Dina’s Diner 12/14/20

THE FIVE YEAR PLAN

The New York Times reviewed the HBO documentary Transhood in the November 11, 2020 edition. The documentary filmmakers followed for five years four Kansas City, Missouri children who identified as trans or non-binary. The film is available on HBO’s demand service now.

The Times review criticized the documentary as a bit too fast-paced in dealing with the lives of its four subjects. The review stated: “Transhood is fixated on transition, and therefore preoccupied with time, or at least that seems to be its intention. The HBO documentary, which follows four transgender and gender-nonconforming children over five years, races through their changing and evolving understanding of themselves, with barely a moment to catch its breath.”

I found a more substantive review on the website Decider.com that appeared November 12, 2020. Here is how they described the four subjects: “There’s Leena, who is 15 when filming began, who first came out as a gay boy before she told her parents she was a girl at age 11. There’s Jay, age 12, who has recently started at a new school where no one knows he is trans. There’s Avery, age 7, the trans tomboy with pink hair, who is not nearly as interested in trans activism as her parents are. And then there’s Phoenix. Phoenix’s parents thought they had a boy, but at age 4, their child announced, “I’m a girl-boy,” and wanted to wear dresses. So they went with it.”

Leena goes through gender affirmation surgery at 19. Jay seems to be well-grounded as a transman in his teen years. Avery, a grade-schooler, comes across as someone who just wants to have fun with whatever she’s feeling inside. Phoenix, the youngest of the four, decides by the end of the five years to give up the “girl-boy” persona and be a traditional boy. All of the parents also come into the story with the struggles, acceptance, encouragement, trepidations and – in the case of Phoenix’s mother – misgivings about letting her son go for as long as she did with his experimentation. The article reports, “Phoenix’s father Zach, for what it’s worth, maintains a level-headed demeanor about the situation. “I have no idea if Molly or I made the right decisions, but it doesn’t feel wrong to support my kid,” he says. “I don’t feel bad about that.”

That’s a message that could help any parent – whether their child is trans or not – work through any family conflict large or small.

HAIR, CONFORMITY, AND GENDER IDENTITY

I saw an article about the shampoo brand Pantene running commercials in Japan featuring trans job seekers. SoraNews24.com ran the piece on October 17, 2020 under the headline New Pantene Commercial Interviews Japanese Trans Individuals About Difficulties of Job Hunting. The campaign was titled #PrideHair.

The SoraNews article and another blog post about the campaign pointed out why Pantene’s move was more important than a simple PR maneuver. According to the article 70% of LGBT people struggle to find a job. I don’t know how that statistic stacks up against the U.S. or other developed countries but it is particularly poignant in Japan. When it comes to corporate type employment, Japan has a strict set of norms for job applicants.

The applicants are expected to dress in a regimented black suit – white shirt/blouse business attire. Hair length and styles should meet age-old standards. Heel height for women is dictated. Photos of groups of young applicants in the article bring home the stifling uniformity of it all. Job application forms require gender identification and a headshot photo on the resume. Against all this rigmarole, how is a trans or non-binary person supposed to comply?

The Pantene commercials use a trans woman and a trans man telling their stories. Goda-san, a young trans man, said “While everyone else was worried about what kind of job or what company to apply for, I struggled with whether I should wear a men’s or women’s suit. Clearly, I wasn’t mentally ready for the job hunting process, so I put off my job search for a year until I could summon the courage I needed.” Sari Kaede, a trans woman, said “I started job hunting just six months after coming out and transitioning to female. Nothing was working out for me. I could barely even do makeup for the normal day-to-day, much less professional makeup for job interviews, and my height also kept me from finding female suits for interviews that I could wear. But I felt like I had to be honest and interview as the gender I identified as rather than transitioning after joining a company.”

While looking for more information on the Pantene campaign, I came across a number of items reporting on similar campaigns by the company in European countries dating back a couple of years. They now seem ready to take on the much more tradition-bound Japanese employment market. In another article, it was reported that Unilever, the large consumer products conglomerate, was removing the gender check box from their applications in response to the new world of LGBT job seekers.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN. . .BUT BETTER

Hunter Allan

I came across a photo posted online of a young fellow named Hunter Allan. You can see by the photo why I was intrigued. Those legs, the shimmery pantyhose, the stiletto pumps, that suggestive look into the camera lens. It reminded me of a hundred crossdresser photos I’ve seen over the years. The modern thing that Hunter Allan is doing that would never have been done in conventional crossdressing circles is the absence of a wig.

