I gave an interview to the Washington City Paper for an article about transgender medical procedures and resources. I thought the article came out pretty good. It's here.
I think I came across okay in the story, but I really don't like the photo that goes with it. I'd much rather I had sounded like a total idiot but it had been a really great photo of me. I know I'm oversensitive about my appearance, but, well, I think it's the least flattering photo of me I've seen in a long time. I'm squinting and making a weird face and I just look generally awful. To me, this belies everything I said in that article about not wanting to always be in the state of chasing the next cosmetic procedure that will finally make me feel happy with myself. I look at that photo and suddenly I've changed my mind and now I want every procedure they've got. Fix me. Now.
I spent the entire afternoon at work taking pictures of myself and deleting them, until my cell phone battery finally gave out. When I'm in this state of mind, every new photograph of me is awful. Every photo I used to think I looked pretty good in is now filled with flaws I couldn't see before.
I look in the mirror and I think I look okay. I don't look like that. I take a picture, and -- fuck! -- there it is again. I look horrid. Is that me? Is that what people see when they look at me?
Nobody tells you you look ugly if you look ugly. They tell you you look great. Beautiful, even. If you're actually beautiful and someone takes a really horrible picture of you where you look bad, people agree with you that the picture looks bad. If you're actually ugly, people tell you the photo looks good and you look great. I showed my friend Aida the photo from the news story and she said she thought I looked good. She liked it. It was about that time I had to leave for the day, not because it was time to leave, but just because.
To me, that photo looks like someone pasted a guy's face on a picture of a woman. If it's a good photo of me, then that means that's what I look like to people all the time. People who tell me I look pretty. And I'm not stupid; I know the people who tell me my photos up on Flickr are beautiful are interested in me in the first place because I'm transgender. But I still figured I looked okay, despite being trans. Maybe I was even getting to a point where I thought I looked pretty good for a girl instead of just pretty good as a girl. Now, I don't know what to think anymore.
I have a lot of my self-esteem tied up in my appearance. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. I was talking with another trans girl online last night, advising her to seek help for her anorexia. As I was telling her how dangerous it is and how bad it is for her health, in the back of my mind I was jealous that she was 2 inches taller than me and weighed 117 lbs. I was 130 at my lowest point, which now I feel like I need to get back down to, or maybe even below that.
The irony is that when I gave that interview, I genuinely meant it when I said felt like I was getting to a point where I'm happy with myself. Now, because of the interview, I'm not.
This feeling will probably pass. I'll make some change that makes me feel like I'm attractive again, and go back to my delusional state of liking what I see in the mirror. Then maybe I'll just stop letting people photograph me. It's too risky.
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Transition Day
3 weeks ago
16 comments:
Honestly, Suzanne, I don't think the picture is as awful as you think. But, being someone who also wraps a lot of her self-esteem in her appearance, I can understand your concerns. Personally, I hate when people compliment a bad picture, although I can understand that being completely honest opens up the possibilities for hurt feelings. Still, not being honest can cause one to walk around with rose-colored glasses on.
The article I thought was fantastic! My only complaint was their locker-room mentality towards your name. Is it really so difficult to refer to you as Suzanne?
As a guy, I think the picture and YOU are special.
Chill out! We are all "Works in progress".
Honestly? I do not see any male in that picture. None at all. While there is always room for improvement, I see you as quite attractive.
Calie xxx
Suzanne you gotta be kidding me. If there is only one critique I could make it would have been to show some pearly whites in the smile. Instead we get a Mona Lisa smile, which for the record has gone down in history as one of the good ones.
I hope to be as cute as you are someday. Seriously girl, you look great, and I have seen the subject in person to know what I am talking about.
Suzanne...firstly, I'm just glad to see you back here blogging!
The article was fab, and well written. The fact that you were referred to as "Clayton" is standard journo-speak and all of their articles are written in a similar style it appears.
Your picture...you sure are right that it's hard to find someone to criticise you. I only ever found one person who would do that, and she made the first comment here. It takes real guts and 2-way empathy to be honest with a friend. But it's very necessary. Like you, a great deal of my self-esteem is wrapped up in my appearance.
