Jack Monroe on being non-gender binary

Wheres... I mean from a MHP point of view.

George.. I think part of that is because of the imposition of gender roles on women that subjugate them and imply they are 'inferior' to men. Why on earth would any woman choose to be seen as inferior? IYSWIM?

I'd also wholeheartedly agree with Almond, where she says that the use of the word 'it' as a pronoun is deeply problematic, given it's history of being used to dehumanise the 'other'. Ffs, it was used as a dehumanising device in Silence of the Lambs... not a good look really.

All these initially interesting positions seem to have a habit of degrading gently into 'Oh no, I'm not one of those..."wimmin" thingies, I'm much more interesting than that'. It is sad.

Can people not refer to others as it?

Calling people it has a long, dehumanising history.

I agree with Dan Savage that we should not call people it, even if they choose that as their own pronoun, because it is distressing to many minority groups who have been called it.

Thanks for answering, Movingon - am just catching up with thread (was called to get ds1 from school just before you posted so may not have a chance till tomorrow).

Most people are unaware/only vaguely aware of this whole gender identity concept so haven't stated what their gender identity is.

I assume I'm agender but can't really know that in some kind of social vacuum. When (if) other people widely start claiming to have various gender identities, I'll get a feel for what each one is and know for sure.

I know for certain that I am not in the same group as Jack Monroe. All the stuff that they finds very important in terms of gender sounds irrelevant to me, but I respect that it matters to them.

I still want their to be role models in the world who are the same bio sex as me. I think that wanting their breasts removed makes them no longer a role model for me personally.

PlaysWell, of course it's good manners. How could it be anything but?

Also, Flora, your point that

Fine but since I am female I am not an "it" and you will look foolish.

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?

I don't believe in gender. Sadly, gender seems to be focussed on believing in me, in constraining how I can act, what I can do, how I can behave all the time.

Sex is biological, without changing your DNA, your sex will be your sex from the womb to the grave, on the whole, sex in humans is binary, with very few exceptions. And, as intersex people are generally completely over the whole TG argument, I'll pay them the respect of not bringing that into the discussion.

Gender roles are the mechanism by which women are held back and subjugated. Getting rid of all gender roles would free men and women to perform their lives as they wish, without fear of censure or violence.

Dysphoria is something completely different from "feeling" like a woman. It is an acute and devastating mental illness, and is simply awful for the sufferer. If JM is suffering from dysphoria or dysmorphia, then I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for her.

None of those things equates to anyone "being a man". Men are adult human males, they have recognisable primary and secondary sex organs that develop due to the genetic make up.

Calling JM by whatever name or pronouns she desires may or may not be good manners.

So this has come up on facebook for me and a lovely friend has done a really nice post about accepting people, which I love :) And I'm now feeling anxious because I want to talk to her (privately) about gender and sex and trans* but I don't have time currently to write a long post/email to her. In fact, I'd like to post on facebook directly but I'm not brave enough yet.

I wish that the two groups - those who think gender is bullshit and oppressive and ought to be scrapped and those who think gender is important/real but that the binary is oppressive and ought to be scrapped could see eye to eye.

I am not a gender essentialist - I do not believe in a gender binary that is universal and true for all time and irrevocably tied to biological sex. Tied to that, I don't believe in an 'inner' identity - I think identity is largely constructed relationally, outside of the person, in a social context and that it is inevitably shot through with power relations, because at any given time there is a horizon to what it is possible to think.

However, I do believe in the existence of a cultural binary, that we have inherited and that has a long and oppressive history. (And we all have ample evidence from our own lives and this forum that it continues to be very active - girl and boy party bags, anyone?) And I do think that this is part of that social domain in which identity is constructed. So (thinking aloud a bit here) I think I'd tend to see actions like this not as attacks on any holy cows of my identity, but as allied help in dismantling a system of thinking about gender that I find personally constraining and historically repressive. And I am happy to return the favour by using whatever pronouns they want.

I'm also mindful of the fact that how we "feel" is a relation of dominant power. I don't feel white most of the time. Until I hang out with my bessie mate who is black, and see the totally different reactions that we both get from random strangers, and I realise that she can't count on a lot of the things I take for granted. I'm not saying that this is analogous to gender (I think different kinds of discrimination tend to operate quite differently, and we're only starting to get more sophisticated at analysing this), merely casting some skeptical shade over the idea that we can always judge from the strength of the feelings we experience in relation to our own identity to the legitimacy of the feelings of others. (Or, indeed, that those feelings are deeply personal and inside and not cultural and social in nature).

Manatee I agree 100% with your post at 14.26

This is a really interesting discussion, I'm glad it came up.

I don't really believe in gender. I wish society in general was entirely gender neutral, as far as possible.
I have a female body, but I dress in "mens" clothes, have a "mens" haircut and have mostly "mens" interests- although I do like baking and I am bored by watching football.

Sometimes I wonder if I am transgender. When I was a child, every night before going to sleep I would pray to wake up a boy. If I could have a magic wand that would turn me into a boy/man, I would probably do it. I'm not sure.

I don't want a penis though. Not especially (although it would be practical ) I used to hate my body, really hate it. Puberty was mildly traumatic and made me have depression. but now I have come to terms with it. I consider myself "lucky" though, that I have a naturally boyish body shape, and I am trying to get more muscular. I would hate to be more curvy, but I am comfortable with having a vagina and womb (Periods suck, but come on you can grow a BABY in there if you wanted! That's fucking AWESOME!)

