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Beauty and Vanity

I had a very long and elaborate dream last night. It ended with this conventionally attractive person looking at me and saying, "you and I are focused on being beautiful since we're shallow like that."

Struck as I was with post-dream clarity as I pulled myself into the conscious world, I couldn't help but wonder why I had such a strong connection between putting effort into being beautiful and being shallow that my subconscious presented it to me with such certainty. It's not exactly a new perspective to me. As a teenager and into my early 20s I never put effort into my appearance. The most I did was brush my hair and get it cut once or twice a year. The edgy teenage me naturally thought that it made me somewhat superior. After all, why would someone put any effort into their appearance unless it was to impress someone or from some shallowness in their personality that demanded they always look their best?

Well, as it turned out, most people care about their appearance to at least to some extent. Perhaps not enough they would do a complex skincare routine or daily makeup, but they cared about how they styled their hair, how they dressed, and so on. I eventually learned the reason I was miserable whenever I tried to do the same was because I never let myself dress the way I really wanted. As soon as I started dressing as a girl, I developed a sense of style I never could barely imagine before. Pretty standard trans behavior, with the benefit of hindsight.

At some point before I transitioned, I realized the belief I had about the relationship between beauty and vanity was steeped in internalized misogyny. After all, when I thought of beauty culture, it was overwhelmingly feminine. Even the term beautiful, when applied to people, has gendered connotations. I started to recognize that I was using those beliefs to be more critical of women, while men's aesthetic work easily passes for effortless. This is particularly unfair in a culture where beauty is the cultural expectation for women. If they didn't try they were ugly or lazy, and if they did they were vain or self-absorbed. So I learned to reject the equivalence; I'm not sure I could have expressed it so clearly at the time. But I became uncomfortable painting people with this brush.

So I had recognized that associating beauty and vanity isn't a fair way to judge people, and I had recognized that I actually do care about my appearance when I allow expression of my authentic self. Why then do I think that caring about one's appearance makes one vain and shallow? Isn't beauty part of what makes life worth living? The beauty of people, of art, of the natural world? Physical beauty, the beauty found in poetry and written art, in mathematical patterns, in the way that humans interact and care for each other? I certainly think so. And I certainly don't think a beautiful sunset makes the sky vain.

I suppose the answer is probably the same it has been all along, but which I never properly confronted. The idea that beauty, especially beauty in women, is a character flaw (unless it's effortless) is rooted deeply in misogynistic attitudes. Ironically, the same attitudes demand that women make themselves beautiful then condemn them for doing so. It's not enough for me to recognize that I shouldn't judge people using this absurd metric, I need to recognize and reject the core belief that beauty, especially for women, is somehow indicative of any individual's worth.

Easier said than done, I'm sure. But if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that having challenging fundamental beliefs such as this one can be truly transformative.

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Reading The Second Sex - Preface

I recently received a copy of the Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir. Since this is such an influential text in modern feminist thought, I've decided to give it a careful reading. A few days later, I'm several chapters in, and have a great many thoughts about the text, so I've decided to journal them here. This post is to provide personal context, so that my other posts can be focused on the chapter of the book in question.

The point of this is not really to make any major contributions to feminist thought. I don't have much background in academic feminism, so I don't have a fantastic sense of how exactly feminist thought has evolved in the 70+ years since this book was published. That said, I have been listening to feminist ideas for several years; I expect many of the thoughts I have on the text are retellings of previous writers whose ideas I have heard over the years. With that in mind, the idea is not that my reading of the text is especially groundbreaking.

Rather, this is a way for me to organize my thoughts as I read. I have a specific perspective on the text that is informed by my experience, and I think it will be helpful for myself to synthesize some ideas as I read. If this is of any interest to others, then all the better. With that in mind, I thought I would ground my commentary by referring to specific parts of the text. I am reading the unabridged version translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, published in 2011 (as best I can tell). I will cite page numbers as I have them, and the analysis we be categorized by chapter so it should hopefully be intelligible for other versions of the text. I am not fluent in French, so I will be limited to this English translation.

