Andrej Pejic Does Bra Ad

There have long been rumors circulating that some of those tall, skinny flat-chested glamazons strutting the catwalks during Fashion Week were actually very feminine looking boys with the ability due to an androgynous face, physique, mannerisms and training (or who were on hormones and in the early stages of transition) to pull off a convincing feminine illusion.

Meet 20 year old Bosnian born Australian resident Andrej Pejic, a breakout supermodel who is taking the fashion world by storm with an uber androgynous look .

Pejic can and does do two for one roles in a fashion show by effortlessly showing off a designer's mens and womens clothing lines and gets paid well for doing so.

Especially as some fashion critics contend, Pejic's figure is the ideal for fashion designers. 5'11", no bust and no waist.  

Pejic has become a favorite model for designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs among others and was ranked at number 98 in FHM's list of the world's sexiest women for 2011.  A transphobic comment accompanying Pejic's photo with the ranking caused it to be pulled from the online site.  



Pejic even showed up in a fashion shoot with the other modeling it girl for 2011, Brazilian transwoman Lea T.

As to which side of the gender binary Pejic is on: 

"I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, ‘I’m a boy, but I wear makeup sometimes.’ But, you know, to me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really have that sort of strong gender identity—I identify as what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing purposes, it’s just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn money.”

There was an interesting print ad last month from the Dutch department store Hema which recently featured Pejic wearing its 'Mega-Push-Up Bra' that guarantees it will increase your bust two cup sizes..    


Once the Hema ad hit Dutch newspapers with photos of the cleavage-free Pejic showing some semblance of breast tissue, it sent sales of this bra skyrocketing and caused a media sensation in the Netherlands 

So it will be interesting to see in 2012 how Andrej Pejic tops this and what other interesting developments happen in Pejic's life gender wise..

Olympic Gender Drama-The 1976 East German Swim Team

TransGriot Note: Another post in a series documenting the gender controversies that have occurred during the Olympic games.

During the 1976 Games in Montreal gender drama and cheating raised its head at the Olympics once again. 

The scene of this gender sports crime was Montreal's Olympic Swim Center pool and the perpetrators were the DDR government.  Also involved without their knowledge at the time, the East German women's swim team.

In the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the USA women swimmers claimed 17 total medals- eight gold medals, five silvers and four bronzes. Of their eight gold medals, six were claimed in world record times while the other two were Olympic records.  The USA women during those Munich Games had two events in which they finished 1-2 and swept the 200m butterfly.   They also won both relays in world record times.  Two of those USA silver medals were claimed by a then 15 year old Shirley Babashoff  

The DDR during those same Munich games won zero gold medals, four silvers, and one bronze during that Olympic swimming competition with no world records

One of the East Germans collecting silvers during those games was a then 13 year old Kornelia Ender. She was responsible for three of the four silver medals the DDR girls went back to their side of the Inner German border with.  

But in the four years between the Munich and Montreal Games the East Germans starting in 1973 came out of seemingly nowhere to make dramatic improvements in their times and the color of the medals they took back home to the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

No thanks to State Plan 14.25, the DDR's state sponsored doping program combined with their sports science rooted training methods and weightlifting regimens, they began to dominate the sport of women's swimming and the East German national anthem became a very familiar tune at those competitions.

In the 1973 FINA championships the DDR took 10 out of the 14 golds in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and two years later matched that performance in Cali, Colombia.

Then came the Montreal Olympic Games and the DDR wundermadchen total domination of the pool.   They took home a grand total of 18 medals with 11 of them being golds.  Out of the 13 events contested in the women's Olympic swim program in Montreal, only the 200m breaststroke (which was a Soviet sweep) and the 4x100 freestyle relay in which they claimed the silver eluded their grasp. 

The wundermadchen also set eight world records, equalled another one in the 100m butterfly, set three Olympic records and had five events in which DDR swimmers finished 1-2.  The East Germans also swept the medals in the 200m butterfly.


As for Kornelia Ender and Shirley Babashoff, their Olympic scripts were flipped.  The 17 year old Ender was the individual swimming star of the Montreal Games, taking home four gold medals and a silver.  She also beat Babashoff twice in their head to head individual races.  The four golds were all won in world record times.

19 year old Shirley Babashoff was aiming to be the femme version of 1972 Olympic swimming star Mark Spitz in these Montreal Games.  She was entered in five races, and in four of them except for the relay she was beaten by an East German swimming in world record time.  In addition to finishing with silver medals in her 100m and 200m freestyle races with Ender, she finished with silver medals in the 400m and 800m freestyle races won by Petra Thumer.

The lone gold for Babashoff was as a member of the 4x100 freestyle relay in which she and her American teammates upset the East Germans.  They had the added satisfaction of not only defending the gold they won in Munich and beating their Montreal tormentor Ender, but breaking the East Germans world record in the event by an astounding four seconds. 

That 1976 Olympic race is also considered the greatest ever in international women's swimming.

But people were noting not only the muscular builds of Kornelia Ender and her East German wundermadchen teammates, so was the rest of the international swimming community. 

They noted the East Germans suspiciously dramatic improvements in times in the runup to Montreal   They also noted with some sarcasm that the voices of many of the East German women were unusually deep, which is a telltale sign of the effects of steroid use in women.

