Learning, Growing, Evolving Femininity FB Discussion

When I began my transition in 1994, one of the things I was well aware of was the famous quote by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir on womanhood.

Women are made, not born'

A few days ago I had an interesting discussion on my Facebook page about this very subject which ironically started in response to this comment.

Some ignorant elements of the Black community really need to chill with the transphobia and 'that's a man' shade aimed at Black women.

It was in response to the post I wrote slamming the transphobes at Bossip about the 50 gallon drums of Hateraid Fierce they were drinking over Wendy Williams.

One of the things I realized pretty quickly was that French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wasn't kidding when she said 'A woman is made, not born.'

When some people transition, I believe they fail to realize just how much of femininity is internal. Anybody with the money, time and a good plastic surgeon can buy a slamming female body. But if you still carry around those masculine attitudes and behaviors, you'll get 'sirred' in a minute no matter how much money you spent on your feminization surgery or the neocoochie between your legs.

One thing many cis people fail to realize is that I and many transwomen take their transitions seriously. We wish to be compliments to womanhood, not detriments to it as our detractors try to slander us with.

And let's face it, it you want to be good at something, you observe and talk to the people who live those roles in everyday life.

Cis women are born into their bodies, get to develop in them from birth, get the chance to get comfortable in your skin, get to ponder what type of woman you wish to project to the world, make mistakes along the way while being encouraged and molded by their families and society into their feminine gender roles.

Trans women for the most part are fought every step of the way by society and our families in addition to getting shame and guilt piled on us for daring to morph into the bodies that match our gender programming and the types of women we wish to project to the world.

And that's the situation before we even get to grapple with the sexism, being a moving sexual target, and all the other societal baggage positive and negative of walking around on this planet in a female body.

It's enjoyable when I get to have those kinds of thoughtful interactions with cis women about femininity and what it means to them.

I'd like to have those conversations more often.