The translators have fortunately used the terminology of the time of the original text intact. Notably, this excludes concepts such as the delineation of sex and gender, and includes use of terms like "sexuality" that may seem discordant to a modern reader (who is more likely to hear that term in discussions of LGBTQ+ people). While I am immensely thankful the translators retained the original wording, I see no reason to hold myself to the same restriction. I plan to replace the terms in the text with modern terms that I think most accurately reflect my interpretation of the text. I'll use brackets to denote this, and the page reference will hopefully be sufficient for the interested reader to critically evaluate my substitutions.

As far as personal context, I have read far enough that it has become clear that I have a few identities that are important to how I read this text. The first, and least important, is that I am a practicing scientist. I am a physicist, so I don't expect my technical expertise to be too relevant here, but working in science colors how I interpret the sections on science, and makes me aware of my limits when speaking to topics where I am not an expert; perhaps in ways someone who has less claim to expertise may not, for better and for worse. I am also a white woman, born and raised in the United States. This colors my understanding of racism, imperialism, and the international effects of colonialism - they are often academic and impersonal issues, vitally important ethically and historically, but ultimately not immediately and directly oppressive to me.

I am also a transgender woman. I am not interested in debating whether this part of my identity makes me unable to speak from the perspective of a woman. I suffer under patriarchy because of my womanhood, experience misogyny, and my daily life has far, far more in common with a cis woman than a cis man. But there are some relevant differences between the trans and cis experiences of womanhood. There are some obvious differences of anatomy, in my case I benefited from male privilege for two decades before I came out, and I "opted into" womanhood in a way cis women typically don't. Of course, I didn't actually choose to be a woman any more than cis women; no one chooses their gender identity. But I did decide to transition, to present to others as a woman, despite patriarchy, despite misogyny, and despite transphobia. This is an often underappreciated part of the trans experience. Throughout my commentary, I will refer to the parts of it that I understand differently as a trans woman. I think this will be interesting in many ways; for me it will help understand the ways in which my intersectional identity affects my reading; for cis folks I'm sure it will reveal some interesting parts of the trans experience that are not obvious.

I think that is just about everything I wanted to preface my reading with, and now I can write while conscious of my starting point. ^^

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Review - A Girlhood: A Letter to my Transgender Daughter by Carolyn Hays

TLDR - This books tells a moving story of a mother's love for her family and especially her transgender daughter. The book is approachable for cis and trans people alike, and moved me to tears multiple times with it's gut-wrenching depictions of the challenges facing trans youth in modern America. It is a fantastic introduction to the issues trans youth contend with, and a touching personal account for those already familiar.

The book tells a story from the author to her daughter. It covers the time from when her daughter first began expressing her gender, through the knock on their door by a member of Child Protective Services due to allegations they were "forcing their child to be homosexual," and the fallout that ensued. It tells a tale that is all too familiar to many trans people, one littered with fear, hostility, and bigotry. But it is also the story of unimaginable joy, of self-discovery and growth, of beauty, and most of all of unconditional love.

As a trans reader, it was striking how clearly this was written by a cis person. Not even in the sense the narrative was very explicit, but it the way it frames truths that every trans person I've ever talked to internalizes early as shocking revelations deep into adulthood. The violence that faces trans women in this society came as a surprise, but I cannot remember a time where I did not know the threat that looms over someone who abandons masculinity.

In many ways I think this story follows the discovery trans youth have always gone through. In truth, we don't have some prescient awareness of how society treats trans people. Instead we learn along the way, in a hundred little moments. But trans people learn young, at a time in our lives when we are learning constantly. The parents of a trans child learn alongside them, but they are already adults with established views of the world. Their perspective throws all the violent, cruel, and ignorant parts of the trans experience into sharp relief. That is exactly what Carolyn Hays does. She captures the ever present fear that one or two people can have the power to completely upend your life, and will do so just because you are trans.

