"Cissexist" classics

the comments under the article Wemust linked are funny-
is this the Onion or Huffpost?

Candy Darling was also the Candy of "Candy Says" from The Velvet Underground's third album.

The photograph of "Candy Darling on her death bed" is the cover of Antony and the Johnson's first (and very beautiful) album.

This is Antony Hegarty's cover of Candy Says. I'm using his old name rather than Anohni as the older music is still under that name. It's beautiful too.

WeMust: that article is utterly dire, and completely fails to grasp that gender and sex are not the same thing.

On topic: A handmaid's tale is presumably all too TERFy because women are defined an valued because of their ability to gestate offspring for men.

Also why is it 'wild' to be a transvestite?

The line isn't just about that. The song and the Transformer album is referring to the New York underground /alternative life style.

The "Little Joe who never once gave it away" was Joe Dallesandro , a porn star. The Sugar Plum Fairy was an actor and gay rights activist Joe Campbell.

"More than a woman"??

Born this Way by Lady Gaga?

Sorry, I think I crossed a line there. It's getting late.

Still at Fanny by Gaslight.

Girls on Film would be right out. Not to mention Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon.

Planet of the Fakes

would they have called themselves 'transwomen' though
**
Good point. One of them, Holly Woodlawn, died only last year and did identify as a transwoman in the modern sense. Not sure about the other two as they died much younger.

Fwiw, they all referred to themselves as women / girls, wanted to use the pronouns she and her, and slept with men rather than women. I think they were part of the NY drag scene of the time but they didn't usually dress in the exaggerated, high camp style (currently) associated with drag queens.

Shouldn't it be 'cisfeeding' or 'cisprovision'?

"using the word 'breastfeeding', referring to 'breastfeeding mother's 'pregnant women'."

This has already happened. In the U.S. Midwifery Guidelines say to refer to us as "birthing individuals" or some such nonsense. I've seen "chest feeding" also being used.

Funny how the article about "erasure" of trans parents calls for the complete erasure of women

link

would they have called themselves 'transwomen' though, isn't that a recent term? you can't retrospectively assign someone- maybe they just loved frocks

Of slightly more concern would be the line "...all the colored girls go..."

The Wild Side "he was a she" was Holly Woodlawn, a transwoman. Actually, all the female names and "she" pronouns in Wild Side - Holly, Candy, Jackie - refer to transwomen from Andy Warhol's circle, so the whole song is probably safe from the cissexism police

What about that walk on the wild side, it says he was a she because he shaved his legs and wore women's clothes but that ignores the internal socio sexual construction of gender and confuses it with clothes and some gendered behaviour, bit that isn't the same as being either a transwoman or a ciswoman. Also why is it 'wild' to be a transvestite?

yup, that's how I hear it

No but 'so is lola' is 'Lola is glad that the narrator is a man'

To take it back to the origin of the thread, I nominated it as potentially being thought of as cissexist because it is written from the perspective of a cisgender man and so 'so is Lola' could be potentially considered offensive.

The song is entirely from the young man's viewpoint and his interpretation is that this is a man. I don't think you can say with any certainty from this song how Lola would see herself. There is no mention of how she lives the rest of her life.

If you read the wiki page there is references initially to transvestism but later on it suggests that they had frequented transgender pubs and that Ray Davis had had a friendship with a transgender actress. I think the song is purposely very ambiguous and that Lola being transgender is a valid interpretation.

"but whose to say today that she wouldn't choose to be transgender"

No-one can say that. There's a limit to how far you can speculatatively reinvent the past. Especially as I've just checked and Lola wasn't released until 1970, and so nearly a decade after say the publicity surrounding April Ashley. Acceptance in some parts of society, yes quite different. Likely to be an inhibition in the writing of this song? Nope.

Madculine! Sorry about my typing.

Your right it could be interpreted as a 'madculine' woman but I think it is meant to be either a transvestite or transgender person. The wiki page suggests it is based on the experiences of their manager.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_(song)

Sorry if I have derailed this thread OP.

Have just read the lyrics for Lola, they seem less ambiguous than I thought- it can be simply read as - Lola is a woman (who walks like a woman and talks like a man), the singer is a heterosexual man who dances with her, sits on her lap, she says to him 'little boy gonna make you a man' (his first sexual experience) - he reflects it's a mixed up world (girls will be boys and boys will be girls) but he, the singer is a man and Lola (always called she) is glad he is.
Straight man is not threatened by 'masculine' woman and is seduced by her.

Still wondering why it was such a hit with lesbians in 1980s discos though

The last line is (probably purposely) very ambiguous. The song is not from her viewpoint. 'And so is Lola' implies the protagonist sees her as a man but it doesn't mean she necessarily does.

Ray Davies is an interesting person as well as a bloody good song writer. He certainly pushed notions of gender in the 60s by dressing in what was considered to be a feminine way. 'I'm not the worlds most madculine guy' is another line from Lola. He wrote songs about sexuality - see my friends has been said to be about gay experiences (not necessarily his) although he has given other explanations of the song.

What is a "female persona"?