In retrospect this was sort of mean of you to say:
> It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty standard
Do you go around telling girls they have to try to look less pleasing to men and more pleasing to your own sensibilities? Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own demands to be satisfied? I like looking a certain way. I also like when it gets me attention from men. I have the same motivations as the majority of heterosexual women and I'm trying to live a fulfilling life. You don't need to make it all about you.
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I only felt the need to point it out to drive home the point that there is/was no winning move as a trans person. I feel the need to do this because I've met many people in my life who've tried to tell me things like that it 's obvious that I was "born to be a woman" so I shouldn't worry about transphobia because they think transphobia is only directed at people who look masculine but wear feminine clothes or sex pests who change their pronouns to try to seem less creepy. It's led me to believe that this might be a common position among people who are anti-trans. They think: "these bathroom policies will only hurt the bad ones who don't pass, the passable ones will be fine" as a way of soothing their conscience.
No, women should be free to present however they please, that's my point. We shouldn't feel pressure to conform to imposed ideals of femininity, to be praised for it or knocked for not complying.
I agree with you 100%. When I was in middle school I wanted to look very neat and proper and it caused me problems with boys. I can remember getting picked on for looking too... well groomed? I feel like the opposite pressure exists for people assigned female. I was born with the default option of not needing to look "pretty" in the sense of enhancing my feminine features with clothes and makeup but I enjoy life a lot more when I'm allowed to. I feel for people who have the same problem but from another direction.
Women who are trans feel this pressure enforced against them with public humiliation, overt misogyny, and violence.
> It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty standard for their own pleasure get praised as if they are being good women.
Trans women aren't males and don't opt-in to the male gaze. Are you referring to drag queens? There's a more nuanced conversation to be had there, but not in the current climate of terroristic acts against transgender people. Drag is often a critique of gender roles.
There is nothing grotesque about femininity or a trans woman expressing it.
Beauty standards are set and enforced by both men and women. A lot of women dress up to impress other women, not just men.