This blog is an experiment

This blog is an experiment.  In the nebulous set of systems called "the media" something coherent and weird goes on with respect to trans women.  Trans women are statistical rarities - we're no more common than those born with a cleft palate - and due to the uqbiquity of the media and the rarity of trans women, media depictions are the primary exposure that most people have to us.

If someone is going to know that we exist (and if they're going to believe that there are certain tendencies or traits that we have) it will be because someone in the media thought we'd be worth depicting. That depiction will of course focus on "what is worth depicting" about trans women in the opinion of someone. And something about this process appears to create a very systematic bias that results in a very very skewed impression. Words like "lurid" and "tragic" spring to mind.

It would be silly to think this happened on purpose.  It would be paranoid to ascribe the process to the coherent plans of any group of people.  And yet something that amounts to defamation seems to happen regularly enough in the media that it hurts the reputations of actual trans women with consequent damage to our actual lives.

One response might be to rush out to spread the truth about who we really are. "Look at me and look how normal I am... maybe I should put myself out there to help make a difference." This is a fairly common thought that sometimes leads to books or blogs. That's is not the approach that this blog will take. Nor will this blog be dissecting the autobiographies or blogs of trans women.

This blog is an attempt to document how and when cis people choose to depict trans women and what it looks like when they do.  If the blog succeeds, then a year or five from now it will have accumulated an archive full of evidence on the media machine and what it is doing to the reputation of trans women.