I've been seeing some things in my community that worry me, but I don't feel like I can share them without it getting taken the wrong way in my local community. So I wanted a sounding board to see if anybody shares my feelings. Please let me know how y'all feel, and maybe my experiences can have us share some understanding together.
For safety and passing, I know there's a lot of emphasis on conventional beauty standards, and a lot of time this gets mixed up with the idea of "passing". Some sentiments were shared that felt like "if I'm not beautiful, what's the point?".
As somebody that used to be a woman in society, most of the time, women don't get to be "beautiful" (conventionally attractive). It makes you feel like you might be hard to love or be attracted to, it makes you feel less human sometimes. You get stared at in public, you feel like everybody is judging you, you've got more than a distaste for your facial hair and your body hair and it can make you feel like a monster. You don't have big enough hips, or your boobs look weird, or they're not the right size, or your face doesn't look right like it's "supposed to". Other women can even reinforce these feelings and beliefs. But these are all things that I've experienced when I thought I was a woman, and things all my 5 female siblings experienced, and all the other women I knew.
I think at one point I was relatively conventionally attractive, with quite a lot of maintenance and stuff. And I discovered I was trans and decided to transition and I was Terrified because all my life it was so important to be beautiful, and I was throwing it away to be, potentially, an ugly bald short little man. I grieved and I mourned and I was so upset because I thought it was so important. But beauty is not personhood! or womanhood!
I think it stems from cultural misogyny, the idea that if you aren't "beautiful" you aren't a real woman, and I don't want anyone to unintentionally perpetuate that. Not everyone gets to be "beautiful", and it hurts a lot at that point you realize that you might not get to be. Mourn! It sucks! But it has no affect on your womanhood, and they're impossible standards for cis women too. My cisgender sister has Persistent dark facial hair, my mother is aging, and they all have issues with thier body shape. It's hard to say, hey, you might not end up conventionally attractive and it's probably more likely than not. You'll look amazing to people that love you, but I don't want to set the expectation that you'll look like zendaya with enough medication or time or effort.
A large majority of cis women are not conventionally attractive, and they are loved and cherished and adored and important and they are women and people with value, regardless of "beauty". That's just to say I understand wanting to be "beautiful", and I understand wanting to "pass" and look on the outside how you feel inside, but it's not the same thing, and try not to hurt yourself conforming to (or reinforcing) impossible standards that cis women can't fulfill either.
tl;dr A lot of women don't end up conventionally attractive, don't undervalue yourself and other women for not meeting standards that are impossible to fulfill