Globe Theatre makes Joan of Arc non-binary in new play

I'm fairly certain @AgnestaVipers was joking...

It is tiresome. Every great woman holding their own amongst men could be called non binary or trans according to their terns.

There could be Queen Elizabeth 1
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too"

Bodicea

The Amazons - like the Ice Princess and those other Scythian woman buried with their weapons.

Margaret Thatcher deepening her voice
just as David Owen said mixing perfume and cigars.

Virginia Wolf for writing Orlando

All the suffragettes who wanted the vote must have wanted to be men in their heart of hearts.

All those wives who ‘wear the trousers’ are trans, as are their husbands those covert trans women.

She was questioned at her trial about her clothing. She made it clear it was a protection against rape and for practical reasons.
It is interesting that she was persuaded to go back to wearing a dress in prison. She agreed and then next day insisted on male clothes again.
During the night before, English guards had caused a commotion in her cell. She didn't say what happened precisely but she seems to have been rough handled. An indecent assault? A rape? She was upset enough to want her male clothes back the next day.

Um ... but this is fiction, right?

It's not a documentary or a textbook. It's a play. And one which the author explicitly relates to their own life.

I could see how I might feel cross about this play - even as fiction - if I thought it were absolutely incompatible with the historical person and the historical context. But it isn't. In this period, writers were quite clear that sex wasn't binary, and that women who were spiritually privileged (like Joan) were a category of women unlike other women, and closer to masculinity.

We may not like this, and it may sound like the most unreconstructed misogyny (it is). And I don't think it is the same as the modern idea of being non-binary. But it's simply a fact that many medieval people would have understood someone like Joan as being neither male nor female; it's also clear that many people would have been entirely at home with the idea that a person's gender could be quite other than what their sexed body might suggest.

I do know a bit about about Joan, Its the fact that the men don’t aren’t they/them in that piece that irritating me, bloody typical! Making Joan non binary is absolutely ridiculous.

Exactly. She wore trousers for convenience and for some protection against rape.

And is they (Joan) wearing a binder in the poster?

On their website under a section called Globe Values:

Shakespeare’s Globe is unequivocally pro-human rights. This includes trans people, non-binary people, black and minority ethnic people, and people with disabilities. Trans men and women and non-binary identities exist and are valid.
Interesting how trans and non-binary are listed twice and first, people with disabilities once and last. In the next paragraph they say they are 'pro-trans', whatever that means. I guess disabled people just aren't quite as important, despite being a much much bigger group...

I’m not and I do!

No

Yes, the pants tied quite firmly to the top making removing them harder than just flipping up a skirt. When she was incarcerated she signed a paper agreeing to wearing female clothing but she returned to wearing male clothing because of sexual assault. Obviously the jailer supplied the clothing I suppose as a kind of 'gotcha'. I am astonished that it was one of the major strands in the case condemning her.

But she was emphatically still female. I'm not religious or French but if I were this would seem kind of blasphemous and extremely disrespectful.

This is frustrating. When Charlie went by Charlotte she was cast in an all female version of Julius Caesar I think at the National and then she played Mercutio as a woman at The RSC. It was quite key for some of the young women who engaged with that version of Romeo and Juliet that the playmaker character could be a woman.

At the time I did wonder about Charlotte's trajectory - and here we are.

It just seems a shame that she was able to take advantage of female exploration of smashing male gender norms in theatre and has turned it into this kind of female erasure.

I thought we knew one of the reasons she wore men's clothing at least some of the time. It was to make it slightly harder for her captors to rape her.

Bonkers
Whatever next???

Yes I think that too. I do wonder if chaps who had visions were examined. To go through everything she went through is astounding. I think she’s an amazing person.

Agreed, but we're dealing with religious convention from 600 years ago in that instance. I think Joan did undergo virginity tests (such as they were) if I recall correctly, to prove she hadn't been fornicating with Satan and that her visions were true and not lies sent by the devil to trick everyone.

Yes but isn’t it interesting that in order to have a vision you have to be pure. All a bit ick.

Well yes, the men were fighting. Philip III, Henry VI, and Charles VII.

Joan joined Charles' forces.

I think the "Maiden" suffix was more to do with emphasising her virginity, which was considered crucial to the plausibility of her religious visions, than her femininity.

But..I find this offensive and I’m not sure why. isn’t this saying she’s an icon because she’s non binary. Not because she managed, as a woman, in extremely oppressive to women times, ( oh wait..) to Lead an entire country’s army to victory. In order to do this, and possibly to have some authority/ avoid being patronised/ raped,she cut her hair and wore armour to lead a really rough bunch of hooligans across rough country.
but that doesn’t seem to matter, what does matter is she had short hair…and therefore is non binary. yay!
let’s hope all non binary people are as amazing.

I notice it says “ The men are fighting again “ in the description of the play...🤬

I imagine the main character in the play won't get much done anyway, they will spend two hours correcting the other characters pronouns.

I think it does detract from the actual historical woman. Especially if people do what they often do with fictionalised accounts of real people from history, which is to take what is presented to them as generally accurate.

Regardless of that, I think it's great to have a thread where women can discuss what a shit idea for a play this is and how it stomps all over the real history of what was a brave and challenging woman.

Wasn't the whole point of Joan of Arc's story that she was a woman defying all the norms of the time, that's why she stood out and that's why she had to claim (aside from also being a peasant) that she was On A Mission From God), and that's why she was burned at the stake?
To be fair I imagine if Jean d'Arc had tried the same schtick, he'd have been hanged or skewered at the end of a sword 2 paragraphs into his story!