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

I personally think it should be more of a fringe event rather than at an historic venue like The Globe. I remember visiting here on a school history trip and I bet they still have many schools visiting, you'd expect a degree of accuracy here and the poster is not a great look or the inescapable fact of female erasure.

I do think venues should consider what they are staging and whether it is appropriate for them to do so.

So, in short, until very, very recently non. So, Joan couldn't have been grammatically nb

😂

So, in short, until very, very recently non. So, Joan couldn't have been grammatically nb.

God yes the poster is awful

The globe has unisex loos doesn’t it? That tells you how much they will be up for ‘debate’.

I agree with this completely. I've seen a lot of plays, art installations, etc. Sometimes I find them offensive or strongly disagree with what they are saying. That's fine as long as it's done intelligently and makes me think, even if it just helps me understand why I object to something.

I am pleased to see the Globe doing this play, because I believe in free speech, even though I imagine I will find it infurating. I hope the theatre will have the guts to handle to handle the media around this with the understand that it's presenting a political view, not an opportunity to pat themselves on the back for correcting history. Even better if/when a theatre has the courage to put on a play that honestly explores the gender debate.

And absolutely yes about the poster. It reminds me of the awful Emma Corrin photo shoot from a year or so back about her 'cool' binding 'journey'.

‘iel’ - surely that’s from the Latin ‘small person who is insufferable pain in the backside’ - it’s science, people! Also see Ciseil (a natural born pain in the backside), and ‘’assigned iel at birth’ (my parents hate me).

They've invented a new gender neutral pronoun, 'iel'.

There's a whole bunch of alternatives on this page as well.

www.lawlessfrench.com/vocabulary/gender-neutral-pronouns/

We’d still be waiting for the battle to commence…

She’ll have everyone state their pronouns before giving speeches and going into battle, I guess.

This is exactly the point isn't it? In a world were grandstanding about identity and email signatures have little relevance, how will it work?

Just occurred to me, does the French language have a gender neutral 'they'? There is 'ils' for males and mixed groups and 'elles' for females, what is used for gender neutral?

She’ll have everyone state their pronouns before giving speeches and going into battle, I guess.

I've been wondering about this again this morning. How will Joan's non-binariness manifest itself in the play? Will Joan introduce Joan's self to each character with name and pronoun exchange? Or will the audience/characters infer Joan's true inner sense of self from Joan's "gender expression" i.e. clothes and haircut?

Identify as non-binary! There’s literally nothing stopping you.

A pp mentioned dialogue - I for one hope there will be a line similar to that female student at the Bristol Jam Jar protest - when being referred to as she, she they replied “my pronouns are they, you c*nt!”

Oh, absolutely, to both replies. Wasn't saying anything different.

But what I am getting at is that it is perfectly possible to have a split second of misidentifying someone's sex

That's not the same as passing as the opposite sex. After that split second, in nearly every case, you'd recognise the actual sex of that person.

But what I am getting at is that it is perfectly possible to have a split second of misidentifying someone's sex

sure, I don’t think anyone’s in disagreement with that. Probably most of us can remember times it’s happened. It feels a bit like putting your foot on a step that isn’t there. But we can remember it because it’s unusual, a malfunction of sorts. We don’t remember the 99.9999% of occasions when we’ve seen a person and automatically identified their sex as soon as we saw them.

It does depend, sure. I think if you glanced up, on hearing a deep voice, you'd think 'man' before you took in the shape of the person+clothing; I can see how gait can say something different from what clothes say (Gentleman Jack is fab at this - Suranne Jones 'looks' cross-dressed because of her body language, even though she's wearing a skirt - though whether she would in a dress that hid her body more, I'm not sure).

But what I am getting at is that it is perfectly possible to have a split second of misidentifying someone's sex, if they are doing or wearing something that gives you a powerful cue to do that.

Well, all of it, because he circles back and forth (and his argument is tangled up with questions of sodomy and effeminacy, as well). But metre 1 is the standard bit that gets cited.

Perhaps your point is also my point - my response was to the idea that, during times of war, everyone was or should have been far too busy for speculating about pronouns and chopping logic about what it means to have a sexed body. But, of course, they weren't.

Whether anyone genuinely thinks pronoun use changes the physical body, I'm not really sure.

If you live in a culture where it's unthinkable for men to wear dresses, if you see a figure in a dress, you will think 'woman' long before you process anything much else.

This really isn’t true. Depends very much on the man and on the dress, and on whether you are seeing him move and talk.

-Oh, sorry - Alan or Alain of Lille, De Planctu Naturae

Thanks, what passages from this are you referring to?

I don't think medieval people had the same sense of 'biological' sex as us, so it wouldn't make sense to look for examples of them thinking about it.

To some degree that is my point.

But equally, where did their understanding of what sex they were come from? If not the biological reality of their bodies? Even if they didn't use that exact term.

Are there examples at the time of anyone who felt that pronouns would change the reality of their possession of male/female organs?

But what do you mean by 'face value as a serious idea'.

I don't think medieval people had the same sense of 'biological' sex as us, so it wouldn't make sense to look for examples of them thinking about it.

Oh, sorry - Alan or Alain of Lille, De Planctu Naturae.