This post first appeared on the bloig of AIDS New Brunswick, here.

People sometimes ask me why we still feel it necessary to recognize International Day Against Homophobia. I’m never quite sure how to answer that question in a short concise way, so instead I tell them a story. In October of 2006, I was sitting in my (then) favourite study hall frantically looking for a topic for a soon to be overdue sociology paper. I was in my first year of university, I had been openly gay for about two months, and I was adamant that I was going to write a paper about something gay. I was reading something from some online source when I noticed an article about Matthew Shepard, and in particular about the eighth anniversary of his death. I sort of knew about Matthew but since I was only 10 when he died, my memory was sketchy at best. I began to read the article, and before I had finished I was in tears. I was in the middle of an unbearably quite study hall, surrounded by my peers, balling my eyes out.

If you’re not familiar with the Matthew Shepard case, this will serve as an introduction, and I encourage you to read more about the subject. Matthew was a gay male born in Casper, Wyoming in 1976. At the time of his death he was a Political Science major at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The details are as such. On October 6th, 1998 Matthew was at a local bar in Laramie when two men approached him, told him that they were gay, and offered him a ride home. He never made it home.

Instead the two men drove Matthew to the middle of a field, beat shit out of him, tied him to a fence, and left him to die. Left there in a coma, he was eventually found 18 hours later by a cyclist who initially thought he was a scarecrow because he was beaten so badly. Matthew never regained consciousness, and died on October 12th, 1998. Incidentally, this story was the inspiration for Melissa Etheridge’s song titled Scarecrow.

It’s usually at this point that my audience interrupts me and points out that this happened more than a decade ago, AND it was in the States. They say we don’t have this type of homophobia today, and that “things have changed”. I agree in part, after all in 2002 Oshawa Ontario’s Marc Hall took the Durham Catholic School Board to court because he was not allowed to attend the prom with his boyfriend, and won, and in 2005 same-sex marriage was legalized through the Civil Marriage act in Canada.

However, more recently and more close to home, in the early hours of April 17th, 2012, Raymond Taavel was beaten to death while leaving a local gay bar in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Not Wyoming, not North Carolina, where they just voted to ban same-sex marriage, Halifax. Only four hours from Fredericton.

We are living in a world where people are killing themselves and being killed for being gay. We are still fighting for the right to get married, and have children. I grew up in a small town in Nova Scotia, only two hours from Halifax. I have friends and family who live there. In fact, Halifax was on my list of places to live after I finished High School. This didn’t happen a decade ago, and it wasn’t in the States. It was last month, and it was in the Maritimes, it was at home.

Raymond’s death saddens me and it angers me, but more than that, it scares me. I could have been the next Matthew Shepard, any of us could have been. We’re not done with homophobia yet. Raymond was just leaving a bar, walking down the street, and he was beat to death. Is it still necessary to bring attention to homophobia? I think so.

International Day Agains Homophobia website.

Editor's note:  We don’t particularly like the term MSM – men who have sex with men - but prefer to use something like gay, bi and questioning men.  But MSM is a term frequently used by epidemiologists and others who look at gay/bi men on a population wide basis, so excuse the use of the term here.

In any event we received the following notice from the Global Forum on MSN & HIV (MSMGF) and thought it was well worth passing on. You can read more about the MSMGF here.

We did the survey ourselves; there are over 100 questions and while not onerous, it will take you more than  a few minutes.  But the kind of questions asked, in our view, will give a good picture of things like the prevalence of homophobia, HIV discrimination, access to treatment, availability of prevention  services and more around the globe. So we encourage you to complete the survey and add to our collective knowledge of these issues.

Note that you do not have to be poz to participate – the survey is for gay men and others who have sex with men.

*************************************************

Dear all,

The Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) is thrilled to announce the official launch of the 2012 Global Men’s Health and Rights Survey (GMHR)!

GMHR 2012 is the second global survey on the health and human rights of gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) conducted by the MSMGF. The first global survey – GMHR 2010 – yielded more than 5,000 responses from around the world, revealing vital information about the state of homophobia, human rights, and access to health services for MSM worldwide.

Like GMHR 2010, this year’s survey is designed to support knowledge generation, policy development, program implementation and advocacy linked to the issues that matter most to our communities. We are stepping up recruitment this year in hopes of significantly increasing the number of respondents from each region around the world, generating robust data to help local organizations develop regionally-tailored advocacy and program initiatives.

