As we in the West have got richer we spend more time worrying about how we look. Women are "uncomfortable in their skin"

90% of adult British women feel body image anxiety

50% of girls smoke to suppress their appetite

50% of all 16-21 old girls would consider plastic surgery

70% of men wish they looked like someone else

Television was introduced to Fiji in 1995. After 3 years out of the girls who watched it the most 50% described themselves as "too fat"

Lauren Goodger (from The Only way is Essex) has had 546 negative headlines about her shape in the past 2 years, just in the Daily Mail....."Never heard of Spanx", or "Lauren steps out in another pair of unflattering leggings". And most Tgirls would die to look like her. Just because someone is NOT a size 10 does not make them a bad person, she says

Please read the article from the Observer. I have just taken out a few quotes for emphasis.

As a mature Tgirl, who is also a big dress size, I am aware that many of us struggle with low body image. And like RGs we do like to be praised on how we look...we feel that part of our femininity is in the way we dress and our appearance. When we look in the mirror or at our photos we hope that we like what we see;and even more that others like us too. Hence all the positive comments here when people post pix of themselves.

One remark can hurt any of us....words can be painful to a fragile ego...especially a tranny ego.

Last Saturday when I was on a date, with what I hoped would be a new BF, I was told "you don't look very feminine and nothing like your photo". Sort of left me feeling humiliated. Men have a wonderful ability to kick you twice, don't they?

And I usually have a very positive self image - I may not be the youngest gal on the block, or the prettiest...but I am happy being me and think that I look OK some of the time.

So, ladies, some thoughts please about body image and the way you feel

hugs

Pauline xxx

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jun/10/body-image-anxiety-eva-wiseman

ok i havent read the full article due to time restrictions but i do feel the media have a huge part to play. as for how i look well i do know i look nothing like my photos here (as they were done by a pro studio) i know i will always look like a bloke in a dress so i guess i have major body image issues lol

Me too,, im the same no matter what i wear or how i look i just see a bloke in a dress, i dont see the woman in my head looking back at me, i feel like a woman but i rly dont look like one

I can empathise with you, as while being a RG I don't have the same problem as you, but since having diabetes I lost 2stone in 8 months, but I still look in the mirror & think that I look fat, even though I know I'm not. Society gives you this image of what you are supposed to look like & its annoying that you should be judged for your looks
To me all 3 of you look great & not like blokes in drersses at all, you like like attractive women, so don't run yourselves down

Thanks fro the kind words Maria. I usually have high self esteem, like I said the guy on Saturday - his comments were below the belt.

I think the key is loving yourself...whatever shape and size you are.

hugs

Pauline xxx

It is not what you look which is important, in my opinion it is what you feel. So far I have been lucky with no blessing comments or remarks, so I continue my way and feel quite confident when going out which pleases me a lot!!

thanks maria and yes pauline i think that is the key. and i agree helene it is whats inside thats the key thing one part of me knows what i see in the mirror the other dosnt care

It is all to do with what is inside. I have two daughters both would change the way they look if they had the money. They both know and understand that money can get you the body you want! As a TGirl we have two wardrobes to upkeep and even if we do buy on eBay it's where the spare cash goes. I do not think either would actually go ahead with cosmetic surgery but minor things such as teeth whitening are within their financial grasp.
The point is they are not unhappy with their bodies just they know they could be better. So next time you look in the mirror and don't see the gorgeous fashion model looking back just think to yourself, well it could be worse I could look like Simon Cowell (substitute any name you like). Striving to look better is not wrong but know yourself and things might get better.

I am with Josephine here- in choosing to look as best you can. If that means losing some weight then lose it- if its not worth that to you then don't- many are happy with their extra curaceousness, many are not. I personally think there is no harm in eating healthily and combining fruit vegetables and proteins- thru nuts/eggs/fish and good quality meat and exercise to yield a view you like to look at in the mirror..... I also think its too easy to be a piss head and culturally we are all encouraged to do it cos its good for business. I do not seek to attract men- most women are not attracted to trans girls other than to party with in a club, - So yes perhaps I am being selfish and doing what makes me happy- With spare money of course I would have a chemical skin peel to rid myself of my acne battered skin, and maybe other stuff. Not sure about implants on the boobs. Does this mean I want to be Jordan, Will & Kates elder sister lol, or Kate Beckinsale Amanda Tapping (Sanctuary) It just mean I would love to at least for a while to at least get some idea of how I would have looked if I had realised myself when I was 25... - for the record never been a smoker, had few joints (not many) and have kept relatively fit most of my life but never managed the hallowed level of stick insect (I am joking here)

april i do take your point but a lot of young girls look up to the people they see in magazines models and the like who go for the super skinny which is not healthy and thing thats the norm. i do take your point though about eating healthy and there are bits every body will do from the things you wouldnt class like shaving thru to implants ect

