Laverne Cox and Beauty

Defying the TERFs

Laverne Cox, 2014, Image: Dominick D., CC

I wrote this some years back for Playboy. I was looking for it recently and discovered it seems to have disappeared from the interwebs. It’s one of the things I’ve written I’m proudest of, so I thought I would republish it.

When Laverne Cox decided to pose nude for Allure, she knew she was taking a risk. "Black women are not often told that we're beautiful unless we align with certain standards," Cox said. "Trans women certainly are not told we're beautiful." More than that, trans women, and black women too, are often told that they're not real women. "When the image of the perfect woman is coded from childhood as Snow White, the fairest and most sunburned in all the land, the idea becomes that all the rest of us are just donning costumes to imitate true beauty," as black trans women writer Shaadi Devereaux says. Cox, in taking off her clothes and costumes, and posing au natural,, as herself, dares the viewer to see her as not just beautiful, but natural.

She also, as I'm sure she knows, invites a backlash from those who see black trans women's bodies as innately false. Nor was that backlash slow in coming.

 Feminist  Meghan Murphy reacted to the photo just as Cox suggests that people often react to Black and trans women — with disgust, prejudice, and horror. In a short, but impressively cruel post, Murphy sneers at Cox for attempting to achieve a "'perfect' body as defined by a patriarchal/porn culture, through plastic surgery, and then presenting it as a sexualized object for public consumption." She scoffs at the idea that trans women who take hormones or have surgery are accepting themselves. She suggests that trans women are "spending thousands and thousands of dollars sculpting their bodies in order to look like some cartoonish version of 'woman,' as defined by the porn industry and pop culture."

Cox, for Murphy, is a cartoon; a plastic surgery constructed thing, unreal and, in its parody of beauty, ugly. The loathing and contempt are palpable. With black feminist activist Sojourner Truth, Cox, in her nakedness, asks, "Ain't I a woman?" And Murphy with cold glee, replies, "no."

That coldness isn't new. Ideally, you'd hope, feminism would be about fighting for the rights of all women, and trying to free all people from oppressive gender stereotypes. In practice, though, the radical feminist tradition of Andrea Dworkin and Janice Raymond that Murphy champions has often built itself on exclusion rather than inclusion. Radical feminism's radicalism is often defined by smearing other women — trans women, sex workers, women of color — as deluded dupes of men and patriarchy.

"These radical feminisms, in my opinion, don't even feign inclusivity," researcher and activist Zoe Samudzi, a project assistant at UCSF, told me via email.  "There's a very prescriptive understanding of what emancipation and liberation looks like…. White women have historically been perpetrators of violence against black women's bodies, and the same entitlement and identity-centerdness in feminism has enabled them to proclaim themselves as the arbiters of womanhood." The logic which led nineteenth century white feminists to push for votes for white woman alone is still, painfully, visible in Murphy's attack on Cox. Some women are not worthy of kindness, of love, or of sisterhood.

Just as black women have been defined as outside femininity, so have trans women. The Michigan Womyn's Festival has spent four decades refusing to admit trans women; the organizers appear to have decided to close it down after this year rather than move towards trans inclusion. Trans feminist and author Julia Serano explained via email that trans-exclusionary radical feminists "subscribe to a single-issue view of sexism, where men are the oppressors and women are the oppressed, end of story….This framing," she said, "also leads them to depict trans women as entitled men who are “infiltrating” women’s spaces and “parodying” women’s oppression, or as “gender-confused” or androgynous people who transition to female in some hapless attempt to “assimilate” into the gender binary." Trans-women, whose refusal to conform to gender norms subjects them to hatred, contempt, vilification, and not infrequently murderous violence, are seen as somehow creating or supporting gender norms. In the name of gender radicalism, Murphy vilifies a woman because her gender expression is not the same as Murphy's.

Part of what defines Cox's experience of gender is, as she says, that black women and trans women are not seen as beautiful. They can be, and often are, hypersexualized — and in seeing Cox as overly sexual, and only sexual, Murphy participates in that stereotype. But while they can be sexual things, trans women and black women are not allowed to be glamorous, or lovable. "One of the most powerful things you can do for a trans woman is to make her feel wanted, touchable, and worthy of affection," queer trans writer Mari Brighe posted on twitter. P. Marie, a former sex worker told me by email that, "It helps me as an individual when I see any Black woman feeling beautiful and sharing that with the world — reminding people we ARE beautiful, desirable, feminine, and strong — which is exactly, thankfully, what Laverne Cox has done for us."

Murphy sees Cox's nude picture as degrading, as images of black women have often been perceived as degrading, sexual, and disgusting.  P. Marie, though says that for her, "When it comes to sexualized images of us, for me it's all about agency! Did we consent?  Are we respected?  Is this our choice? Is this a collection of body parts or erased humanity?"

Murphy sees no humanity in Cox's picture; only a trans, black woman who, by the very fact of being trans, can have no agency. But if you look at the picture, what's most striking about the image is its distinctness and individuality. Murphy claims that the image is too perfect;  in fact, though, the picture is remarkable, as a fashion photo, for its willingness to let its subject own, and celebrate, her "imperfections." Cox is not fashion-model thin. She's not fashion-model petite or willowy, either. She has very large hands — which are not hidden, but both boldly displayed. In the photo, Cox lies on a blanket; her body taut rather than relaxed, her head in one big, strong hand, eyes closed, a slight smile on her face — like she's a little embarrassed, and amused at being embarrassed. She's voluptuous and awkward and sweet all at once. In her simultaneous enjoyment of and discomfort before the camera, she seems, in the frankly staged pose, startlingly natural — and beautiful.