Jack Monroe on being non-gender binary

overthemill I hope that everyone, whatever their position on trans issues, would hope for the best outcome for your DD, whatever that outcome is that enables her to be what she needs to be.

I think the only thing that I'd add to the general warnings about tumblr, which do encourage young people to fixate on their identities (when in most cases they are just coming up with more arcane names for perfectly ordinary feelings shared by millions - see "boi", "demisexual" and "grey-ace"), is that I do worry that some young teens who now ID as trans are getting stuck in it due to outside pressure, even when they might naturally have changed their minds. I think current stats is that most gender-questioning teens don't eventually turn out to be trans (though many do turn out to be gay). I worry especially with some of the very high-profile trans teens, the ones where the parents have made it into a really big thing, got the schools on board, really propped up the whole trans identification, then if that teen then decides that really isn't them, this whole edifice has been built around them and they have no point of return - they are put into a position of not being able to say uh, that's not me, I've changed my mind.

But yes, please do come and chat. There is a really wide range of opinion here, and a lot of disagreement, but I can't see how anyone would want anything but to support you and your DD as you work through this.

Annie, I was more saying it as a reminder rather than a criticism of what anyone said. Because this thread seemed to be getting pretty theory heavy (which these threads often do), and as it started out as being a thread about Jack, I think it would be a shame to now start applying all the theories to Jack, using Jack as the example of them.

Because they are a person who reads what is written about them.

A bit like if said I was going on holiday to Italy and everyone piled on with their theory of travel, tourism and national identity and applied them to Almondpudding's holiday plans.

buffy yes I think it would help to understand the theory ( and I come from a background of active feminism in 70s and 80s dropping out when I couldn't cope with political lesbianism/ antizionism arguments and many years as a women's rights worker) as this all feels so new and strange to me. And absolutely support for her - she has to navigate this but I'm worried for her

So 2 threads then! Thank you very much for your kind replies

I don't think Jack should be used as some kind of totem to pin every transgender ideology on to. They can't be held responsible for every trans theory just because they say they are non binary.

No, but I don't think anyone here has done that - if they have, I've missed it. It is perfectly fair to comment on what Jack has said, and what kind of ideology they are upholding.

I was also pretty depressed at the list of "pioneers" and "giants" Jack cites at the end, which includes Paris Lees, who thinks men catcalling women in the street is just awesome and sexy, and encourages men to do it, and Bethany Black, whose "comedy" routine is based on having a hot Swedish girlfriend, and who sneers at women for being so stupid as to try and live up to what they are told to do in women's magazines. Because it's totes revolutionary to punish women for trying to survive under patriarchy, when you haven't grown up under the same pressures yourself.

There is binary of the sexes (apart from hermaphrodites/intersex people). I think that is what Jack means by non-binary. They don't feel like a feminine man or a butch woman, they just feel like themselves. Jack is Jack. But they feel that their body isn't right as it stands.

I am interested in how it affects someone who has had non-binary feelings for a long time to go through the very feminine process of pregnancy and birth, though. Does anyone know if Jack has elaborated on that anywhere?

I think the concept of "non-binary" has more to do with the body than the mind, quite frankly. I have a friend who identifies as non-binary, and who is currently taking testosterone and wants top surgery as soon as the NHS will agree to it. However he (he's asked to be called he) doesn't want to go on to have full gender reassignment surgery partly because it is very risky and partly because he doesn't feel the need. He will be happy to have reached a point on the spectrum where he has no breasts, short hair, facial hair, no periods but still retains female genitalia. He suffers from acute dysphoria and hated dealing with periods/constantly stooped to disguise large breasts etc. I don't know if it's significant that both Jack and my friend have large breasts that make it obvious which sex they are - perhaps had they had very flat chests naturally they wouldn't want top surgery.

I therefore think it's not about "feeling like a man", and more about feeling very strongly that their body is not right. The point at which an individual will feel right will vary. That's where the spectrum comes in.

