In prosecution of Transformation

Responding to Siobhan's post today.

I hate Transformation with a passion. And it's not because they sell overpriced, shoddy products. Not that they prey on transvestites and generally treat us like an brainless market niche that's there to be bled dry. I hate them because they've deliberately made themselves a dead end in the tranny community.

By some clever marketing over the years, Transformation have managed to position themselves at the forefront of the companies providing services for trannies in the UK. Ask nearly any British tranny the first tranny shop they heard of, and it will be Transformation. Somehow they're even the top hit on Google for the word "transvestite".

That's fair enough. As Siobhan rightly points out, they're a company and companies are there to make money. If they're savvy enough to make the name of their company ubiquitous to the market they're aiming at, then they deserve all the profits they make from doing it.

I too was one of the many British trannies for whom stepping into a Transformation shop was the first time they'd publicly shown their hand as a tranny, ever.

In my case it was the shop by Euston Station in London, I was a wet-behind-the-ears Civil Engineering student up at Hatfield Poly. I took the train down one day, walked up and down the street about 15 times until it was as empty as a London street ever gets on a weekday, and went through the door.

Two hours later I emerged, clutching my purchases (a really shoddy maids outfit made of black satin that was basically a rectangle with holes cut for the head and arms, and a couple of "TV interest magazines"), and over two hundred pounds lighter of pocket.

The magazines were basically selling Transformation's other services. The snake-oil creams and the "changeaways". And that's part of my problem. They only sell their own services in Transformations.

Take a trip to many a tranny venue in the UK and somewhere on a counter or side-table you'll see neat piles of fliers for other tranny venues and services. To some degree there's healthy rivalry, for example tranny and gay clubs don't exactly go out of their way to promote their rivals, but mostly you'll find information about all kinds of services available to you in the wider community.

Not so with Transformation. They want to keep you in the dark. Only tell you about their products and services. It may have changed, but I know that the Transformation shop in London wouldn't even stock copies of the Way Out Guide (the nearest thing to a Rough Guide to British trannying there is), for fear that trannies discover that there's Another Way.

Take a look at the links page on the Transformation web-site. A first glances it appears to be an altruistic offering by the company, pointing trannies at alternate places to buy their wigs, shoes, etc. With my consumer detective hat on, I went searching the WHOIS databases...

Yep, every single site is owned by the same company... Mapleleaf Holdings Ltd. The same company that owns Transformation.

If Transformation had set themselves up to be a friendly, welcoming first port of call for transvestites and transsexuals finding their feet in the community, I'd have no problem with that at all. But all that Transformation have done is set themselves up to be the friendly, welcoming introduction to their products and services.

They don't want to make trannies feel comfortable and open about who they are, they don't want them to be part of a "community", they just want to keep them thinking that the only people who think trannies are "okay" are the ones with the rictus grins and free cups of tea at a Transformation shop. Then once they have them corralled in their comfortable stable of services, milk them for every penny they can.