Jack Monroe on being non-gender binary

Sorry I meant their.

That's an interesting article. On the one hand, as a measure of basic compassion and humanity I can wish Jack only the best, and am totally content to respect their choice of pronoun, and I'm sorry for the struggles they've faced - it can't have been easy.

HOWEVER, that article is just so full of things I find problematic, worrying or downright horrible. For a start, as annie said above - where was Jack's compassion for their lesbian girlfriend who was just expected to accept without murmer her lover getting their breasts removed because they didn't think they were a woman any more? What about HER identity and self expression, why don't they matter? It would have been much more graceful to accept that they were not in fact compatible and move on with kindness and acceptance, not slag her off for being overly obsessed with tits.

For someone who wants to be non-binary and upset notions of gender, Jack really needs to have a think about why they believe muscles, polo shirts and martial arts are essentially masculine, while ballet is profoundly not. And also why someone non-binary should continue to qualify for a Woman of the Year award, while at the same time distancing themselves from their previous incarnation in which they actually earned the accolade which seems very cake-and-eating it to me. Why would their birth name be such a source of shock and horror to them, but being referred to as a woman for the purposes of reward, is not?

Missing a graduation because you're being asked to wear a skirt just seems a bit...petulant to be honest. The whole point of a uniform is that it kind of erases you as an individual in favour of meshing into a group. Sure a skirt is impractical, but most dress uniforms are unsuitable for anything except swanning round in. It all just seems a bit muddled and confused. Which is of course, I suppose, what humans do best.

I agree with you Annie. That part of the article was very strange and, as you said, she was being disingenuous with the boobs comment.

I agree with that Annie. Jack writes about their ex-girlfriend as if she is a shallow, cruel person for having difficulty with Jack wanting a double mastectomy. It's OK for a lesbian to say "I fancy women, not transmen". And FWIW, Jack has also ended their relationship with Allegra McEvedy, so presumably there were similar issues in that relationship too.

Incidentally, using "their" instead of "him/her" still feels grammatically wrong to me, because when I typed "Jack writes about their ex-girlfriend" the their makes it look like I'm talking about an unnamed third party.

Hmm, well the wider context is there - I think the general trend towards "HDU call me a butch lesbian, I'm non-binary trans" is rooted in a general hatred of lesbians and lesbianism. But I don't blame individual lesbians for opting into this, consciously or unconsciously, because why wouldn't you, to go from the most hated group to brave and celebrated?

But specifics: Jack uses their public platform to cast their ex-girlfriend as a horrible shallow transphobic lesbian. Jack describes the moment they talked to her about having top surgery, and the girlfriend reacted with horror at the idea of Jack transitioning. Was that response from the girlfriend a kind, nicely-worded, supportive response? No. But when your DP, someone you have planned a future with, suddenly announces something which not only impacts their identity, but yours in a pretty fundamental way, too, then of course you are going to be caught on the hop. If you are a woman who identifies as a lesbian and you are going out with someone who suddenly announces they are no longer a woman, then you may find you cannot any longer consider yourself a lesbian. Which, considering the real struggle that many lesbians have to endure to get to the point of calling themselves lesbians, is a really big fucking deal.

But Jack completely glosses over this. She says "When someone tells you that the core of your relationship is your bra size, you hightail and run." Which - if it happened as she describes - is bullshit, and disengenuous, offensive bullshit at that. Jack doesn't report the girlfriend as saying "I fancy big boobs", Jack reports her as saying "I fancy GIRLS". This wasn't a conversation about boobs. This was a conversation about a lesbian being upset (unsurprisingly) on discovering that her partner is no longer a woman.

I am so sick of lesbians being told that fancying women is not actually acceptable, and that in order not to be bigoted, lesbians must fancy people who are not women - whether that's people with female bodies who don't identify as women, or people with male bodies who do, as well as all the bazillion straight men who think lesbians just need a bit of dick to turn them. It's such a pervasive trope, and such an old one, and I never expected Jack Monroe to be one of the ones doing it.

I am so fucking disappointed.

I'm surprised that anyone cares how people define their own gender identity. It's an interesting subject and we should definitely discuss what it means to be male or female, and the relationship between sex and gender. But I really can't find Jack Monroe at fault in any way here.

ArcheryAnnie, please can you explain how/where Jack is being homophobic?

I think that JM has been very disingenuous. She's spent the last few years promoting her "a girl called Jack" brand, making a big point about how she's a girl with a "boy's" name. Her gender dysphoria didn't stop her posing for bikini selfies and she often blogged about being a woman bearing the brunt of misogynistic trolls.

I am actually surprised at how regressive her thinking is around gender, as mentioned by other posters. She seems to be constantly on the look-out for the next social bandwagon to jump on. I wouldn't be surprised if she does a Rachel Dolezal and comes out as black. I wonder if her son is allowed to call her "mummy" any more.

those women will continue to be punished if/when they stray an inch from this imposed norm.

