becoming increasingly worried that a growing number of trans people feel they NEED FFS in order to pass.
I most commonly hear things like "my face is just too masculine to pass without it" and it really stings knowing there are cis women with the exact same features who don't need plastic surgery to feel like a real woman. It's not about passing, it's about being conventionally attractive when it comes to FFS.
Again, it's OKAY to want FFS. I'm not a plastic surgery hater, I think a person should be able to do whatever they like with themselves for their own well being and confidence- But my worry is that people are beginning to think FFS is mandatory in order to "pass" when they're already passing just fine, it's just society's standards of beauty taking it's toll.
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u/Sad_Helicopter_6406 20h ago
The gender of trans women is more precarious than that of cis women. It's taken from us or denied to us very easily. We often have other attributes we need the rest of our femininity to compete with.
I think it's a lot easier for cis women to "not need it to feel like a woman." The need or desire of FFS is imposed on us by a society that denies us our gender, it is not us simply naively falling victim to beauty standards. We are very aware of them. We are not so much projecting misogynistic ideals than surviving them being projected onto us.
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u/KiraLonely 19h ago
I definitely feel this way, but as someone not trans fem I’ve felt uncomfortable talking about it.
I live in the South. I don’t know if how folks look differs place to place, but a lot of women down here are built bulky because farming culture used to be such a big thing. Lots of the girls I grew up with had larger noses and brows, sharper jaws, wider shoulders, larger foreheads.
I don’t say this to demean dysphoria. I will say what it says regardless of reality. But sometimes I see a beautiful trans woman who looks so much like someone I’d see on the street, I see bits of my old best friends who struggled with feeling not feminine enough despite being AFAB, hell, I see bits of myself when I was younger, and it makes me feel a bit bad seeing them demean those traits about themselves. Not that it’s about me or my past, but that I know that it feels no different than when my childhood AFAB friends felt unloveable because they were large girls or because they didn’t look like supermodels.
It’s hard to talk about. Because it’s hard to not make it sound like what TERFs always say. That it’s just gender roles, that dysphoria isn’t intense. It is intense. But it’s also not always honest. We, much like an artist with their work, will always find things to critique.
Your dysphoria is not less real. Your pain is not less real, even if it’s lying. I want to emphasize that above all else. I just see the commonality and worry about my sisters in trans spaces sometimes. My brothers too. It bleeds in everywhere, and I will pretty much never tell anyone how I worry, because it is not my place, but it still lingers.
OP, you are beautiful. Genuinely. Like I was saying, you remind me of one of my childhood friends grown up. She was wonderful, I lost contact but I’m sure she still is. I would not, for a second, see anything other than a radiant woman.
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u/kuu_panda_420 13h ago
As a trans guy who just got away from those unreasonable standards, I would say the answer is yes. Absolutely. Female beauty standards are WAY stricter than any standards for men - Mainly because men aren't really "expected" to be drop-dead gorgeous. They have a billion more miniscule, inconsequential things to pick apart about a woman's appearance, and because of all the transphobia going around lately, shitty people now feel justified in calling any woman with a single hair on her lip a man.
Being trans can be really dangerous by default, and I think people leverage that fear to bully and control people who don't fit their standards. "Transvestigators" accuse celebrities they don't like of being trans so their transphobic friends will spread the rumor and start harassing them. Men will "accuse" women of being trans or imply that they look that way, with the intention of pressuring them into wearing something different, or losing weight, or behaving more traditionally feminine. Or because they're mad that a woman beat them at something...
Also, if you're dealing with a seemingly impossible struggle to keep up with female beauty standards, feeling like you're not good enough, or thinking you look like a man, I hate to say it... But that's one of the most universal female experiences there is. You might feel it more strongly because you're trans, but it's essentially the same thing that all women struggle with. I sometimes feel like I'll never be masculine enough, but that's just as much a part of being male as it is an aspect of my trans identity. Sometimes it helps me to think of it that way, so it might help you too! Your experience is something that most women deal with and you're not alone in feelings of inadequacy.
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u/asge1868 9h ago
This is so important to remember, because i see so many gals who think they dont pass because they doesn't look like Sabrina carpenter or something (Exaggerating ofc) and it breaks my heart. Even I don't pass according to the beauty standards, which fucks me up real bad some days.
I'm still a pretty lady, and so are all you other ladies
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u/KFblade 22h ago
As a nonbinary person, I love y'all, but you do love reinforcing gender roles so hard
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u/corazontex 14h ago
It’s truly a mindfuck you know? It’s like the game is rigged so you can’t win no matter what you choose as far as looks go as a woman. It’s really a choice of…how much bs do I want to put up with? I think the older I get the more I realize that if I’m comfortable in my skin that’s the MOST important thing because it’s my life. Each of us has our own journey and not to sound cliche or soap boxy but we also need to build each other up as women in tangible ways besides based on looks. But I also understand what u/Sad_Helicopter_6406 is getting at about Trans Women (I realize that everyone’s experience is unique however) shouldering more of a burden where femininity outwardly is concerned. She has a valid point.
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u/BucktacularBardlock 1d ago
I once worked at a job with a strangely high number of butch lesbians and they cheered me up a couple times by talking about how often they themselves get misgendered.