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I think one reason forced feminization fantasies resonate strongly with a lot of closeted trans folks is we were already aware of being forced into a gender role against our will. The idea of someone gently-yet-firmly pushing us into a new role didn’t feel terribly fantastical.
Nobody chooses their gender assignment or their gender identity but transitioning feels like a scary choice with unknowable consequences. Forced femme narratives make womanhood *as* compulsive for trans women as it is for cis women.
Cis people sometimes stumble across these stories and denounce them as impossible caricatures of womanhood, ignoring that their audience is often living an untenable caricature of malehood at the time we read them.
I used to feel a ton of shame about the hold these stories once had on me. Was I setting back feminism by consuming them, enacting womanhood through a male gaze? No. Pink fog is the fog of deprivation. I was a Survivor contestant gorging myself on a reward challenge.
Cis people can take from these stories a basic awareness of the inherent coercion of gender for all people, cis and trans. If you find yourself offended by trans people conflating pink satin with womanhood, ask yourself about the similarly reductive stereotypes you help enforce.
For people still in the hold of these stories who might stumble across this thread, I ask that you consider the role that shame plays in these narratives and your life. How might that feel to let go of? Notice how two-dimensional these characters become if they let go of it too.
I think that’s enigmatic of the change in myself before and after self acceptance. Before I was a set of interchangeable cardboard cutouts, a “real man” and a s*ssy. Both were, of course, a fantasy. A caricature.
Now that I’ve accepted myself, I have depth. Complexity. Hobbies. Interests. Not just one question running on repeat in my mind. I have an identity that persists in different settings, and a body that feels like me and not a stranger.