Thank you everybody. I feel that we didn't raise our 3 stereotypically (2 dd, 1 DS) although I would also say they are fairly typical of their gender ( am I allowed to say that? Dd tells me off as I think gender and sex is the same and I have no idea how it could be any different (eg I am female so my gender is female and I have female sex organs?) )

I do not want to knock anyone or deride their views just so trying to understand but fear my vulnerable dd may get drawn into something that will be damaging to her. I do not fear her becoming bisexual or lesbian or heterosexual or anything - whatever will ensure her happiness is all I want - but fear her just to get drawn into a world because it reflects her own confusion around many many things not just gender / sexual identity.

Do you think relationships is best place?

Overthemill, I do think it is damaging to young women. It teaches them to put people into categories based on sexist stereotypes and to associate them with their developing bodies.

So breasts become emblematic of various personality traits and so on.

I think young women from families that didn't raise them in gender stereotyped ways are particularly vulnerable to it.

I think it is similar to children from agnostic families being vulnerable to religious cults.

Annie, I suppose that this comes back to trans activists being very evasive about what gender is, what the characteristics of men and women, masculinity and femininity are, and so on.

That makes it possible for people to make claims about gender being or not being a binary, a spectrum, a mosaic, socially constructed, innate, biological or a hundred and one other things, because the traits themselves were never defined.

So if we (not trans activists) want to look at feminine personality traits, we'd define them. Psychologists have done this and studied them for years. In psychological terms, femininity and masculinity are not on a spectrum. Some people have a lot of both - compassionate and competitive, imaginative and aggressive. Some people have little of either.

But someone else can equally say gender is a spectrum because they mean something else which they decline to specify.

But Jack Monroe has specified. Jack has explained that in gender expression they are sometimes very feminine (tea dress and stilettos) and sometimes very masculine, and has dysphoria about both their body and social role.

So while there are various wider implications to everyone - reinforcing femininity on to female bodies that can come from what Jack has said, that at least responds to what Jack actually said.

I don't think Jack should be used as some kind of totem to pin every transgender ideology on to. They can't be held responsible for every trans theory just because they say they are non binary.

My dd who is 16 and bed bound through very serious illness for last 2 years has started talking a lot about cis, binary, non binary and all sorts of other stuff which I do not follow at ( though trying very very hard to for her sake).

FWIW overthemill (although I agree you might want to start your own thread), without dismissing your DD's feelings at all, I've noticed it's quite trendy in young person circles to be very specifically labelling one's gender and sexuality - hence cis/genderqueer/genderfluid, and bi/pan/demi and asexuality. Tumblr is full of it As a jaded 35 year old I tend to feel it's just a bit of teen navel gazing and figuring out who they are as a burgeoning adult. All healthy and fine and not necessarily indicative that your DD is really trans - although of course eventual she may decide that she is.

I need to do some "proper" work! I'll try to check back to this discussion (which I'm really enjoying) later on - but I have guests over the weekend so if I don't reappear please don't think I've flung off in a huff or anything!! (I'll just be trying to cook something edible and non-poisonous, always an interesting, ahem, experiment).

overthemill - I fear that your question, which is a really important one that I feel very unqualified to answer, might get lost on this thread. I wonder if its worth making a separate thread, maybe in the Relationships forum? I am sure there will be lots of people with great advice.

My only contribution, sadly, is that love and understanding - both of which you clearly have in abundance - will go a very long way to supporting your DD.

BUT (for about the fifth time) - Jack isn't rejecting either femininity or masculinity!! They are saying they are a kind of hybrid.

See, that just isn't my interpretation. Although Jack has stopped short of identifying as a transman, I do very much feel they are rejecting femininity and are leaning more heavily towards the male end of the spectrum.

But I've read more from Jack than The Statesman article, I have to say. I follow Jack on Twitter and they have posted photos of themself as a teenager wearing male clothes - to prove something to their detractors, presumably. Putting it all together, I'm not getting such a gender-neutral vibe.