Learn more and take the survey here in English, Chinese, French. Spanish or Russian

Please forward this to the MSM in your networks! The more men from your region that take the survey, the stronger the data will be to support local work!

Any questions regarding this initiative can be directed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Thank you very much!

The MSMGF Secretariat

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend 

 

 

 

My best friend and I just came back from a vacation from Manila a few days ago. It was supposed to be a quick five-day unwinding involving the beach, the mountains, the shopping and of course nightlife. We covered those bases as planned; the unexpected was the three extended days of personal hell. At least that’s what the agony of not having access to anti-retroviral medication felt like. It isn’t so much what non-medication in the moment does at that moment in time, but its implications in the long-run replaying in my mind.

The mantra is instilled in me well enough. Do not miss a dose - or else. Things like drug resistance have long become one of my biggest fears. The thought of my virus resisting my current regimen and having to switch to a stronger, probably more expensive type of cocktail, scares me.

That’s beside the point though. The point is the situation I found myself in. Stranded for three days, without additional pills. Why? I missed the flight back.

We were stuck in a traffic jam that persisted longer than the flight from Manila to Singapore would have taken (three hours!). I blame the culmination of on-going road works that had several lanes of vehicles converge into a bottleneck at several stretches of road, and the supposedly normal peak-hour traffic for this. We did somewhat prepare; we actually made our way to the airport with hours to spare before our flight, but only got to the less-than-memorable Ninoy Aquino International Airport (by international surveys, but also, in my own opinion after the staff was incredibly nonchalantly passive to the urgency of my situation) with only 45 minutes to spare. Not surprisingly, we missed our flight.

The predicament could be trivial to some people. A missed flight? So what, take the next one out. Not for me. Not when I didn’t bring extra pills, not anticipating any possibility that I might stay for longer than planned. Besides that, flights for my airline were fully booked for the next two days, and alternative airlines cost three times as much. A costly price, which could have had a less expensive price tag: preparedness.

The traveller’s checklist is a more-or-less standard affair. Us HIV-positive individuals only have to keep in mind the few extra things -  our supplements, prescriptions and of course, anti-retrovirals. Of course, I had all that checked. What did not make it to the list were the “just-in-cases”. Like just in case I had to stay for a few extra days, as I did.

If only I had been ready for this, I could have afforded to be nonchalant about it all. Money is no big issue, it’s always waiting to be earned somewhere, or extended to you, in my case, by my credit card company. My health, I cannot as easily trivialise.

So lesson learned. From now on, always bring extra medication to tide you over just in case. If you’re like me, worried about your embarkation country’s strict or unclear immigration practices when it comes to bringing along medication (inbound travel of HIV-positive individuals is after all, banned in Singapore – and I don’t want to have to answer the obvious as to why I have with me HIV medications with me if I get searched), you can always throw the extra few unused pills away before hopping on the plane. Either way, it’ll still probably be cheaper than having to forfeit and rebook your return flight and pay for that few extra days out of your wallet, and health.

This article  by Ruthann Richter first appeared in the journal of Stanford School of Medicine.

The end of the AIDS epidemic — one of worst pandemics the world has known — is now in sight, given the myriad scientific tools available today, from drug prevention to circumcision and methods to stop transmission from mother to child, Anthony Fauci, MD, the country’s top AIDS scientist, said today at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the 30 years of the epidemic, which first came to light in 1981 in a seemingly innocuous report about a rare pneumonia among gay men, represents one of the “unprecedented success stories of investments in biomedical research.”

Where he once expected his newly diagnosed patients not to live beyond six to eight months, today he can look a 25-year-old, HIV-positive patient in the eye and tell him, “If you start on one pill a day, you will live 50-plus years. There are few successes that can match that,” Fauci told an overflow crowd of 400 at the school’s Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge.

And that has all turned on the stunning progress in both the basic and applied sciences, which in the past two decades has produced more than two dozen approved antiretroviral drugs as well as a wide array of prevention tools that Fauci predicted ultimately will lead to an AIDS-free generation.

“It’s a convergence of scientific accomplishments that have become breathtaking, together with implementation that is unprecedented in U.S. history,” said Fauci, who oversaw vast investments in AIDS research and treatment both through the National Institutes of Health and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the five-year, $15 billion initiative begun under the Bush administration in 2003.

