On
Fashion & Predudice
Dee Suzanne Gallagher
N o doubt you have seen pictures
of 1950's Corsets and Bras. Maybe you remember them. They
were firm, solid, and highly restraining. The bras
produced a severe, often near conical shaped bust. They
fell out of favour in the 1960's as women came to prefer
less restrictive garments. Recently, as you will be aware,
they corsetry was returned, revamped as serious fashion
items; some corsets and bras even designed as outerwear.
Cars, just
as bras, have also changed over the past few years,
angular shapes have been replaced by organic contours.
These flowing lines, despite being the product of CAD and
wind tunnells, are very retro and may remind you, as they
do me, of the rounded and flowing shapes of cars designed
in the 1930's and 40's.
Fashions
change constantly, always looking for the new, but often
seeking inspiration in the past. Even in politics,
perhaps especially in politics, there is nothing new
under the sun. Old arguments and issues come around again
and again. Come election time in any democracy, sooner or
later a landslide victory becomes an electoral defeat, as
has been said about politics - 'It always ends in tears'.
Something really new in UK politics has been the
appearance of organised and effective transgender
activism.
Since I
came out as a trans person four years ago, I have been
delighted to see stronger signs that TS's are finding
greater acceptance by thinking members of society, at
least in the western world. In the UK under the
thankfully liberal influence of EU law, English law now
supports the employment rights of most TS's. Even the UK
military accept TSs now.
TVs, TSs,
etc are finding they receive much more media exposure
than in the past, not all comlimentary, but enough of a
reasonably sympathetic nature. More people are now aware
of T people, and the majority appear to say, if thats
what they want to do let them get on with it. There will
always be the gullible semi-bigot, the unthinking Daily
Mail reader. There will also be the real bigot, the right
wing extremists and religious zealots who see us as
abhorent creatures. But in general we can be assured, as
everyone keeps telling me, that society is moving our way.
I am not
convinced. The public view about us may be as cyclical as
it is about fashion, sooner or later we may see a
backlash, driven by religious and political bigotry. The
only way to fight back is to work towards educating the
public, but to be effective we must convince the
educators, our teachers and college and university
lecturers that transgender issues are important.
Trans
activist organisations, in the UK and USA have worked
wonders in changing the law and directing high level
government attention towards transgender issues, notably
in relation to employment. But the challenge now for the
transgender intelligencia should be to focus some
attention onto the education system.
D S
Gallagher MA
BSc(Hons) MACH
United
Kingdom, March 2000
Dee
Suzanne GallagherİMarch 2000
If you
wish to discuss the above article with Suzanne