For decades before Hunter, guys who were interested in crossdressing tried it at home in varying degrees and still do so today, obviously. There are guys who just wear stockings and heels; guys who wear only women’s panties; guys who fetishize pantyhose with or without high heels; and all manner of combinations of female items without benefit of makeup or wigs. But none of them ever looked like Hunter Allan — or others of the new breed of gender fluid guys who like to wear feminine things without actually being “crossdressed.”

She looked so nice we had to post her photo twice.

It turns out that Hunter Allan is a young guy (perhaps still a teen) whose Instagram page is full of photos of himself in dresses and high heels, makeup and his carefully coiffed natural hair. So is it crossdressing? Not really. He’s not trying to “pass” or even look like a woman and that doesn’t seem to be the point at all. I’m not sure where this falls on the old gender spectrum. Maybe the point is that it doesn’t fall on any spectrum. He has a great pair of legs, he knows how to pose and adopt a “fabulous” attitude while doing whatever it is he’s doing. I have a feeling that crossdressing and maybe even doing drag is kind of old-fashioned to young people like Hunter.

To paraphrase the old opening, “It’s all fun and games when you’re eighteen years old – or even twenty-five – but what are you going to do when you’re forty?” Buy a wig, maybe?

IS THIS REALITY?

I saw an interesting item in TGForum’s December 5, 2020 The Week in Trans feature. Here is the TWIT blurb in full: “When last we saw Braunwyn Windham-Burke, she was surprised at seeing her son doing drag, but was quite supportive. This week, the Real Housewives of Orange County cast member announced that she is lesbian. She also said that she and her husband have no intention to divorce.”

Jacob in the middle as Divine Devone.

I was intrigued enough to look at The Advocate article that was linked – mostly to see the son who was doing drag. Through further research I learned the son, Jacob Windham-Burke, is only fifteen years old and looked okay in a blonde wig and evening gown. I couldn’t find any mention of Jacob’s gender or sexual identification in other sources. His mother says “He’s a cool person, he grew up in dance studios and had spent the past 11 years dancing, he’s a musical theatre kid.” So who knows?

Meanwhile, The Advocate article recounts her newfound lesbianism. The article reports, “She says that her journey to get sober this year played a big part in her coming-out. “One of the main reasons I drank is that I’ve always been uncomfortable in my own skin.” By the way, Braunwyn, who is 43 years old, and her husband Sean have seven children. And, as mentioned in the quote above, they have no intention to divorce.

You know, this might be a story of great personal revelation but the fact she’s on a reality show like the Real Housewives franchise puts everything in dubious territory. You can almost hear the producers whispering, “It would be great if your son would become a drag queen and if you would come out as a lesbian this season that would be great, too.” I’m sure her “journey to get sober” was part of last season on the show also. And of course she isn’t going to divorce the husband because it would jeopardize the gravy train of being a Real Housewife.

Reality, my ass. Pulll-eeezzz.

THAT HAIR, THOSE EYES

I’ve mentioned several times before how the Pinterest.com algorithms put interesting things in my feed but for which I have no idea how they chose them. For a while, I was flooded with photos of Hilary Duff (remember her?). I still get almost every “womanless beauty pageant” photo posted to the site. And lately, I’ve been getting photos of mid-20th-century actress Agnes Moorehead posted by some ardent fan of hers.

Agnes Moorehead as the witch Endora.

Agnes Moorehead played the witch Endora on the 1960’s TV series Bewitched. Endora was the mother of series star Elizabeth Montgomery’s Samantha character. The funny thing about this recent Pinterest barrage is that when I was a kid during Bewitched’s original network airing, I had a semi-crush on Endora. Yes, she was an older woman but she had elaborately coiffed orange hair, dramatic eye makeup that bordered on the bizarre, and an ever-changing array of flowing caftans and billowy gowns that provided an ethereal style for her witchy (and bitchy) character.

Before she became Endora, she had a long career in the movies (like Citizen Kane), Broadway theatre, and even radio dramas as a cast member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater of the Air. Interesting fact: Agnes was the first woman to act as host for the Academy Awards (in 1948). She was nominated herself for Oscars four times and six times for Emmys. She told an interviewer that she was never considered beautiful but she was not vain and often was cast as “old hags.”

The Bewitched series ran from 1964 through 1972. Agnes Moorehead would have been 64 to 72 years old (born in 1900!) during that time. Imagine a ten, eleven, or twelve year old boy attracted to a sexagenarian actress. I can only chalk it up to the power of outlandish hair, clothes, and makeup that drew my eye and nascent attraction. Somewhere in my subconscious I guess I knew it was only a matter of time before I was drawing cat’s eye wisps with liquid liner a la the the exotic Endora.

Tags: crossdressing, featured, Hunter Allan, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment, Transgender Opinion