Today, some 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, with 2.7 million becoming newly infected in 2010 alone. In the United States, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates some 1.2 million people are living with HIV, with 50,000 new cases diagnosed every year — an “embarrassing number,” Fauci said. Some 20 percent of infected individuals in the United States don’t even realize they are carrying the virus, he said.

Identifying those individuals and getting them into treatment, as well as keeping up with the pace of new infections, are among the major challenges of the campaign to stop the spread of AIDS, he said. For every person who received life-saving, antiretroviral treatment in 2010, two more became infected with the virus. “So you’re losing that game,” he said.

However, a landmark clinical trial, sponsored by the NIH and published in May 2011, could dramatically change that equation. The study, which involved 1,763 couples in nine countries, showed antiretroviral treatment could reduce the risk of heterosexual transmission by 96 percent. Fauci called the results, which Science magazine singled out as the scientific breakthrough of the year, a “real showstopper.”

“Treatment as prevention has a one-two knockout punch,” he said. “It saves the life of the person already affected and has a 96 percent chance of preventing transmission to another person…. We believe this is going to be a major tool for getting the whole level of the virus in the population down.”

Preventing transmission from HIV-positive pregnant women to their newborns is another area in which there has been major progress, Fauci said. With the use of drug intervention, the rate of mother-to-child transmission in the United States has fallen from 10.9 percent in 1997 to near zero today, he said.

The U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations now are aggressively rolling out treatment among pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of thousands of infants are born HIV-positive every year. Now, Fauci said, “It looks like we can turn off mother-to-child transmission if implemented properly.”

Circumcision, now recommended by the World Health Organization, also is beginning to have an impact on transmission rates, Fauci said. More men have been stepping up to have the procedure following studies in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, which found it could reduce a man’s risk of HIV infection by up to 60 percent. Since then, male circumcision has been shown to have a 73 percent effectiveness rate in preventing viral acquisition over a five-year period, Fauci said.

“If we had this (result) with a vaccine, I would be in the Rose Garden announcing it,” he said.

Women, too, could benefit from emerging technologies that can block the virus during sexual activity. At the International AIDS Conference in Vienna in 2010, South African researchers announced a stunning result with a vaginal gel, containing an antiretroviral drug, which could be used before sex to reduce a woman’s risk of infection by 39 percent. Since then, researchers have announced the development and large-scale testing of a vaginal ring that could be used just once a month, making it even more appealing to women, Fauci said.

He said effective implementation of new technologies in the real world is always a challenge. People first have to know they are HIV-infected; then they have to be linked to care and stay in treatment. At each step, the numbers drop, so that fewer than one-third of infected people consistently remain in treatment — a phenomenon he called “the implementation gap.”

However, he said experience in some countries, such as Rwanda, have shown that it can be done, as the government’s aggressive program to identify patients and provide free treatment has led to a patient retention rate of 92 percent.

Combining these approaches, he said, will change the path of the epidemic, with a steady decline over the next few decades in the population of those who are infected. And while acknowledging that the virus still at times appears to defy the hopes for a cure and may not be fully eradicated in our lifetimes, Fauci said such measures will bring us closer to his vision of an AIDS-free generation.

 

Bob Leahy: Thanks for talking to PositiveLite.com. We’ll talk about the film’s connection with Toronto in a minute. Tell me about yourself, first, Daniel. 

Daniel: Thank you too. Sure, for people who don’t know me I’d say I’m a person who doesn’t give up. I think two things have shaped my life; and those two things are acting and running. Both pursuits are about discipline and determination – and both have made me the person I am today.

Bob: You’ve made a film called VOICES which is clearly a labour of love and a work that reflects the passion in your soul.  Where does that passion come from – and can you describe it for us, in a nutshell?

Daniel: In a nutshell, I’m not sure I can do that, Bob, but I’ll try! I’m a British born Asian, with North Indian heritage, and I think that background makes my passion inevitable? Punjabis are naturally passionate and expressive people and when you’re brought up in that kind of an environment it’s going to rub-off on you. There’s no escape.

Also I’m a Sikh; and Sikhism sprang out of a need to defend the community and to fight for justice, and the rights of the people. But Sikhism is also about being compassionate and caring. Defending a community isn’t just about physical fighting.

