A Brave New World

Let's talk about the world of trans. No, I am not talking about trans-fat, which is being rejected the country over. I mean the other trans that have long been rejected: trans-gendered and trans-sexual. Over the weekend, I read this article in the New York Times. It is about trans-gendered and transexual people finding exposure in the fashion industry. It focuses on the model Lea T, who recently starred in a big campaign for Givenchy. I love that people on different parts of the gender spectrum are able to be themselves in whatever role they choose for themselves. I think that different sets of identities are more accepted in the fashion industry than in other established professional realms. However, it must still be difficult to be a transgendered model who undoubtedly has grown up with many conflicting ideas of what beauty should be. To become part of a world that is centered on image must be either terribly frightening or terribly liberating. Ady Ben-Israel, the program coordinator of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in Manhattan states in the article, “… it’s important to advocate for sustained media attention, not just celebrating people who attain a particular beauty standard that reinforces gender norms, which are a source of a lot of the difficulty for trans people in the first place.” That’s a good point and it would be nice to see this type of acceptance cross over into other areas of life. But for now, it is really cool to see transgendered people on the front of a magazine. This is something that would never have occurred a century ago.