Unfortunately, it’s become apparent that Coty obviously don’t care about their transgendered customers - yep…afraid so. Coty happily make capital out of poking fun at transgendered folk and holding us up to be ridiculed with contempt. Rather than champion the downtrodden underdog they’ve elected to do the dishonourable thing and instead have taken advantage of the sad fact that there are so many homophobic and transphobic shoppers out there to whom a tranny bashing sales pitch will be sure to appeal. Yes, I’ve little doubt they know that transfolk exist and are even likely to buy their produce but they obviously assume that we comprise such an insignificant minority that they can safely get away with dissing us. Quelle surprise. Irrespective of any customer loyalty that we may have, Coty/Rimmel believe that we’re the customers that don’t matter.

What, exactly, am I brooding about? In December 2006, Rimmel began a competition entitled Glam Your Man. This can be currently found on their Rimmel London Me website. Rimmel London have asked heterosexual non-transgendered female customers to submit a photo of ‘their man’ wearing make-up in order to win a range of ‘fabulous’ prizes, including a weekend for two in London, free makeovers and ‘goody’ bags of cosmetics but (’don’t let him at it…’ squeals the ad-speak’). Puh…lease!!! Oh…so they don’t want male-to-female transvestites to buy their produce? What a great way (not) to expand you’re customer base! Take a look, people...glamyourman.rimmellondon.com/gallery

In the all-encompassing spirit of transphobic meanness, the entrants to the Glam Your Man competition website have been set up by Rimmel to be made examples of in as grotesque a way as possible. Visitors to the Rimmel London site are invited to ’take a gander’ (…sorry, can’t believe that’s not a Freudian slip typo for ‘gender‘) at the submitted portaits because we are informed ’there’s more glamour here than in an Essex nightclub’. Visitors are even invited to send these portrait images of the featured entrants to ’a friend’ mounted in a fairground type ‘saucy’ postcard style figure that the sensitive gender-aware folk at Rimmel have so thoughtfully provided. Yes folks; roll up, roll up and see the transgendered freaks!

But what really upsets me is the possibility that some transgendered people may have uploaded their photos to this site in the hope of achieving some sympathetic affirmation of their beleaguered identity and instead will only be paraded for scorn, derision and humiliation courtesy of the way that Rimmel have so intentionally crudely presented them on the site. What a cruel way to treat people whose self-esteem may very well be at rock bottom. ‘Rate this Guy’ by pinning a cattle market rosette on ‘him’ urges the site. Would Rimmel/Coty dare try the meat-market approach on their non-transgendered female customers? Old MacGendered had an Animal Farm. Two genders good. Three genders bad. No wonder there are so many suicide blondes out there!

As the bard of Avon (the place, not the cosmetics company) famously wrote: ‘hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned’ (unless, presumably, s/he’s a transgendered person trashed).

Am I going a bit too far here!?

After all; the nudge, nudge, wink, wink practitioners of saucy comedy banter are so often apt to claim that they’re only having a bit of harmless fun whenever their merry ramblings are challenged by those whom they in turn regard as politically-correct killjoys. (Trannies politically correct? Try telling the average feminist that one and you‘ll really get a laugh!) Certainly, comedy (even sexist battle of the sexes banter) can be a great ice-breaker (particularly when you‘re gender world’s equivalent of neutral Switzerland).

However, I’d like to remind all those noughtie’s cheeky retro-clowns out there that it isn’t uncommon for there to be a correlation between a ’little bit of transphobic fun’ (in the form of verbal abuse) and the frenzied attacks, rapes and murders (as a form of physical abuse) that get dished out to so many a transperson sometimes just for having the audacity to slap a bit of war paint on. Such a tragic murder/rape/maiming will so often lead to yet another grand scoop for our gutter press who’ll unashamedly maintain that the transgendered victim was a dysfunctional loner weirdo who deserved punishment for being supposedly ‘different’ from ’normal’ people. Um…to make it clear…mean words can have a habit of being followed by wicked deeds, duckie and name-calling is more often than not the precursor to many a queer bashing.

On that note, the provocative part of me would dearly love to submit that recent newspaper photo of Lauren Harries’ face covered in bruises and forward a query to Rimmel asking just how much of their make-up would be needed to cover up those sort of injuries?

So, what does all this tell us about Rimmel? Pays to kick a ‘man’, transwoman or 3G when s/he’s down, eh? Hate crime for fun and for profit?

Despite all their 21st century woman-friendly pseudo-feminist sales techniques their hostile attitude to ‘non-females who wear make-up’ unwittingly reveals what they really think of non-transgendered women too. The central logic running through Rimmel’s ‘Glam Your Man’ joke is fundamentally rooted in the belief that a male who emulates a female deserves ridicule and derision because he is dressing beneath his social standing. In other words, they’ve bought into the fundamentally sexist idea that men are worth more than women.

Oh and one other thing. It‘s also a cert that Coty/Rimmel have so totally, brazenly broken UK law here. Section 29 of the 1975 UK Sex Discrimination Act states that it is illegal for businesses to withhold goods and services to consumers on the grounds of gender. Note well that females are not allowed to enter photographs of themselves into Rimmel’s Glam Your Man competition. Rimmel’s competition rules insist that women have to submit a photo of ‘their man’, which also suggests that entries from lesbians are unwelcome.

Similarly gay male couples are excluded from this competition too. Everything about the competition unmistakably implies that this is a non-transgendered, essentially heterosexual couples-only competition.

And finally; and no sad single people like me either - whichever of the three plus genders we may be batting for.

Clearly then, those in the know at Rimmel have a very stilted impression of who consumes their products and therefore a depressingly pessimistic view of how many customers they’re actually likely to have. How’s business, I wonder? Must be pretty pathetic; since by leaving out a large chunk of the population, they’ve more or less conceded that they believe their merchandise to have such limited appeal. Nevertheless, I suppose their advertising schtick would be keen to replace negatives like ‘unsuccessful’ with positives like ‘exclusive’ or something?

Hmm…surprising what a makeover can do, isn’t it? I mean, after excluding so many punters from their competition and ‘special’ offers who on earth is there left for Coty/Rimmel to target their jaded, transphobic advertising campaigns at? Either that, or… frock horror! Those beer-swilling, queer bashers out there must buy an awful lot of lip gloss. Behold the true colours of Rimmel!

(Written early 2007…MT2G would like to point out that no transphobes were harmed during the making of this production) Sorry.