This adidas swimsuit makes transphobes cringe as they wake up from the dictatorship

” Inherited love is the slogan of adidas’ Pride collection for pride month which is June. Unveiled on May 15, 2023, the collection has aroused a lot of interest on social media due to one piece in particular. It is a one-piece swimsuit, presented in the women’s section. Except the person wearing it turns out to have little chest hair and a non-flat groin. It could be a transgender woman or a non-binary person, but many netizens claimed that it was a man and that adidas wanted to erase women according to an imaginary “woke agenda”, where trans people would be the spearhead.

TERFs are looking for a special adidas unisex Pride swimsuit

On Twitter, several notoriously transphobic personalities have denounced this choice of adidas models, such as Riley Gaines or Oli London:

“The new adidas women’s swimwear is presented by… men”

—Oli London

“I don’t understand why companies do it on purpose. They could have at least said this shirt is ‘unisex’, but they didn’t because it’s about erasing women. Have you ever wondered why we barely see it going the other way?” ? »

—Riley Guadagni

We could argue in the face of such a binary nature that many women are already used to buying things in the men’s department, because they know that there they can find, in particular, more resistant clothing, with pockets, and less expensive (see the pink tax). And that the very history of the men’s wardrobe links it to the clothes of power, unlike the women’s wardrobe, which is often perceived as more futile.

So women also have something to gain socially, in addition to savings. This is why this social group has less need to see women dressed” designed for men want to adopt them. The success of many fashion brands initially intended for men, which nevertheless quickly won the loyalty of a female audience without even meaning to, such as the illustrious Dior Homme of the Hedi Slimane period, Ami Paris by Alexandre Mattiussi or Officine Générale by Pierre Mahéo .

Self ” so we hardly see it in reverse », to resume the interrogation of the TERF (Trans-exclusive radical feminist) notorious Riley Gaines, is because men have little interest (aside from aesthetics, and we know how little our societies value aesthetics) in tapping into women’s wardrobes. Because this would cause them to lose privileges, socially: they risk much more easily being perceived as more futile, even suffering from homophobia or transphobia.

In reality, this swimsuit is available in the men’s, women’s and Pride departments.

But going back to adidas, since this is a Pride collection, there’s a good chance that the person wearing the discord shirt is trans, and that the German sports equipment supplier simply wanted to be inclusive through this model choice.

Note that too this Pride collection has its own non-gender department. In addition to this dedicated section, this one-piece swimsuit is available in both the men’s and women’s departments. (and not exclusively in the women’s department as the TERFs suggest).

Also note that this same swimsuit is offered for the same price in a wider range of sizes, up to 4XL, by another person who internet users have scrutinized far less in an attempt to ” clock (in trans lingo, this is how people can try to guess whether someone is trans or not just by looking at them and staring at them, judging the quality of their cispassing, i.e. their ability to pass as cisgender). This obsession with strangers’ crotches has something to worry about.

In short, this umpteenth controversy illustrates in a frightening way how transphobia increases as trans people become visible. That’s the whole paradox of visibility for minorities and struggles for their rights.

Finally, we can also ask ourselves about the intentions of brands through this type of visual, non-contextualized communication maneuver. No one needs to be a social network expert to know that such a casting choice would make a lot of noise, and unleash waves of transphobic violence (even if there are waves of support in favor of trans people).

To what extent this kind of Could the controversy also be triggered on purpose, to generate articles, traffic, and therefore increase sales potential? This is the cynical question we can ask ourselves on this eve of Pride Month.

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