Bob: You first visited South Africa over ten years ago.  Why did you go and what were your impressions – what did you bring back with you?

Daniel: Correct, yes. I flew to Cape Town over ten years ago, to work for a few months for SABC, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, as part of my media studies. I chose South Africa because the recent history fascinated me; I wanted to see it for myself; to look at it with fresh eyes – because I didn’t believe the clichés.

What I experienced on successive trips was a nation in transition. People on the move, vast spaces and over-powering scenery, often juxtaposed with people squashed into a small area and living in absolute poverty. Then you have the wealth and privilege, and the shopping, and the eating. It’s busy. It’s culturally mixed. The faces of the people tell the story of the nation. I was hooked. It was like a drug.

What I brought back, apart from a stack of photographs that would’ve broken the back of a camel, were incredible and vivid memories; and a burning desire to record what I’d seen and heard in a film. That was the genesis.

Bob:  Now the Toronto International AIDS Conference in 2006 was important for you, wasn’t it?  I was there too, and so was our founder Bran Finch who organized a demonstration at the opening ceremonies. I’m not sure you and I met though. Tell me in what capacity were you there? What was your objective?

Wow – amazing! I wasn’t actually at the conference. What happened was that I heard about the media storm from the Producer of Voices; Simon Constable.

The news shocked me; and I instantly realized – and this was before I knew about or saw any demo. footage – that in this transformational moment there was a potential film. There was a great story. And so in the Autumn of 2006 we began to look into what happened in more depth, and to contact people.

Bob: Now that international conference plays an important in your story.  Do you want to talk about what happened there?

Daniel: Yes, it does – it’s the core of the film. In simple terms what happened was that a spontaneous AIDS activist demo. The South African government sparked savage criticism during his closing ceremony speech, from Stephen Lewis, (pictured below) the out-going UN envoy for AIDS in Africa. That very eloquent speech, and the resulting international media attention, was the turning point in the decade long fight against HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa.

Bob: When  he spoke, Stephen Lewis, called  the South African Government’s actions  “wrong, immoral and indefensible”. He was talking about AIDS denialism - promoting ridiculous treatments (or were they cures?) they had put forward, like lemon juice.  Anyway, do you want to talk about that?

Yes. As I said, and as I told him (in Vienna in 2010), Stephen Lewis’s forceful speech was perfectly timed. He spoke for everybody; and he articulated their concerns and anger beautifully. In many ways he could let rip, as he was about to stand down from his post.

AIDS activists and the scientific community were understandably furious about Thabo Mbeki’s total failure to tackle HIV effectively. And it’s as hard now, looking back, as it was at the time, to believe that President Mbeki’s government, and his Minister of Health, ignored proven methods of tackling AIDS; and embraced denialist theories and phantom treatments. Beetroot, garlic and lemon juice, for example. It’s just unbelievable – but it happened!

Without that stand, the  demo and the other actions and interventions of activists in Canada, and, of course, that wonderful speech, who knows where we would be now.

Bob: I think I was at that demo and I took photos; I should dig them out for you. Anyway, what happened next?   When did you decide you wanted to make a film?

Daniel: As I already said, I decided to focus the film I’d always wanted to make on AIDS after the Toronto conference or summit. But films don’t just happen, and you absolutely need evidence, substance and good material.

The end of 2006 and almost all of 2007 was spent researching. We did conduct early interviews with people who were available; such as Sir Bob Geldof and Dr. Robert C. Gallo, and we planned the budget and gathered resources.

Bob: Had you had any experience in filmmaking?

Yes. I studied media at University and created short films there as part of my course work. As I mentioned I worked at SABC and also the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, in the UK. And I personally filmed footage, and some interviews about South Africa, in 2004. So I was fairly experienced in filming and editing.

Bob: What did your plan look like?

Daniel:  Our plan was to fill in the back story and the gaps. By 2007 we already had compelling archive; but what was happening before 2006? And what happened afterwards? We needed to investigate in order for the whole story to be told – even in a sketchy way.

Did that immediately present itself as the way forward? No. For about twelve months we struggled with the angle. Everybody we spoke to had an opinion, but nobody had a solution. It was only at the end of 2009 that it really crystalized. Then in the following year we set off for the second and final filming trip.

Bob: You managed to got footage of the Toronto conference and that demo we talked about and you used it in Voices, I hear.  I’m dying to see it. What’s the footage like?