When a frustrated American coach repeated the observation during the Montreal Games, an East German coach replied, "We came here to swim, not sing."

Shirley Babashoff, the USA's most decorated swimmer and a later inductee into the swimming hall of fame also noticed.  She and other frustrated American female swimmers loudly complained about what was to them obviously going on with the wundermadchen and threw some shade at their bitter East German rivals.

"To be frank, I don't think we should look like men."…
"I wouldn't want to walk around the neighborhood looking like a guy."

"That's not the way God created us – to be like that (looking like DDR Swimmers)"…
  
Babashoff was bold enough to state the obvious back then and was derided by the world press covering the Games as 'Surly Shirley' and a sore loser for it.  

She would be vindicated by the fall of the Berlin Wall 14 years later and the opening of the once secret Stasi files confirming what Babashoff was bold enough to call out in 1976.  The DDR's astounding success in the pool at the Montreal Games and in subsequent international swimming competitions through 1988 was steroid fueled. 

So IOC, I repeat the question I asked in 2008.  When are y'all going to take away the ill gotten Olympic medals the East Germans won like you swiftly have for any non-white Olympic athletes caught cheating?

That doping program not only robbed people like Babashoff, Canada's Nancy Garapicki and countless others of medals they should have earned, it also had devastating consequences for the young East German women themselves.

Their developing female bodies were given steroid cocktails and their health was sacrificed in the name of winning medals and enhancing the international sporting prestige of the DDR for propaganda purposes.
  

It also left a lot of people who finished behind those doped up DDR female swimmers, including some of the East German swimmers themselves wondering what the results would have been if there had been a clean pool in Montreal?

UK Home Office Considering Gender Neutral Passports

I'm late to this one, but in the wake of Australia changing its policies, the UK Home Office announced on September 19 it was considering following the lead of Australia and not displaying gender on UK passports.   

While transpeople in the UK can get passports with the correct gender markers, intersex people who may not identify with either gender are forced to choose either 'M' or 'F'.   The Home Office in those cases would allow for an 'X' to be placed in the gender marker field or eliminating it altogether.  

A UK Home Office spokesperson stated: “We are exploring with international partners and relevant stakeholders the security implications of gender not being displayed on the passport".

Mismatched gender codes are a major hassle for transpeople who travel internationally.  Those mismatched gender codes have led to transpeople being hassled when transiting customs in various countries, denied entry into nations or being subjected to embarrassing and humiliating situations while doing so.

The US State Department implemented rule changes last year that allow for transpeople to get passports without requiring genital surgery.  Australia recently announced in September they would no longer require genital surgery in oder to issue new passports and would issue them to sex and gender diverse applicants in either  M (male), F (female) or X (indeterminate/unspecified/intersex).

The proposed passport policy change would not require legislative action since passports are considered under royal prerogative and would require only a simple ministerial order to implement.

Will keep an eye on it and see if that happens.

Another Groundbreaking Win For Australian Trans People

The trans folks Down Under have been giving us a lot of good news on the international trans human rights front lately. 

First it was the Australian Defence Forces lifting their ban on trans soldiers last year.   Then came last month's ruling that stated trans Aussies can get passports issued in their new gender without surgical intervention.

Now the Australian High Court, the equivalent of the SCOTUS issued an October 6 ruling in the recent case of two transmen who had chest surgeries done, were on testosterone but when they attempted to get identity documents changed to reflect male status they were rebuffed.

The High Court ruled in their favor, stating that a person is identified as male or female by their external characteristics, not their sexual organs  
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The decision has been welcomed by Australian transgender support groups, and also brings Australia into line with South Africa, Great Britain and some other European countries.

Congrats to my Australian brothers and sisters, it was long overdue and I'm exceedingly happy, proud and pleased for you.  

I also have to remind everyone that the Australian success in advancing trans rights law is something we can build on since our trans human rights struggle is an international one.   

But the Australian success prompts me to ask as an American when are we, the 'so called leading democracy in the world, going to lead on trans human rights issues instead of lag behind?

We Are Not Defined By Our Genitalia

I've said this multiple times on this blog and will continue to say it until you peeps embed this point in your brain cells.   You need to focus on what's between a transperson's ears, not their legs.

I'm tired of repeating this obvious point ad nauseum, but if that's what it takes for you recalcitrant gay and straight cis people and elements of the trans community to get it, so be it.   

It's none of your business what's between mine or any transperson's legs unless you wish to get intimate with us or have a long term relationship leading to permanent coupling.  

Another point that needs to be stressed is that what's between our ears and in our hearts is more important than what's between our legs. Our genitalia shouldn't be the major determinant defining us or the extent of a transperson's civil and human rights coverage.


But I have to ask this question.   Do you cis people only define yourself by your genitalia?  Is your sense of manhood or womanhood defined by the genitals between your legs?  

If you answered no to that question, then why do you insist on doing so to transpeople?  
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We are not defined by our genitalia.   We are at the point in the second decade of the 21st century of being beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of people focusing on what's between our legs. 

How we express our gender identity to the world and whats between our ears determines who we are