First, it started with people saying cis women getting breast implants was gender-affirming surgery and at least that kinda made sense on the very surface level. Now people are claiming all plastic surgeries are gender-affirming which made me check whether this was some orchestrated trolling effort. Doesn't seem like it.
Here's the tweet .
I don't understand what's wrong with this
Going bald is obviously the manliest thing you can do.
Generally, people in that thread seem to be confusing looking good (for your gender) and looking like your gender. A lot of features that are considered unattractive (even for a man), like being bold, having body hair, having a huge nose or a lantern jaw, are unmistakably manly.
Surely all gender affirming surgery is about what is good looks for your gender, it'd be pointless otherwise, no?
Would it be pointless? We are talking about what makes you look like your gender, not necessarily maximally reflect your gender's beauty standards.
Yeah but while male pattern baldness is a decidedly male coded phenomena, it's hardly the peak maleness is it. I mean barring some examples, your archetypal "good" male for a lack of ba better term is portrayed with hair. Sure, this doesn't track with what's actually happening, but then again gender is a fuck anyways.
Picking up your boob job analogy here I'd argue having "nice" boobs is way more womanly than having saggy breasts. I don't see where the meaningful difference between trying to look male and trying to look good male is supposed to be here for this to not make sense.
Would getting hair removal surgery according to male pattern baldness as a FtM be gender affirming surgery? I'd say yes. But I'd argue the same for hair transplants. One makes you look male, the other better male. The end goal is the same: to look more like your gender
especially in the refuse of Christianity in Europe, physically unattractive characteristics are associated with evilness and danger to society. every billionaire that plans to be publicly visible gets a glow up for that reason. imagine if elon still looked identically the part of a pasty balding dweeb. it might help him sell the notion that he is a tech genius better, but it certainly would invite the not-critically-minded to disparage him as evil for his looks alone. fuck, look at :pete: even, we make fun of him for looking like a little rat because it reaffirms to us our belief in his innate badness.
An interesting question is how this works when beauty standards change and whether it affects gender norms.
Like say during heroin chic era being rail-thin and having small breasts was considered more attractive, while having big breasts and a curvy figure would make you more unmistakably female.
Same with the k-pop dude look. Not sure how much it has become a male beauty standard in Korea, but we can use it as a hypothetical. Sure, looking like a BTS dude is considered attractive, but being huge, bold, ugly and hairy seems like a much better way to never be mistaken for a woman.
You're mistaking the reality of people's bodies for the idealized "what your gender is supposed to look like" that we get sold
How so?
Just because men in reality have those traits doesn't mean the masculinity that you are sold accurately reflects that. The masculinity that you are sold is distinct from the actual range of dudes bodies.
I mean, that's the masculinity I've been sold. Not surprising that it's different than masculinity that people are being sold half world over.