Cover of Glamour UK (2025)
Photo by Carly Scott [1]
The so-called trans issue - i.e., the debate surrounding transgender rights and what place trans individuals should occupy in society - is one of those that will not go away: and, of course, nor should it go away for as long as trans people face discrimination and violence.
Some people clearly wish it were otherwise: clearly wish that trans people would shut up and go away; including some of those who should know better.
Whether we should put J. K. Rowling in this category is debatable. I don't believe she's transphobic and think her concern is primarily to protect the rights and status of biological women.
However, she's back in the news once more after slamming Glamour magazine's decision to feature nine trans women on the cover of an issue honouring 'Women of the Year' and one can't help wondering if the bee in Rowling's bonnet buzzes with a certain obsessiveness.
Taking to X, she accuses the UK publication of suggesting to its young female readership that men can be better women than they are and that this has a very negative effect on their sense of self-worth. But that's quite an extreme reading.
It could be that Glamour is simply making the point that not all women are born; some are self-made - i.e., that for some, their womanhood is not something determined by genes, but, rather, a set of constructed traits (some resulting from surgical procedures and hormone treatments; others involving the use of clothes, makeup and other forms of artifice).
The fact that the trans women on the cover of Glamour happily accept the designation dolls [2] is a clue to this - and might even be seen as a concession to those who insist that trans women are not real women.
Which, in a sense, they're not.
But then, as friend of mine who takes his agalmatophilia very seriously said when looking at the above photograph: They're not even real dolls!
Notes
[1] The nine trans women - or dolls - who appear on this cover (all wearing T-shirts by Conner Ives) work across fashion, music, publishing and activism: Munroe Bergdorf (model and author); Shon Faye (journalist and presenter); Maxine Heron (communications officer at the UK based charity Not a Phase); Mya Mehmi (DJ and musician); Munya (model); Ceval Omar (model); Bel Priestly (actor and TikTok creator); Dani St. James (chief executive at Not a Phase); Taira (model and writer).
The article, by Shon Faye, which includes interviews with the above, can be read online by clicking here.
[2] Actually, one of the trans women interviewed by Shon Faye - the Japanese model Taira - does recognise that the term dolls to describe trans women might be problematic; especially as it enters into mainstream culture and is used by (cis) people who do not know its historical context as a term from Black and Latina queer ballroom culture in the 1980s.
She says of the slogan Protect the Dolls - first used by the American fashion designer Conner Ives and which has since been adopted by various celebrities as well as members of the LGBTQ community - that whilst it's a powerful line and may help raise positive awareness of the problems facing trans people - particularly feminine-looking trans women - it could also "encourage objectifying trans
bodies" and become othering in and of itself.
I think Taira has a point: and it's interesting to discover from Faye's article that trans is the fifth most popular porn category searched for in the UK. It's ironic that it's often the same men who desire and sexually objectify trans women who call loudest for their removal from public life and subject them to abuse.