Let me tell you what I think:- yes, there are better pictures of you. Cuter ones perhaps. But this is a sassy picture, you look like a woman who means business...I mean...look at what the article describes you have achieved!! It sends the right message, you look like a well grounded and confident woman.
Remember that a photo is a 2D view of you. I've got some truly AWFUL photos of myself, and maybe 1 or 2 reasonable ones. Tell me a woman who is happy with her photos, eh !?
Be kind to yourself...
I agree with Nicky. Definitely sassy! You have a really pretty smile that doesn't show in this photo but that's OK the sassisness makes up for it :-)
The top and necklace rock!
Sarah
Honesty time, but not brutal. It's not my favourite photo of you. You usually take good ones. I've envied that. This one isn't bad, but I don't think it's you at your best. And that has as much to do with the photographer and the lighting as anything else. I'm not just saying that.
Oh, and the face does not look like a guy's face.
Personally, I hope you don't lose too much weight, if any. I know, we see ourselves differently than others see us, especially if we have ever been fat or even somewhat overweight. I think being above your lowest looks good on you. You're still slender.
But then, it's your body.
My ever so humble opinion is that trans women go for "beautiful" and other superlatives much too easily. We seem to be very concerned with each other's self esteem. Either that or we want people to say such things back to us, so we dole out the superlatives liberally. We may be our own worst critics, but our friends go to the opposite extreme. Neither is very good for really knowing what we look like!
So there it is. I think we generally look better than we think we do, and not as good as our friends tell us we do.
You don't look like a guy in the photo. Sure, it isn't the best photo, but nobody would question it outside of the context of the article.
Hi Suzanne,
It's good to see that you've been motivated to blog again, but not so great that it's because you were irritated by the picture.
A friend sent me the link before I saw your blog entry. I came here to see if you'd updated contemporaneously.
The article was OK although since you were featured so prominently by the picture, I thought it was going to be more about you than generally about transition. I took issue with the sensationalist description of the journey as "strange". The headline had already established the fact that the story was about transition, and in that context, traveling for surgery is not strange. I guess they just felt that they had to cater to as many rubber-neck types as possible?
OK, the picture is not your best. What it does show is a woman. That fact is incontrovertible, even if as a casual viewer, you weren't aware of the journey that has been made apparent in this blog. The fact is that like everyone who transitions MtF, you have suffered some amount of testosterone poisoning. We can't expect to undo that virtually overnight. From my understanding, you've been on hormones for a short time. They help immensely but can't undo some of the damage done in puberty and beyond. I'm very impressed with the progress you've made in such an amazingly short period of time and I think you expect too much of yourself. Give it time. I imagine that you'll look into other cosmetic procedures. Nearly everyone does. Fortunately or unfortunately - as someone recently commented in a forum in which I participate - this is a life-long journey that only ends when when we do. You have progressed magnificently and there is so much more you can do, should you decide that's what you desire. As others have observed, we are our own worst enemies; we are almost unrelentingly hard on ourselves. I think you're being harder on yourself than interested yet objective observers would be.
Chin up. The fact is that you've only just started this life-long transition to be the person that you have always intended to be.
Sincerely,
Rachael
I forgot to mention - your hair is lovely.
Rachael
I must respectfully disagree. this picture is that of a lovely woman, with a beautiful face and lovely hair.