Been thinking about this a bit more and how my daughters and their friends handle it. They could look at models and decide that what they saw was unhealthy BUT the look was what the boys thought was right. It's not educating the girls of the world it's educating the males which is perhaps why some of us have so many problems, we bring our baggage with us.

Ah...its all the fault of males mantra. I am personally not convinced that males that are the problem when it comes to women's (and TGirls) self perception of their body shape. For sure most men do not even notice if their wife or partner has had a new hairdo, or is wearing a new outfit...though they do know enough never to say yes to the Q "Does my bum look too big in this?" And very few men, outside of the TG world, enjoy shopping or looking at women's clothes....let alone reading women's magazines.

My perception of women is that quite a lot of them spend a huge amount of time in doing down other women..being bitchy is extremely common, and bullying among teenage girls is very common (as it can be amongst Tgirl groups - some web sites are notorious for it). The D Mail is the ultimate example of that. And size zero body shaping goals seem to have little to do with men - outside of maybe a few gay fashion designers. I would also argue that most men do not find stick women attractive, they actually relish a woman's curves.

I think as TG people many of us are insecure and fall between a series of stools...and it takes time to develop higher self esteem and self love ( and how long that takes is different for all of us as we are all on different journeys). My guess is that at least 80% of all Tgirls suffer from low self esteem...so I am not sure the baggage we bring with us has much to do with body shapes...except in wanting to be a shape that we cannot be without surgery. Looking like a rectangle or triangle is a tough starting point for becoming an hourglass shape?

I guess we all have different perceptions, which are based on our own experiences. My own recent bad experience showed that men can hurt with their comments...and part of being a Tgirl is the way we look. So being told that you are not attractive wounds, however you really look the bubble has been pricked.

And living in a society where "good looking" women like Cheryl Cole or the Duchess of Cambridge are role models for young women, rather than real achievers like Theresa May or Angela Merkel or Hillary Clinton shows how superficial judgements are.
And as a Tgirl how would I or you value the real achievers who have made things happen for our community - like Mary at Concord or Vicky Lee at the Way Out, and all the other pioneer Tgirls who have paved the way in fighting for things we now regard as our right.
Or do we just judge other Tgirls on how convincing they look?

OK no darlings it all goes back to the golden ratio -- 1.,1618 (etc) Not heard of it ask Leonardo Da Vinci - ooops sorry he's a bit dead personally- ok well look at the research relating there to - first link http://www.beautyanalysis.com/index2_mba.htm --- If you want to be really silly download the mask and get an appropriate picture and superimpose it on yourself ( Kate, Cheryl, do pretty well on this as does Jenna Simpson- result Objective beauty here are some more images - http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=perfect+ratio&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Lcm&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=eXTYT_HeCa-S0QXUjZnyAw&ved=0CGcQsAQ&biw=958&bih=657- and finally on the subject of the female body - wiki - ok wiki is not perfect but tis not a bad starting point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_body_shape run the numbers run the pictures see how ya do - and if you like the male side of ya - which as ya know I don't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness - ergo gender identitiy dysmorphia .... Which further explains why Josephines and my daughters have their aspirations towards the ideal - furthermore the actual ratio has remained consistent through history and cross culturally - http://www.cosmeticsurgeryspecialists.org/beauty.html

This post was edited by April-Mae Juin at June 13, 2012 11:23 AM BST

Easier to describe it as the waist:hips ratio where the diameter of an ideal waist is 75% of the hips?

Which few if any modern women have, never mind us trannies. Thats because women are much bigger than they were and at best today have a ratio of 80%, usually its +_85%.

