By This is a photograph of a transgender woman, dressed in a swimsuit in a magazine labeled “Time Magazine.” She’s on the cover of a publication that celebrates LGBT people as people. She is a woman.
Yes, I’m aware that this is a magazine that, by design, would never feature a transgender woman in a cover story, but the fact that the photographer chose this transgender to photograph and to have on the cover of Time Magazine says a lot about how this is viewed. It says that this is a society that, in a small way, respects a person’s identity. It also tells us that there is a society that is willing to consider this person’s identity as worthy of respect.
Time’s covers and photo shoots for its pages are usually all about the people they write about. We don’t know if this is the case with gender identity, but the fact that the cover shot for Time contains a photo of a woman, means that this is a society that respects a persons identity, and that there is a society who considers gender to be worthy of respect.
In what is perhaps the most interesting tidbit in the whole set of interviews, the Time interviewer says, “I remember when I first heard [the “I’m a woman” statement], and thought it was just some guy on Twitter saying this. And then I thought, ‘Well, of course it is.’” It seems that Time really does consider us to be worthy of respect.
Time magazine’s cover story on transgender people doesn’t necessarily mean that all transgender people are people of the year. It just means that the people in the photo are really good at being men. And that’s good enough for me.
The cover photograph of Time’s new cover features our first transgender person of note. Our cover photo for Time is by our very own Jodie Emery: “If you can’t find a woman, find a man.” That’s because a lot of people think that the only way to be a woman is to become a man.
The cover photo for Time magazine’s first transgender person of note is a striking one, and one to remind us just how far we have to go to make the world think that transgender people deserve to receive equal rights. But the one really striking thing about her is how well she looks. And she has that same look that every guy and girl in the world has.
Well, she did have a very striking nose and chin, but those were only the superficial aspects of her appearance. She was a woman who had undergone extensive surgery to become a male. She didn’t really look like any of the other women. She didn’t have a nose, and her chin was really square and masculine. The magazine that produced that photo, Time, is the very same publication that was a pioneer for gender equality back in the 60s.
It’s quite literally a gender-affirming cover. It’s about time that the same media that covers our culture with such a positive attitude also recognizes the same reality for others. Time is the only major magazine that would have a cover like that in its history.
The magazine that created the cover, Time, is a major force of gender equality in American society since the 60s. It was a pioneer in the field of “gender diversity.” The first issue of Time, which was published in March 1955, contained an article on “gender diversity” on page 12. The magazine also featured a cover of a woman wearing a cross and a skirt.
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