Daniel: When you see the archive material we were given permission to use, and how we treated it, you won’t believe it. It’s just like you’re there on the stand. You’re there! It’s in front of you. You’re in the moment when the Minister of Health is cornered on the stand and asked to justify her policies by a tenacious female journalist. And we did that to convey the power of the moment to the viewer; and to show ‘people power’ in action. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s history. And there are parallels with the situation in the Arab world and the whole 99% movement.

Bob:  So you commenced filming in 2008?  Tell me about that.

Daniel: Yes, 2008. After spending 2007 researching and planning we gathered some funds. We formed a tight five person team – that was three cameras and two Producers; myself and Simon - and we set-off for an intensive and packed filming trip.

Bob: Where did you go and who did you interview for the film?

Daniel: 12 days in a paragraph? I’ll do my best to summarise it, Bob. But seriously, with the small budget in mind, we based ourselves at a fantastic hostel, in Alexandria, in Johannesburg and used it as a base to travel the country. Support from early partners was invaluable.

First we drove South to Free State with Save The Children. Then we headed East to Pietermaritzburg to look at the work of Fritse Muller. Then we headed for Maseru, the capital of the country of Lesotho; a nation inside of South Africa, to look at the amazing work of ALAFA there – 2,500 kilometres in total! In between there were many interviews. Every day was a working day.

And at this point I have to say that without the early partners it would’ve been a very different trip indeed. As would the 2010 trip.

Bob: Where you happy with the results, the footage from Africa? And how do you go about editing something like that?

That footage from 2008 is great. The purpose of the trip was to really look in-depth at everything -  and we did. We looked at rape, prevention, baby graves, how men are affected, we looked at the good and the bad. There was actually too much footage to use and a lot fell by the way-side – such as the to-camera diaries I recorded every day. But who knows, maybe they’ll make-it onto the DVD?

Compared with 2010 the 2008 trip was a dream; but what we did discover was that we would have to return, because the South African government changed and so did the health policy.

Bob: That’s what I wanted to ask you. I mean that was a time of transition then with a new, more progressive government coming in.  Did that complicate things for you or altered the relevancy of your message in any way?

Daniel: Well, firstly it was – in my opinion – very much a consequence of Toronto. Do I think Mbeki was forced from office because of what happened in Canada in 2006? No. But it was another nail in his coffin. Some would call him a murderer. Not me, I would stop short of that; an interviewee doesn’t. But there’s blood on his hands, definitely. I’ve seen the consequences of his inaction and denial. People died needlessly.

We all like a happy ending – don’t we, Bob. We all like the happy ending and the credits rolling and it all working out. Is there a happy ending if you’re HIV? Maybe you’re happier and alive when you get the treatment you’re entitled to from your government?

There’s a question mark and we don’t know if South Africa can sustain so many on treatment. Will those HIV positive citizens become drug resistant? We don’t know. We have to be hopeful; and we have to give them the opportunity to live and to contribute to society, and not create more orphans. I think the little AIDS orphan girl we follow in Voices, from being very tiny almost to puberty, is symbolic of hope.

Bob: You’ve said the film is about not just voices by answers.  What are the answers?

Daniel: Yes. It’s titled “Voices – Nobody Will Silence Them!”  because eventually the cries were heard; the cries were answered. And the film is also called Voices because of some of the incredible people who have contributed their time, their memories and experiences. Sometimes you just hear audio and there’s a blank screen. It’s a just a statement – just a voice. Something powerful. A memory. People like Gail Johnson; the Mother of the late great Nkosi Johnson, the inspirational Zachie Achmat, and many less famous but equally important persons.

What are the answers? I think Voices shows that we’re all in a position, even in a small way – such as when people buy WAITROSE produce; which then directly helps fund an HIV clinic, in rural Limpopo – to fight HIV/AIDS. I think Voices doesn’t only show things going wrong it often shows what works, and good models. For example: peer to peer education and support, employer responsibility, youth engagement and ‘edutainment’; and real sustainable government intervention.

Bob: You’ve called working on this movie – and we’re talking almost six years - “an obsession, a blessing and a curse”.  Do you want to explain that?

Daniel: I said that? Sure. An obsession because I had to tell the story, people had to know; a blessing because my life has been enriched by the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been; and a curse, because I put so much into the film. In 2009 I was in a life-threatening accident and totally broke because of Voices and nobody would help. But I never stopped believing. I never gave-up – just like the Toronto activists!