Hi, Suzanne. I just checked your blog to see how you're doing while I had a couple of free minutes. You are such a girl! Is it your best photo? No. Does that make it a bad photo, or does it mean you're not pretty? Not at all. We all take good photos and bad photos, and the only un-pretty photos you've taken, in my opinion, were the ones right after your facial hair was removed. I've had photos taken of me where I look like John Wayne Gacy in drag! You're right that you're hyper-critical of yourself, but that's to be expected, b/c that's what (most) girls do -- obsesss about their looks. And since you're relatively new (a couple of years versus a couple of decades) to our gender, you haven't had years and years of getting used to and growing into your current looks. Add to that the fact that society makes us feel inadequate from the get-go if we're not Hollywood perfect, and you've got a recipe that will lower your self-esteem faster than a NASCAR race if you're not careful. You'd really be hard-pressed to find women who haven't used other means to appear more beautiful, whether it's make-up, a more flattering hairstyle, cosmetic surgery, or working out. Please don't scrutinize every photo taken of you to measure your beauty. None of the photos I've seen of you as a female have quite done justice to your beauty, which, by the way, is even more enhanced in person. Rather than subjecting yourself to any more pain with plastic surgery, you might want to consider learning some modeling techniques to help you take photos you're happy with, including using light to your advantage, holding your head and body a certain way to show off what you like about your body and help disguise what you don't, and the best way to smile. In the photo you complain of, I barely recognized you, but I could tell it was because of the stiff way you were holding yourself (hands on your hips), including your facial muscles, and it made you come across a little stern, which I think you interpeted as less-feminine looking. But you ARE beautiful, even if your hyper-critical eyes are too blind to see that right now. I used to HATE having my photo taken for that very reason. In fact, there was a 20-year stretch of time in which I refused to be photographed at all. But all that changed after I reconnected with a cousin who, coincidentally, happened to be a photographer. While she still considers herself an amateur, her photos are of professional quality, and there are actually many photos she's taken of me that I actually like, and until now, that hasn't happened since prom, 30years ago. Next time you're in town, I'll show you some techniques I learned about the best way to pose when you're being photographed. I'll bet you'll be happier with the photos taken of you once you try them.
I think of you often, even though my contact with you is sporadic, and I'm looking forward to lunching with you at Ho7 the next time you're in town.
All the best,
Dawn
Thanks, Dawn! A big "yes" on Heaven on Seven next time I'm in town. Mmmmm... crabcakes and gumbo.
Ok, yes, I wouldn't have said otherwise, but that picture was absolutly awful =-( But, being totally truthful, that was the first bad picture I've seen of you in a long time!!! I've always you looked really feminine. Though I could tell that you are XY in most of them, I did have to look pretty hard, and I've become rather good at such things in the past...has it been 8 months already!?!?!
I'm sorry that they chose that, of all photo's to head there article, there are plenty of better ones out there. If it helps, you are one of the first people (the first? Maybe!) that showed me that sucessfully passing was possible!! (The second was Kim... though... that's not standard =-/ and the third is LainWest (youtube) By the way, LainWest's Vids are very helpful and informative to all those MtF's transitioning out there.
I'm glad you're back to posting, though not so glad that you're feeling erm...how do you say, not self confidant? ...huh... nothing humerous is coming to mind, ordinarly, that would have been a great place to put in a depressingly comical social commentary... Oh well.
Oh, right!!! In the article, it was stated that most *Standard* health care packages wouldn't cover SRS. Does anyone know of any health care plans that would? I'm 16 atm and planning on being getting SRS about a year (and a half) after I leave home (18) That gives me a year (and a half?) to raise.....18,000 ish +everything else =-( even at insane working hours and really cheap rent/cost of living, that's pushing it (damn you taxes!!!!) Point is.. Having that 18k cut down a bit would save so much trouble!!!
(I'm not counting on Obama pushing through the Health Care Plan "You should be scared of Obama! We are ALL scared of Obama!" (all here means those who watch and listen to Glen Beck) and b) SRS being covered by any Plan. Want something to boil your blood? In Canada at least, SRS is concidered "Cosmetic Surgery" I'll let that speak for itself. By the way, I'm having problems posting (Comment too long? So sorry if I double/triple post =-/
@Lillie Bree
In Canada, two provinces fully cover GRS -- British Columbia and Ontario. If the procedure were considered cosmetic, it would not be covered. There is a member of parliament and many people working to get GRS included as a procedure that should be covered by all provinces under the Canada Health Act.
My self-esteem is so fragile; I get unsettled by the fact that people see my picture in Facebook and then ask me if I am pre or post operative. In my despair I try to think that many biological women go through the same; some might feel terrible but other just go with it because they know not what but who they are. I choose those as my role models. I have been in hormones for only 8 months; I can’t see significant changes, as nobody who sees me everyday. But I catch a hint of wonder from the faces of people who sees me for the first time. Sometimes I wish I could do that, I wish I could see my face for the first time 1 year from now.. I almost sure I would have another opinion ☺
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