I'm not criticising Jack or suggesting they should just have bloody well said they are a transman (although, admittedly, I would not be surprised if that announcement came later, when they were more comfortable saying so) because, honestly, on a personal level you can call yourself whatever the fuck you want and that's all cool. But all this "what is binary" discussion is fascinating

I'm hoping not to be flames here but I find all this really really confusing. I agree I think with much of what artemis said upthread and am trying so hard to understand it all. My dd who is 16 and bed bound through very serious illness for last 2 years has started talking a lot about cis, binary, non binary and all sorts of other stuff which I do not follow at ( though trying very very hard to for her sake). She only has the Internet ( a bit on iPad) to talk to as all her friends have dropped her and I worry about her. She told me recently she though she was bisexual and is now talking about transgender all ten time. She has a lot going on inside her head but honestly how do I support her? I think ( from what I know of her as a 14 year old before she became suddenly ill) as very like her elder sister at same age, interested in mates and school and animals and curious but not that interested in either boys or girls sexually - because she hadn't reached that stage yet. I think her interest stems from watching performers on YouTube. I am not knocking her or her curiosity but am so confused. It seems like a hugely popular topic with teens though. Any advice/ reading I can do?

"You can't deny though that we have been socialised to connect breasts with femininity. And all sorts of other problematic associations with female oppression, male gaze etc. So what I always wonder is, how does a historically realist ontology fit into all this?"

Hopefully that last paragraph I wrote answers this?

Annie - I keep having to edit too. They is ridiculous, it really is. I am fine with the sentiment of a non gender identifying pronoun, but we need to invent one!

"If identifying as non-binary is resistance against the binary, why is it described by many as a 'transition' and why is there a need for the term 'cis' to be applied to people who haven't publicly announced their rejection of binary gender? Because the only issue I have with it is it appears to me at many levels to require the binary to exist, in order to define oneself as different from it."

I don't think that all transsexuals by any means have the same models of gender. I am no expert in this area, but it seems clear to me that many hold quite essentialist ideas that are very, very different to those I'm espousing here. (Perhaps the essentialism is just of a different type to that of gender mapping onto a biologically determined sex - it seems to work at a more psychological 'inner' level with this vocabulary of feeling absolutely certain that you are the 'wrong' gender, of transitioning etc - but, like I said, I'm no expert).

I am just outlining my personal reading of the Jack Monroe piece, from my own position which is pretty poststructuralist and highly indebted to Butler. Clearly, there are other readings too that differ greatly to mine.

This issue of 'requiring the binary to exist'. Again, we keep coming back to this issue of 'existing' and 'not existing', 'real' and 'fictional'. I can't think of a better way to put it other than to say that social constructions are very, very real in their effects and very, very difficult to shift. So the binary does 'exist' very strongly out there in society (pink for girls and blue for boys and girls will be nurses and boys will be doctors), and is still naturalised and essentialised by some people who map it onto biological sex - but (in my personal view, anyway), this is all an ideological construct that is designed to naturalise and normalise a very contingent, historically specific set of gender expectations.

And sorry, that is a general comment, not one aimed at Annie or anyone in particular.

Like what, Almond? I am basing everything here on the article they have just written.

..sorry, they. (I do keep on trying, but forget,)

Jack Monroe has a history of being trolled, googling themself and getting upset about remarks made about them but not too them.

Much as I think this is a really interesting discussion, I think it would be respectful to talk about the implications of what Jack has written without attributing to them beliefs and attributes they have never claimed to hold.

Well, it seems that Jack also associates boobs with being female, if as part of her transition she wants them removed.

I think it was Jacks interpretation that their ex saw boobs as a key part of who they were (I am sorry, I will respect the pronoun request, but I'm not writing they was). The actual account of what their partner said was that she found it hard that Jack was rejecting a female identity.