I can't personally comment on how this part of the text connects with cis readers. I like to imagine that it is effective, with its appeals to the protectiveness of parenthood, the love of a family, and the fear of loss and crisis. It certainly has a compelling portrayal of life as a trans person, and the fact that it is written by and from the perspective of a cis person may make it all the more impactful. But it will ultimately depend on the comfort of the reader with extending empathy to the trans experience.

As much as this book is about the challenges trans people face, it is also about the pure joy and love of the trans experience. It goes to some lengths to emphasize the uniquely beautiful experience of watching a trans person blossom. It has several beautiful passages about the ways in which her daughter has come to know herself, and I think that it is in many ways mirrors the beauty I see in the trans people around me.

If I did have one big picture criticism of the book, it's that for all it's efforts to balance the pain and the beauty of the trans experience, it isn't entirely convincing. Ultimately, I come away from this story with the cruelty of the world in regards to trans youth at the center of my mind. Perhaps that is the point. This is at least in part a message from a mother to her daughter. It opens by describing how this story is deeply personal, and how it is a story that is owed to her daughter, the subject of the narrative. Of course it centers on the challenges, the things that you can't tell your child in the their most formative years. It has to center on the struggles that were shielded away.

But I also think that it is emblematic of the discourse around transgender identities in modern America. The primary benefits to trans acceptance are internal and personal, according to popular discourse. There is joy in accepting who you are, in seeing loved ones be the authentic selves. It becomes easier for cisgender people to deviate from gender norms, leading some individuals to lead happier, more fulfilling lives.

The principle challenges that face trans people are external and systemic. We are denied jobs, housing, and healthcare. We are targets of violence, both individually and systemically. We are the subjects of laws and policies meant to explicitly harm us. Dysphoria is a problem for trans people, of course, but that can be alleviated by transitioning. By having more acceptance for trans identities, the burden of dysphoria is eased. Why then are we all so focused on the individual, internal story when we demand trans acceptance?

I don't think we'll find any answer in this text. In fact, I would be surprised if we did. Any trans person could testify that the reasons they decided to transition are internal, and the primary challenges are external. If I learned one thing from this book, it's that the journey of an accepting parent to a young trans child mirrors in many ways the journey of trans people themselves. There are notable differences, of course, but they are still engaging with the same transphobic system. They are witness to the joys of trans existence, and of course that is reason enough for them. When your child's happiness is at stake, wouldn't that alone be worth overcoming all those external challenges? It certainly would be for me.

Other small criticisms include some lamp-shaded questions about the 'why' of trans children. Is it hormonal? Something in the brain or nervous system? It doesn't dwell on them, and it does go out of its way to recognize such questions are dangerous and rooted in transphobia. However, I still feel they were insufficiently challenged and ultimately someone could easily come away with the wrong impression. If anything, this is an on-ramp to connect with cis readers, perhaps other parents who also have these questions.

There are also scattered sections on gender diversity and corollaries to trans people in different cultures as different times. As in many texts, these comparisons serve a rhetorical purpose emphasizing the fact that gender variance and parallels to transgender people are nothing new. This is absolutely true. However, as with many casual appeals to other cultures gender-variant identities it can leave readers with the impression that these other gender identities are literally the same as modern trans identities. Rather, these examples are expressions of the natural variance in gender identity outside the strict binary, and modern trans identities are simply another cultural expression. The author appears well-read on the many, many cultures with more than a rigid gender binary, so I think it's likely she is aware of this nuance. Instead this feel more like an editorial decision so that the text can remain focused on the personal story it is meant to be.

All in all, I would recommend the book. It's a very honest insight into the trans experience from someone who is not themselves trans. It is powerful and emotional. It has phenomenal prose, and it's message is particularly relevant in the current political landscape. It is thought-provoking in more ways than one, and there are few criticisms I have of it that are not themselves criticisms of elements of broader trans discourse.