I am a postop trans woman and relatively tall, 6‘,1“. Through a combination of finasteride therapy for BPH and later HRT, I grew a pair of C breasts naturally. They were not insubstantial, but they were not as proportional as I would like for a person my height with a 43 inch chest. Accordingly I had breast augmentation surgery about a year and a half ago. At that time my plastic surgeon tried to push me into very large prostheses 800g or so. They are currently very trendy, especially among the Rich and Famous. I opted for 500. I now have a shapely, but not overly pronounced figure. I didn’t want to be a 6 foot Dolly Parton.
The vast majority of trans people just want to fit in and be left alone to live their lives in accordance with their internal sense of identity. For those of us with extreme dysphoria, this requires surgical intervention. But I know of no one who would seek a Z set of breasts. We are trying to look good and hope other people find us attractive. Becoming a caricature of a woman is not a goal of any trans woman I know.
Kayla LeMieux is engaging in outrageous behavior in my opinion. She may be doing this to bring attention to the issue of transphobia. She may be doing this in an attempt to push back at the intolerant. She may be doing this for any number of reasons. I don’t know her motivation. What I do know is that outrageous behavior is never effective in changing the mind of someone who disagrees with you. It just hardens their position. I have seen her mentioned in other forums. Sometimes she is held up as an example of how irrational and unreasonable trans people are. Others take a more nuanced approach. I have not seen one article, however, which applauds her behavior.
As a member of the trans community, I find Kayla’s behavior to be cringe worthy. She is not helping the cause of creating understanding and acceptance for transgender people. She is providing fuel for the fire of bigotry and intolerance. There is already too much inflammatory rhetoric and behavior on both sides. We should be looking for ways to return a sense of calmness and thoughtful respect to the conversation, not make it worse.
My understanding is that Kayla’s students are supportive of her. Assuming this to be the case, I still think her behavior shows a certain lack of sensitivity to the needs of adolescent girls and boys. Many younger females suffer from a sense of unease as they develop and become objects of desire for young males. Many become hyper critical of their appearance. Having a teacher with grotesquely out of proportion breast prostheses just adds to everyone’s discomfort in her class, in my opinion, and makes fun of an important part of the female anatomy She should be finding ways to help teenagers gain a sense of self acceptance for who they are and how they look. She should be building their self-esteem, not essentially making fun of an important part of a woman’s anatomy.
Do I think you are transphobic? I do not. You tried to take a nuanced point of view, and I think you have succeeded. The biggest problem today surrounding transgender people may be too much transphobic fear among a large proportion of the population, but that does not justify outrageous conduct by members of our community, What ultimately will create acceptance is knowledge and understanding. Just spending time with a trans person helps. It is not helpful when a member of the trans community engages in extreme conduct to get a rise from people who are already suspicious of us. It hurts everyone, especially the members of the trans community. Calling out behavior that is over the top and inappropriate is not transphobic. It is correctly directing criticism at a behavior which should be condemned.