I think I can pinpoint 2 main things that made me happier in myself

1. I went to an all girls school from 11-16. While it might seem counter intuitive (and I was annoyed that there were fewer people to play rugby with), with hindsight it meant that I didn't have to struggle to fit into the box of "boy" or "girl". Everyone was female but there was a huge spectrum of "femininity".

2. I was an army cadet, and the word "female" was generally used instead of "girl". I know it's very old school, and some people may even find it offensive, but it was in the context of when it was biologically relevant ie "we're going to need a separate tent for the female cadets" (instead of "for the girls") and otherwise we were treated exactly the same as the boys, we were all just cadets, or kids. It helped separate in my mind being a "girl" (which I didn't identify with) to being "female", which was a fact, and had no gender expectation connotations.

I do sometimes worry about transgender kids. I'm not saying it's not real, but it's no wonder that in society at the moment we have an increase in trans young people, when everything seems to say "girls do/like/wear/play with this, and boys with this, but don't worry if you're a boy who likes pink, because you can become a girl"

I wish we could just let kids be kids, without imposing gender, and let them do whatever they want. Ideally surgery and hormones should be only to ease your own personal suffering at being in the wrong body, not to make you into a "man or woman" in the eyes of society, because there should be no difference in the way that male and female people are treated. I mean that Jack Monroe should be able to be called by whatever name and pronouns they want, and bind their chest, without having to "come out" as anything.

Well, that was much longer than I anticipated, and I'm not sure if it makes sense. Oh well

how patronising :|

And what Buffy said!

As an aside, if anyone is interested in the whole gamut of genderqueer stuff rather than the more rigid 'trans' politics that have been rather done to death on MN before, check out The Lovers & Fighters Convention. It's put together from a set of performances at the Transfabulous festival in 2008, (disclosure - it's directed by a friend of mine) and is very watchable and very eye-opening, whether you are 'pro' or 'anti'.

Very helpful, thank you

Cote - in plain English, 'non-binary transgender' translates as 'special snowflake'.

Can someone explain what it means to be non-binary transgender?

If one doesn't feel like one gender or the other, what does it mean to say "I am transgender"? From what to what are they trans, then?

Sakura - that's an interesting point. And one I've raised quite a few times on the baby names board. People say how cool it is to have a unisex name 'like Elliot' on a girl. Or ask what people feel about X boys name being used for a girl. No one ever, ever, ever thinks a boy could be called Alice or Clare and have that be a unisex name. I do think that there is a point around this topic about female (and feminine) being an insult. Jack has chosen a 'unisex' name in a similar way.

Like a pp, I also think the terminology of 'deadnaming' is fairly horrid. The person you were has not died. The person you were existed, and that may not have accurately represented you, and of course it would be wrong to refer to Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce. But, if you are talking about, for example, sporting achievements, then she competed as a male and (unless you assume massive background knowledge of the person being discussed, which I guess you could for her), you're going to need to reference the past.

I think I will choose "it" for you.

Fine but since I am female I am not an "it" and you will look foolish.

Because your wishes are irrelevant and mine are more important; that is essentially what you are saying. The old "I'm natural, you're unnatural" argument that gets used until society cops on (see gay rights etc etc).

No. Some things have a material reality, like sex, and others are a matter of psychology expressed in behaviour (eg being a lesbian). Being a lesbian is not unnatural. Just because people in the past thought one thing was wrong which we now disagree with (that being a lesbian is bad) doesn't mean that everything we used to think is bad is not bad. Paedophilia is less tolerated now than in the past. Incest is still not tolerated. Those are behaviours though. Biological sex is a material reality. Therefore there is no inconsistency in saying lesbian relationships are positive life experiences but women and men are different sex categories.

I like the quote that if the shoe doesn't fit, one should change the shoe not the foot. If society forces people to conform to constructed norms of behaviour, change society. Don't change your body to fit the norms.

It does seem to me as if this 'non-binary' business is a byproduct of increasingly strict demarcations of what is or isn't gendered behaviour. Like it starts with boys' and girls' EVERYTHING being either pink or blue, and just develops from there. So anyone who just feels like 'meh, I'm just me, I don't feel very strongly anything' has to make a big palaver about being non-binary.

Surely we could achieve the same effect by just having less rigid ideas about what it means to be male or female?

What intrigues me is how Jack's experience differs from being a transman, because on a fundamental level (other than not wishing to adopt male pronouns) there isn't much that differentiates Jack from a transman.

Although, as a lesbian in a committed relationship (although I'm not sure if Jack is still in a relationship) and a mother, it must be very difficult to declare oneself male because then you'd need to redefine your most cherished relationships.

Anyway, just thinking aloud.

I don't feel female and I don't feel male, I have interests that are both stereotypically female and stereotypically male but I just see them as 'my interests'.
Isn't almost everyone "non-binary" in this case? It seems like some of the only people who are truly binary about their gender are transgender people

Well, pretty much, yes.

Im quite happy for Jack to feel however Jack feels, and to respect their feelings about their identity.

I wont pretend to understand it, nor do I have a massive desire to wish theyd shut up and simplify something thats obviously important to them.

I think in time, with increased knowledge, it will just become naturally simpler, and im really happy for people that are finally being able to put a name on how they have always felt, instead of living a lie, becoming mentally unwell, or topping themselves, which I think is what has tended to happen in the past.

I dont believe that sex or gender is binary. I dont feel like im particularly female, apart from a general feeling of unsafeness and vulnerability, but i am sure thats not what being female is supposed to be about.
I also dont feel shit about being female or identified as such either, so I cant relate to how transgender people feel. Im happy to believe them though and try and adjust my language when its appropriate to do so.