LJ is still the place I go to work out a few ideas.
I've just seen a thing on facebook in which a cis friend tells a trans friend that she is never going to look in a mirror and see a pretty girl look back because all women are conditioned to see themselves as works in progress, with things they want to fix.
Bollocks.
I got over that yonks ago. I have many friends who got over it too.
For me a bunch of things did it:
--realising one night when I was 19 that while the men were making a beeline for my fellow bar maid (just stunning) they stayed about five mins and drifted to where they could have a conversation.
--realising that people (men and women) weren't kidding when they said personality counts
--almost dying of starvation (coeliac). I've been super skinny--ain't going there again.
--realising there is such a thing as "make up" and that it's a game we play with paint, no different from when I paint my house
--looking in the mirror in the gym at the way my body worked not the way it looked
--not judging myself by photos (I am completely unphotogenic but I've learned that has nothing to do with real life: so people in the future may wonder why I was considered attractive, so be it, that's the future).
--ditched clothes that were fashionable and instead bought clothes that fitted my mental image of myself--I look more at ease in mildly dowdy clothing than I do in any kind of Cutting a Dash item.
--realising, after I dyed my hair, that I don't deal with looking too different from the picture I have in my head (this varies for all of us--I still intend to dye my air scarlet one day, just to see).
It's different for everyone,but my key message is we really don't have to accept this message. In my entire life I have never had a friend I didn't see as beautiful because everyone of them, they shone out as *them* and they did themselves better than anyone else could or can.
Beauty is a performance. There is a real truth to, if you feel beautiful other people will see you that way.
Bollocks.
I got over that yonks ago. I have many friends who got over it too.
For me a bunch of things did it:
--realising one night when I was 19 that while the men were making a beeline for my fellow bar maid (just stunning) they stayed about five mins and drifted to where they could have a conversation.
--realising that people (men and women) weren't kidding when they said personality counts
--almost dying of starvation (coeliac). I've been super skinny--ain't going there again.
--realising there is such a thing as "make up" and that it's a game we play with paint, no different from when I paint my house
--looking in the mirror in the gym at the way my body worked not the way it looked
--not judging myself by photos (I am completely unphotogenic but I've learned that has nothing to do with real life: so people in the future may wonder why I was considered attractive, so be it, that's the future).
--ditched clothes that were fashionable and instead bought clothes that fitted my mental image of myself--I look more at ease in mildly dowdy clothing than I do in any kind of Cutting a Dash item.
--realising, after I dyed my hair, that I don't deal with looking too different from the picture I have in my head (this varies for all of us--I still intend to dye my air scarlet one day, just to see).
It's different for everyone,but my key message is we really don't have to accept this message. In my entire life I have never had a friend I didn't see as beautiful because everyone of them, they shone out as *them* and they did themselves better than anyone else could or can.
Beauty is a performance. There is a real truth to, if you feel beautiful other people will see you that way.