A video published by the influencer Carolina Moura has generated a new controversy on TikTok. The content creator has published a crying video in which she explains that, for years, she has not stopped receiving insults from users who consider that she seems trans, which is not true. Moura comments that, after explaining on several occasions that she is a cis woman and begging for these messages to stop, they continue to vilify her and analyze her physique to justify that ‘she looks trans’. “People are very bad,” she expresses and assures that she can’t stand it anymore because they are generating physical complexes in her that she has never had before.
The reality is that this is not the first time that Moura has spoken out on this issue. She has posted several videos responding to people’s comments and pointing out that they shouldn’t care so much about whether he is cis or trans, but about the content he posts. In these videos she also asks for empathy for trans people who continually receive hateful comments on social media. However, he continues to receive comments daily such as “Travelo”, “he has a cock, he is a man” or “he has a very boyish nose and the profile is a man, I understand the insults”. These messages, the influencer assures, “are the lightest” she receives.
In the video, Moura (@carolynnna on TikTok) explains that the problem is not that they ask her if she is trans or not, “but that they affirm it and say it in a negative way as an insult.” She recognizes that, after years of continuous comments of this style, she has begun to generate “a mental paranoia that she had never had before” when looking in the mirror. “Because I have never felt or seen myself as masculine until they started telling me so constantly,” says the content creator.
But Moura is not the only influencer who receives this type of comments: Laura Mateo (@lauumateeo on TikTok) has also dedicated more than one video to repeating that she is not trans and asking users to stop asking her. Moura points out that “exposing yourself vulnerable on a social network is the worst, because people already know what affects you and will want to hurt you more.” “The truth is,” she adds, “if I feel this way and I’m not trans, I can’t imagine what trans people go through.”
Behind the controversy over this video lies a very important question: How can a cis woman receive transphobia? It’s a paradox. According to the psychologist and neuropsychopedagogue Oriol García, it is due to the dominant aesthetic pressure today, which penalizes anyone who does not fit into the canons of beauty associated with each gender.
The fact that Moura receives transphobia despite being cis, that is, that his gender identity and biological sex coincide, “demonstrates that no one is safe from the ‘cisnorm’ – points out the psychologist – We have grown up impregnated with a system where privileges are given to a specific profile: to men, white, straight and cis.” “Anyone who does not fit into the cisnorm is penalized by society,” adds the psychologist.
Carolina Moura’s video has not been well received by the trans community, arguing that she should not be offended when asked if she is trans because being trans is not a negative thing. However, Ella Moura has clarified that the reason for her displeasure is because the comments do not stop and that some are very hurtful and attack her physical appearance. In fact, she has been publishing videos for years where she comments that she does not feel offended when asked if she is trans, but that she does not understand why there is so much curiosity about knowing if she is and asks the audience: “And what would happen if I were?” .
Valentina Berr, a social communicator specializing in gender and author of the book The Answer to Everything You Would Ask a Trans Aunt, points out that “Carolina’s feeling of rejection responds to an undeniable reality: the system is built so that we monitor each other to abide by beauty and gender standards, not just trans people.” “The teasing that Moura suffers is also transphobia,” Berr clarifies. “The message they are sending is: ‘Don’t even think about flirting with being trans or there will be consequences.’”
According to Berr, “it is logical that some trans people feel anger towards Moura’s reaction, because what is read between the lines is that being trans is not something that someone wants to look like.” Berr joins the anger, but not against Moura, but against the fact that “trans is not something desirable.”
The popularizer points out that the majority of cis people would feel offended if it were assumed that they were trans, because “that is synonymous with ‘you have failed in your job of abiding by the ‘cisnorm”, and this is punished with insults (the ‘ cis-normativity’ assumes that you must act based on the gender roles and beauty ideals assigned to your gender).”