Or, to follow on from my own point, in some families (either super-liberal or horribly conservative) they will be told they aren't women at all, but men, as it's more comprehensible to the conservative mindset to cope with someone "born in the wrong body" (an outdated trope, I know) than to cope with a butch woman or a lesbian.

(Teena Brandon, long considered the poster boy for trans maleness, was in this position - she identified as a woman shortly before her death, and it has been very persuasively argued that her positioning as a boy was down to the lesbophobia and misogyny of her surroundings: www.triviavoices.com/the-inconvenient-truth-about-teena-brandon.html)

There are many girls and women stuck in positions (families, jobs) where deviation from 'girlishness' is still punished.

Yes, and as long as we continue to insist that if you aren't "girly" then you can't possibly be a girl, those women will continue to be punished if/when they stray an inch from this imposed norm.

eg: I hate that in that article a fit, hard body must be described as "masculine". Because women never have fit, hard bodies...

*operative, not opposite.

God I am hungover this morning

I don't think she's being essentialist at all. She says in that article that she is revolting against 'the society-imposed candy pink and baby blue'. SOCIETY-imposed being the opposite word. Every thing about her article sounds non-essentialist to me: this is gender as social construct, not gender as inner nature - but it's a social construct that was not only historically oppressive, but continues to be enforced (which is the point of her mentioning being chucked out of nightclub toilets for looking male, and of discussing the uniform for her passing out parade). What she seems to be celebrating is freedom from that socially-formulated binary, to find all kinds of positions that are inbetween the old polarities.

While I find the whole 'rebel' think kind of old, this is probably because I'm too cynical and too goddamned privileged to recognise that this cynicism comes from being around a pretty liberal bunch of people for whom this stuff is old news - though it wasn't even that long ago that I was working for a boss who was a sexist dinosaur, rating the women in the office on their figures, complaining about those who turned up in trousers, talking salaciously about his DIL's look in a bikini, etc. He would never forgive nor forget being challenged on any of it, and would find ways to make the life of anyone who stood up to him absolutely miserable. There are many girls and women stuck in positions (families, jobs) where deviation from 'girlishness' is still punished.

*lives, not loves. Though loves, too.

"Jack's identity does not diminish or impact on your identity, my identity or anyone else's in any way."

If Jack's identity only impacted on Jack, this conversation wouldn't be happening at all. The only reason I give a stuff is that Jack's declaration of their own identity came along with Jack's expression of a whole lot of sexist, gender-essentialist and homophobic attitudes, presented as cool and progressive attitudes, all of which impact very negatively on my life and the loves of a lot of other women.

(I like Jack. I am really horribly disappointed that they've gone down this homophobic route.)

If Jack Monroe is not a woman, why have they not withdrawn from the "Woman of the Future" award they are nominated for, and which they mention oh-so-casually in the NS article where they insist at length that they are not a woman?

It makes me feel old. Not because I disapprove, just because gender is now conceived and discussed so much more prominently and in a completely different way from how it was when I was younger. It is discombobulating.

And now I've started to sound like my mother, so I think I will log off.

I just think gender is a load of bullshit. I suppose you could say I'm 'agender', but if you did I wouldn't be happy as in doing so you're supporting the existence of gender as being the default.

Gender is a bunch of made up stuff and all this non-binary nonsense panders and enforces it. It needs to disappear, people need to be free to do whatever they want and express themselves how they want, and ideally not announce it to the world because it's not that interesting.

Well, Jack Monroe has said they're not a woman but you're happy to still refer to them as one. How is that any less foolish?

Because Jack Monroe is a woman. She is an adult human female, of the biological category the produces eggs and bears children. That is a material reality not a philosophical notion of what it means to be a woman.

Phew!

No, I don't think so. I'm not cross either way, so no harm done.

Hmmm, I think I might have got the wrong end of George's post, and for that I apologise.

I disagree with the idea of non-binary because it positions everyone who doesn't explicitly identify as such as an adherent of either male or female gender roles/expression. Which is bullshit.

Yy MyFavourite the article made me wonder if Jack considers woman to be a dirty word.

The social phenomenon of gender identity as some kind of political movement is interesting, but people describing their individual gender expression is incredibly boring.

Well, that's certainly true. I find it interesting only as a springboard to this kind of discussion. But solipsism is now our culture's defining characteristic, so expect lots more of this kind of thing.

I don't know if people do find it interesting George. The social phenomenon of gender identity as some kind of political movement is interesting, but people describing their individual gender expression is incredibly boring.

I mean, who cares that sometimes Jack Monroe likes to wear vintage dresses and stilettos and other times they like to pose in only boxer shorts? Is it really interesting enough to warrant a New Statesman article?