Bob: What stage is the film at now?

Daniel: Voices is now completed and in a seventy minute screening version and ready to sell and to be broadcast. We are lining-up what we hope will be high profile screenings; and will continue those right up to World AIDS Day – hopefully one or two a month.

Bob: What does it feel like now you are almost there?

Daniel: A relief! Certainly the work isn’t over. But we’re confident, and above all, if we can screen or broadcast in South Africa, and Canada, we’ll be very pleased indeed. I have to tell you that many South Africans do not know to-this-day what happened in Toronto in 2006. Canadians may also need reminding?

Canada is very close to my heart – as I know it well, and have been there and have family there. Obviously, without Canada and the Toronto conference six years ago, and people like Dr. Mark Wainberg, sub-Saharan Africans might still be not be getting the ARV treatment they so badly need to stay alive; and could still be dying from AIDS because of denialism and inaction

Bob: When do you think people will be able to get a look at it?

Daniel: Bob I would love to give more details but we’re currently in discussions. If people can follow us on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/voiceshivaids and check our tweets then they will see information as the weeks and months pass. But international broadcast is absolutely our aim. The world must know the story and the mistakes must never be repeated.

Bob:  Daniel, I want to thank you again for talking with us. You’ve given us the trailer to look, let’s look at it now.

Daniel Larson Sidhu is an actor turned film-maker based in the United Kingdom. He established Blue Rain Productions in 2008 with the aim of creating films that would assist people to better understand others and the world. Completed in 2011, VOICES is Daniel and BRP's debut feature documentary.

Find out more about VOICES on their website here. 

Follow VOICES on twitter @VOICESHIVAIDS

Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss Photogenic, Miss Congeniality (and you thought it was just a movie?)  - all around the globe there exists contests in which women fight to be crowned the winner. While all of them certainly include questions about goals, education, and passions it’s alarmingly evident that it’s still a beauty contest when you watch their swimsuit and evening-wear segments.  Particularly in the televised pageants, there is, at best, a cursory examination of a contestant’s educational and humanitarian qualifications.  In fact, when you look at the categories, there is one-thing that stands out, over two thirds of a contestant’s score is appearance driven.

The trans community as a whole struggles against society’s narrow definition of what is acceptable and what is beautiful. Particularly in North America, the trans community is very vocal in saying that acceptance of one’s gender does not depend on one’s body and how it looks. Why then, is our community rallying around and supporting the inclusion of a trans woman in a contest in which two thirds of the contestant’s score is appearance based; a contest that enforces a narrow and generally unobtainable standard of beauty.

From bleaching one’s hair to obtain that perfect platinum blonde shade all the way to the ravages of anorexia and bulimia, it’s hard to argue that society’s obsession with beauty and the attainment of it, for some women, has become an unhealthy and dangerous obsession.  Reports in the news and scientific journals of girls as young as 11 years of age dieting in order to maintain an appearance they believe men want; the kind of appearance that leads to an average industry weight somewhere around 120lbs for a woman approximately 5’8”. While the Body Mass Index scale has been said to be of limited value, a woman who is of the weight and height stated here has a BMI scale of 18.2, a number that would mark her as underweight.

Why does this concern me; you may ask. After all, haven’t I walked away entirely from the pressures put on me by the beauty industry? Indeed, since my transition, I’ve been fortunate to be able to not have to worry if my makeup is on right, if my hair and breasts are displayed just so or if I’m slim enough to be noticed. That said, I still have female bodied, female identified friends who have to contend with the images they are bombarded with every day about what kind of appearance is acceptable from women and what is not. These kinds of standards are driven by the beauty industry and reinforced using beauty pageants. Standards that I believe are harmful to women of all biological configurations.

Historically the transgender community has fought not just for acceptance, but acceptance based on more than just physical appearance. Whether you have transwomen who should be accepted as women regardless of their physiology or transmen who should not be classed as lesbians simply because of how they dress, one of the primary messages the trans community wants heard is that looks aren’t everything.  A message that seems to be the very antithesis of the appearance based message that these pageants promote.

While no one should be denied entry into something based solely on their birth sex, I have to wonder what kind of message our community is sending out when we blindly support the kind of activities in which looks are the chief reason for its existence.