Moura is continually insulted for “looking like a trans person,” but what does it mean when someone looks trans? These messages draw on stereotypes built around gender: certain physical traits are associated with one gender or another and anyone who does not comply with theirs is punished. She is being ‘punished’ for “having masculine traits.” But are they really masculine if a woman has them? If, according to the comment she shows in the video, there are ‘man’s’ noses and ‘women’s’ noses, how can it be that Moura has a ‘man’s’ nose?
According to García, “it is becoming evident, day after day, that the binary gender dichotomy is obsolete.” The psychologist comments that people should be able to express themselves socially and physically as they wish, without feeling the obligation to represent femininity or masculinity: “We must understand that some people may have a gender expression that is different from their gender identity and that it is also independent of their biological sex.”
When talking about the trans community, it is easy to come across the concept ‘cispassing’, which explains the intention that many trans people have to “appear” to be a cis person, that is, to adapt to the standards of expression and corporality of the gender to which they belong. They are ‘transitioning’. To achieve this, some trans men, for example, have a mastectomy – a surgery to remove the breasts – and take hormones to achieve facial hair and a deeper voice. And some trans women have surgery to add breasts and leave their hair long.
For Valentina Berr, the reasons for seeking ‘cispassing’ are always a friction between self-acceptance and the acceptance of others: “We have so assimilated that we must fit into the norm, that it is logical that we feel relief when we achieve it.” “In addition,” Berr adds, “the fact of receiving less violence (verbal and physical attacks, job or housing rejections, etc.) also helps to configure the imaginary that the more ‘cispassing’, the better for one.”
According to psychologist Oriol García, “’cispassing’ grants a position of privilege to the people who do it, because being recognized as a woman or a man is not the same as being recognized as a trans woman or as a trans man.” As the actress and trans activist Laura Corbacho summarized it in a video for the digital media Freeda: “If you look cis, you will save yourself a lot of transphobia.”
Berr defines herself as “a non-binary lesbian by vocation and a trans woman by profession” because she believes that gender binarism “forces you to submit to rules to fit in, beyond identity.” Berr considers herself non-binary, but she presents herself to the world as a trans woman “forced by the system, because it is what is expected of me.” Doing so costs her a job: she forces her to make decisions that do not come from her genuine will, but from her social pressure. “For example,” Berr clarifies, “as a trans woman, I am expected not to have a mustache, and if I do not remove it I am more susceptible to suffering violence of all kinds.”
Every day, the physique of trans people is analyzed, questioned and criticized. In addition to insults and threats, it is common to read comments in their social media posts such as: “I thought you were cis” or “It doesn’t show at all that you are trans.” Although these comments are usually made as a compliment, they hide aesthetic pressure and encourage ‘cispassing’, since people are rewarded when ‘it is well achieved’ and those who ‘are very noticeable’ are insulted. The idea that being cis is the goal of every trans person is reinforced and the canons of beauty and gender roles are emphasized.
Valentina Berr points out that we should not ‘blame’ trans people for wanting to achieve ‘cispassing’: “It is not fair that we put this pressure on the bodies that suffer the most violence because of it. It is easy to ask a trans man to claim his vulva, but… How many cis men claim that they have a small penis?
Although ‘cispassing’ is spoken of as an exclusive goal of trans people, Berr argues that cis people also long for ‘cispassing’: we follow gender norms “because not fitting in is often synonymous with corrective violence,” which is carried out through through comments about people’s behavior or appearance, such as “you should shave your hair” or “you scream like a girl.” Berr points out that it is “like a gender police force that ranges from these more subtle corrections to beating you up in the street shouting ‘faggot’ for wearing a beard and a miniskirt.”
The objective, for Berr, is that each person can modify their body from the desire to explore, not to protect themselves: “It is not about destroying the binary gender system, but about ending its rigidity and turning it into something habitable.”
“When we leave ‘cisheteronormativity’, there is nothing written down. There is a blank page where everyone is free to draw what they feel,” adds García. For the psychologist, “an education that allows each person to freely decide what they want to do with their body” is necessary.