Just compare measurements for a size 12 dress in the 1950s to now and you will see what I mean...back then it was a 24" waist. Marilyn was a size 12 (US)...which would be a size 4/6 (US) today
http://www.justsaywhen.com/Vintage-101-Sizing.htm

No actually its not - because the research also applies to the face - over all height and weight do not affect the ratio which as I said earlier is pretty constant - but if you want to ignore everything I have linked to fair enough P here are some more links to ignore or not as the case maybe - enjoy xoxo

Face -http://www.goldennumber.net/face/

Body - http://www.beautifulproportion.com/2009/08/beautiful-proportions-of-womans-body.html

General beauty http://zeldalily.com/index.php/beauty-tips/golden-beauty-phi-ratio-mask/

This post was edited by April-Mae Juin at June 13, 2012 11:57 AM BST

AMJ,

Actually I am aware that the so-called golden ratio refers to the face as well....that's the one where Elizabeth Hurley has almost a perfect face (there was a programme on British TV about 2 years ago with J Cleese as the commentator and they examined la Hurley's facial dimensions in detail). Whether she is the most beautiful woman ever...who knows.

Shania Twain scored higher - perfect ratios ..... and Angelina Jolie was nowhere.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8421076.stm,

Our judgements on beauty - like that of Apollo - are surely based on our own perceptions, which are influenced by ratios (I agree), but also how we perceive someone as a person.

That after all was the point of the forum about body image and its influence on how women look at themselves and how we as trannies regard ourselves. How other people relate to us in our feminine persona and the compliments or insults we receive do have a bearing on how we feel.

What I was referring to was not any official research but was shown up by Gok Wan. What he found was that teenage girls looked at bodies very differently from boys. The girls KNEW there were differences, that boobs were not the same size and that they didn't hang to the same level. They then applied this to male bodies. Boys on the other hand ignored any differences other than size in one area and applied that to their ideal girl-friend. Almost all picked a C or D cup symmetrical boobs as the 'norm' to work from. So I cannot see how most of them were not disappointed and showed that disappointment to the girls they could date.
Once the girls had been dating for a time their body self-worth had dropped.
As for men not reading ladies magazines, just try leaving one on the table when a group of men come round and they will ALL flip through it.
I'm not saying men are to blame for size 0 or for silicon boobs DD+ but they are what the researches find men look at and therefore conclude that is what they want. So like a loop tell designers to produce size 0 with DD+ boobs!

Hey Pauline,

First up I just wanted to say, youre absolutely right, to a TG, body image in key, and I have to say I am so sorry that guy said those things about you. I had a remark like that once and it made very self concious and for a while I didnt feel like dressing up. I am not the most handsome as a man and know I not the best looking girl either, but it doesnt need some idiot to stat the obvious. We as Tg's go out of our way to try and look our best because we have to, we are trying to portay to someone how we feel as a woman and as shallow as it sounds. I know some would say but its how you feel on the inside, but when you want to look how you feel and put effort into it, then someone says something like "you dont look very feminine" it can destroy every thing you worked hard to do.

Thanks for the kind words Kittie. Very much appreciated.

This thread isn't really about me or my insecurities though; and a few words said by a prat only creates a temporary wound. I am still me and still love me, and like my friends have said...his loss. So yes my self esteem was dented, but life is not just about looking pretty is it?

So that's not the reason I started the forum. Its just that a few barbed words made me think about how fragile a Tgirl's ego is. The Observer article is about women's poor self image...and I used that as a springboard to create a debate about how we feel as trannies.

And we have had a range of comments and differing views so far, some of which I agree with some I don't. But that's what forums are for...to get a range of views...provocative ones that force you to think about your own views

In that sense it was good that I was reminded how fragile egos are, mine as well.

hugs

Pauline xxx

beauty is in the eye of the beholder, personally i do not give a shit what anybody thinks of me, if i am given a nice compliment, i will return with the same, being disabled, most probably some people/persons would look down on me , and make nasty comments out of hearing from me, [wankers,lol]. maybe a blog should be done on disabled trannies, and then we might get a idea on some peolpes veiws, anyhow pauline, do not let the "twonks" get to you, they are most probably jealous, as i have always myself, and from that i can build.love collette XXX. always remember they do not pay your bills LOL.