Transsexuals and Provocative Manikins

Last night my mom and I were watching a documentary on the Discovery Health channel called Sex Change. Though we have watched documentaries and read about transsexuals on several different occasions throughout the semester, it is still a subject that fascinates me and crushes me at the same time. Over the course of the show, we were able to meet five different people (4 females and 1 male) who went through with the surgery and the hormone treatments. While I was hearing each of the individuals’ stories, I kept thinking about how I never would have known that they were born as something different. I think it is so amazing that we have the capability to improve peoples’ lives like this so that they are able to live feeling “normal” and happy about themselves. The show ended with the camera focusing in on a bustling city street with the time sped up, and the narrator explained that at any moment in our day-to-day lives we might come in contact with a transsexual and not even know it. We then zoomed in on a man leaning against a building who we found out was the producer of the show and who is also a successful writer. The narrator then informed us that this man was born as a female. I loved the way that the show was filmed and produced. It showed that people who do get sex changes are able to live more normal lives without the daily stigma of feeling different or abnormal.

Something else I have been thinking about has to do with the manikin displays in store windows. When I went to the mall with Brittany and Kayse about a week ago, I felt like I was paying more attention to the ways that males and females are represented because of what I have learned in this class. Every female manikin had her legs showing (except for maybe one in the ENTIRE mall, which is strange—shouldn’t the stores be marketing winter clothes?) and she was placed in a pose that was both unnatural and unrealistic. Victoria’s Secret, for example, featured women in the front window in very provocative and sexual poses that were incredibly unnatural. Victoria’s Secret ads get to me anyway because I have trouble believing that they are geared towards their female customers…