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Cindy Jones


Virtual Girls, Material Girls, Practical Girls

By Cindy Jones

While our current terrorist attacks on "natural" categories of gender make sense if you are TG, it is also important to step back and think of how we fit into the larger picture as we arrive at the end of 20th-century society.

While we may have been marginalized for most of the century, except for the brief stirs created by Christine Jorgensen, Jan Morris, and Renee Richards, I believe that we embody--and I mean that word in every sense--a new conception of identity which is only now being understood. Girls like to go out and have fun, but in the larger picture, our bodies, which have been hidden away in closets for so many years, are appearing in clubs, restaurants, and shops at this moment as powerful revolutionary signs that "natural" (as in "god-given") is a bankrupt category--if gender is up for grabs, then what is not??

Rather than being anxious about whether the heteronormative couple seated at the table right next to you is "reading" you or not, we should assert our bodies with confidence, regardless of whether we are read of not, for our presence in the restaurant sends an important message about the narrow limits of THEIR world. But to do this we have to be prepared to move into the world and reserve that table (oh, and by the way, I feel like Thai tonight *smile*).

While TGs did not just appear out of nowhere, there is, I think, little question that things have speeded up. In a society obsessed with staying young and going fast (whether on a freeway or with your pentium), we are in the greatest hurry of all, with years of masculine life serving almost as a way of anteing up for the new hand that we really want to play. We find ourselves calculating like an insurance actuary--how many more years left in my life? what can I accomplish if I transition and how old will I be? how fast can I go?--And, a big one for those transitioning later in life, am I prepared to spend the rest of my life as an older woman, especially since the fate of older women can be a lot more cruel in our society?

Why have we come forward now, why is there this sense that our time has come?

There are, I think, 3 ways in which our emergence (as a group) and our fate can be read as a conjunction of the most powerful late-20th century forces. In this continuing series, I would like to explore each of these in a separate article, since they are huge topics. We are virtual girls, material girls, practical girls.

Virtual girls insofar as the displacement of a sense of "who you are" which has been created by digital technology, especially in chatrooms, has been an ideal "incubator" (as opposed to our "natural" birth) for developing and exploring ourselves as women. I have always been struck by the fact that to live like a gif or jpg image is to strike a pose (just take a look at my pic here!). But just like being on the cover of Vogue or Cosmo, we are caught in a moment, frozen, static, perfectly poised--hopefully, with our lips (and lipstick) pursed in a sensous Isabella Rossellini pout. On line,we are cover girls, yet as we all know cover girls don't have a chance to walk out of the issue. And they disappear with every new cover, just as a brand new face in a chat room with a beautiful pict will always draw the most attention.

We are material girls because we have experienced the edges of virtual space and "real life" (whatever that is!) more than others--we know the difference between being in the hazy cyberspace of the chat room and sitting in a crowded bar with our intensely fleshly bodies sitting next to the nice-looking hetero couple at the next table. So we are typically late 20th century in being at once and the same time dematerialized and hypermaterial--we are supernovas, we are black holes.

Finally, we are practical girls because we, of all people, know how micromanaged our female bodies have to be. Our previously male bodies become anatomized--skin care regimens, cosmetics, nail care, hair removal, scents--the list goes on and on. As our flesh becomes that of women, our bodies have become the ultimate site for cosmetic and fashion practices. We, along with supermodels (and we might remember how transgendered a Naomi Campbell or a Grace Jones is), will be "ground zero" for the fashion industry, whether they know it or not.

I'll have more to say about each of these in later issues, but would be happy to hear your thoughts or comments as the story unfolds. Talk more next time!!



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