You are 100%

by Hannah

In what is emerging to be a continuing series, I am excited to have a follow up post to a previous article.

(Are these really articles? What are these things, anyway?)

A few months ago I had a little too much fun in Photoshop creating fake album covers influenced by unhinged and hateful comments and emails. It was very cathartic.

I received this (unpublished) comment not too long ago:

YOU ARE 100% NOT A WOMAN! YOU ARE A MAN! BE A MAN.DRESS LIKE A MAN!

Sounds like you have some big feelings, guy. You need to calm down.

I am not a psychologist but I get the feeling that this fellow doesn’t really care for gender non-conforming people. I am not sure why he feels that way, after all, aren’t we all just the cutest? Does he hate bunnies and puppies too??

There’s a lot of people online that have opinions that I don’t agree with, and fundamentally that’s fine. I accept that some people think the earth is flat and some people honestly believe Donald Trump is a Christian.

And I am sooooo excited for the unhinged comments and emails that the previous sentence will inspire.

I keep an eye on my web traffic and I am interested how visitors even find my site in the first place. Most visitors come from Google and the runner-up is Stana’s site, Femulate. Almost all of the other referring sites are transgender/crossdresser related or come from search engines that feature incognito mode.

So, what I can ascertain from this data is that a visitor either popped over to my site after reading Femulate or a similar site, or they specifically googled “Hannah McKnight” or something including the words “transgender/crossdresser”. My website also provides me with the most common phrases visitors use to find me and those two are at the top of the list.

Essentially, if you found my website it’s likely because you WANTED to find a website like mine. You likely intentionally searched for it or clicked a link to it that was posted on a similar site.

It’s easy to stumble in five inch stilettos, but it’s not easy to stumble upon such a niche website. I doubt many people visit this thing by accident.

This is admittingly going into supposition territory, but the person who wrote that little message above was likely already looking for a site like mine on purpose. Perhaps they are questioning their gender identity and were looking for others like themselves. Perhaps they wanted support or resources or reassurance that they are not alone.

If so, then why the hateful comment? Possibly they are not comfortable with this side of themselves and they feel that taking out their feelings on me is an indirect way of telling themselves that they don’t like how they feel and aren’t ready to accept this side of them. Perhaps people like myself are evidence that one can accept themselves and still live a happy and fulfilling life. It might not be easy but it can be done.

Of course, perhaps they just intentionally go out of their way and visit sites like mine to share their message of hate and to tell the world that they don’t know how to switch off their caps lock.

At any rate, they inspired two more fake album covers. It’s not every day I get more than one idea from one message, but this was my lucky day.


I almost went with “YOU ARE 100%” for the first image. I liked the idea of changing the commentor’s post to something affirming. After all, we are all 100% beautiful, amazing, brave, perfect…

At any rate, I am still having so much fun with these things and I hope you like them.

Love, Hannah

11 thoughts on “You are 100%”

  1. I like to imagine that Dress Like a Man is a trans and queer-themed cover album of some of The Four Seasons’ biggest hits. Frankie Valli already sang in that ridiculous falsetto. I can imagine four ladies in glamorous sparkling gowns on stage doing the same thing. Plus. a quick glance at their catalog of song titles presents some gems ripe for adaptation:

    I’ve Got You Under My Skin
    Candy Girl
    Big Girls Don’t Cry
    My Mother’s Eyes
    Walk Like a Man
    Who Loves You
    Big Man in Town

    I would buy a ticket to that show and merch while I was there.

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  2. Hi Hannah,

    I am glad you brought this topic to the forefront. After spending some time online meeting other individuals that are on the Trans spectrum, even within our own communities, I see conflicting ideas within people as they try to determine who they are and what this all means. I have no doubt there are waaaay more individuals within our society that are battling who they are vs what they think “society“ wants them to be.

    Although I believe there are individuals who simply seek out hate, which in itself, raises questions as to why, I agree that this person sought out your site based on some sort of self exploration or internal conflict.

    The sad part is that although hate is not welcomed and certainly not excused, it’s but a symptom of someone who is in pain at some level.

    A reminder that we all need to be safe as there are many sick individuals that think hurting others is okay.

    Nadine

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  4. It is proven fact that gay bashers are motivated by latent (or not so latent) homosexuality.

    Straight people don’t care too much what others do.

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  6. HI Hannah,

    Your album covers are terrific; creative, entertaining, and a good way to make a statement. Keep doing them.

    You are too generous in your pondering of why that person sent you that comment. There are possible deep seated psychologically interesting reasons for someone sending such a comment, some of which you explore, but let’s all not forget that there are, unfortunately, just a lot of mean, ignorant, violent, and hate driven people in this world. Why such people do their awful things doesn’t really matter. They are simply a bad part of the human world and should be avoided as much as possible.

    As far as I can tell through my many years of observing, thinking about, and doing my own thing, most, perhaps nearly all, transgender, bi-gender, gender non-conforming people only want to be able to live their own lives, to be left alone to just live the way they feel they should live, not bothering anyone else. It is in a certain way, just incredible that it should be any sort of problem for anyone if I want to walk my dog while wearing a skirt and a nice blouse. No one should care what I, or anyone else, wears, but the world is not like that, and for whatever reason(s), they care, and they feel they have to let us know about it. Ugh.

    It is a truly excellent thing that a community of like minded people can share perceptions and offer support to others in the same, or similar, situation. Every day I read Stana’s, Kandi’s, and your posts, and from these I get a very nice sense of how like minded people are feeling and what they are doing.

    Onward for all of us!

    Marissa in Ohio

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  8. I’m guessing he finds you attractive and thinks this implies he’s gay. He never wants to be in such a situation with any trans woman.

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  9. love the “100%” cover. It deserves some recordings to accompany it.

    The “be a man, dress like a man” comment to your post raises all sorts of possibilities, but the most likely is the troll category.

    I listened to a podcast about the motivations for trolls, which of course makes me an expert on the subject. Somehow they managed to track and confront a troll. It turned out to be a very insecure young male, stereotypically posting his cruel comments from the safety of anonymity and his parent’s basement. He was unhappy with his own life and, it seems, the unmoderated comments section gave him an outlet for sharing that unhappiness with others.

    I suspect this applies to a significant number of cyber bullies and trolls. And probably to a fair number of people who attracted to politics of anger.

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