I'm Jack Monroe. Ask me anything.

[MxJackMonroe]

Hi Mumsnet.

It seems every time I am in the news, a MN thread about all things transgender crops up. I didn't see the last one (yesterday?) as I don't come on here very often these days - people who eavesdrop etc etc. I was cooking in a tent in a muddy field all day, having a ball, not googling myself on the internet!

The thread was deleted - which was nothing to do with me, nor my lawyer. The day I call him about a MN thread is the day I pack everything in for good. So far only the Mail and Hopkins have had legal action taken against them, and both for quite serious statements. I'm not rich enough nor quite bothered enough to call him every time someone says mean words on the internets.

ANYWAY. Threads about me tend to get deleted. So here's a new one. Because there are clearly some questions that keep coming up, criticisms that I could answer, speculation I could clarify and untruths that could do with correction.

So I'm taking questions. I'm an adult and I take an awful lot of criticism and unkindness online, on the chin. I am pretty mentally stable right now, and feel this could be a constructive discussion.

In order to stop this descending into pandemonium, using general 'chair' rules, to start with I'll take one question from each user - if it's quiet and everything gets answered, feel free to add follow up questions.

It doesn't have to be about boobs, dresses, hormones. Literally ask me anything.

MN - please don't delete this thread. I think people have valid things to say and I'm here with my big girl/boy pants on to hear them.

Over to you.

Lots of people do not use 'bisexual' because there is a lot of stigma. There is a widespread perception that, if you are bisexual, you must be attracted 50% of the time to men and 50% of the time to women. So, people refuse to use it, and that has a knock on effect of making it more abnormal.

I do think it is complicated, though - men who say they're bisexual are always assumed to be gay and in the closet, while women are assumed to be straight and 'trying to seem interesting'. It has a lot to do with the way we think female sexuality is for public consumption.

ExitPursuedByABear: Not this again. What's your favourite biscuit?

Right now I am hankering for a florentine and I know that's not a biscuit and it's also quite wanky but there you go.

Mx - you're very fortunate, and that sounds very healthy. I wish it could be like that for most people, and I am so angry that for most young women, it's not.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2013/09/battle-over-gender-what-makes-you-man-or-woman-anyway

RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers: Lots of people do not use 'bisexual' because there is a lot of stigma. There is a widespread perception that, if you are bisexual, you must be attracted 50% of the time to men and 50% of the time to women. So, people refuse to use it, and that has a knock on effect of making it more abnormal. I do think it is complicated, though - men who say they're bisexual are always assumed to be gay and in the closet, while women are assumed to be straight and 'trying to seem interesting'. It has a lot to do with the way we think female sexuality is for public consumption.

I agree with a lot of this.

no question here. I'm just going to point you to this site which details eloquently so many of my concerns around transactivists and young vulnerable people.

4thwavenow.com

Thanks! I'm trying to get my mind around how to express this well, because I work with young adults who're often trying to navigate terminology.

I understand why they don't use bisexual - and also why, these days, 'lesbian' is a dirty word and why they're much more likely to identify as trans or genderqueer - but I do worry that we need to keep analysing the reasons behind the labels.

I feel like sexuality inhabits a different social realm from gender. If people are having consensual sexual relationships then I don't care how, or whether, they choose to define their sexuality and I certainly have no interest in picking holes in apparent inconsistencies, or whatever.

Gender identification is something else entirely. It isn't entirely a private, personal matter. The web of what gender is, is something we weave collectively as a society and it really does impact on people, on society as a whole, how individuals structure it by their behaviour.

RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers: Mx - you're very fortunate, and that sounds very healthy. I wish it could be like that for most people, and I am so angry that for most young women, it's not.

It's something derived from sexual assault and abuse, I think. Neither of which I am willing to discuss in any great detail here so please - everyone - don't push me on it nor pontificate on how it may have contributed to me being trans. It didn't. I wanted to be a boy years before any of those incidents took place. But I suppose sex is less important to me than intimacy. Sexual intimacy is to me rare and phenomenal. Kisses are always 100% meant and willingly given. Sex...well...not exactly. Sadly. And that really is all I am going to say on it.

You mentioned being an "accidental role model" - tbf I don't think many people have heard of you outside MN. This does seem like attention seeking - the level of hate for trans issues on here is fairly clear, what exactly is it you hope to achieve? Are you publishing another book or just trying to get your name out there?

Genuine question, really not being snarkey.

maud - I'm interested in what you're saying. But I think sexuality isn't so different?

I think gender is socially constructed - the stereotypes are designed to keep women down. Heterosexuality isn't very different: it is designed to keep women down.

When you look at individual behaviours - women having sex with women, say, or boys wearing pink floaty dresses - it's easy to applaud personal choice and say that we should all just live and let live.

But heterosexuality isn't just about who you have sex with - it's a whole structure of assumptions about how female sexuality functions in relation to patriarchy. In that respect, it isn't really different from feminine 'gender'.

If gender is constructed, so too is sexuality, and we need to combat the constructed aspects of both.

It is really awful that so many people have sexualities forged under pressure; various forms of abuse, dominance, predatory behaviour. I am sorry to hear about you being assaulted, Mx.

And also well done for opening your own thread to which people can ask questions to which you can answer honestly.

Your childhood was the background of just about every feminist I am personally friends with. It's why they realised they were getting the raw deal so we work collectively to say you shouldn't treat anyone as anyone but who they are.

Saying you are 'non binary' implies the rest of us are binary. We're just people.

Also if you have a 'male brain' should you have a tax issue etc do you think you belong in a male prison as women's now house transwomen?

It just seems so boring - your gender/sex/sexuality is entirely your own business, so why do you feel the need to give interviews about it? It isn't like you are a high profile celeb who is trying to help other people in that situation. In the nicest possible way, nobody really gives a monkeys how anyone identifies apart from on here

these days, 'lesbian' is a dirty word

What?

Why?

Mx - I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences.

But I think perhaps you read me wrongly. I wasn't actually talking about your personal experience of kissing someone! I was responding to your claim in the earlier post.

My point was that, when you talk about straight women kissing their female friends, you shouldn't conflate it with sexuality. There's a misogynistic pressure on women to kiss each other as a performance of sexuality - some clubs, for example, will let women in for free, if they'll pose while kissing each other. It's a commodification of female sexuality which has nothing to do with women being 'straight', and so when you mentioned women kissing women, I thought it was important to clarify that this can be part of a very damaging dynamic.

"That was a flippant remark on my part but she was a pioneer in her day, with theories that we were all so much more than our biology, and now seeks to contradict her own views by reducing trans people to...their biology."

Saying we are all so much more than our biology doesn't deny that our biology exists or that it's not an immutable fact though.

Trans/non-binary gender performance puts everyone far more rigidly into gendered boxes than feminism ever did or will.

For eg, there's no such thing as a toy solely for boys or girls - one doesn't generally play with toys with one's genitals (and if they are that sort of toy, they're not for children anyway).

It is sad that being a woman is seen as something that's either not something people want to be associated with ("I'm non-binary, treat me as a person"), or is so often fetishised.

I'm looking forward to your answer about what it means to be a woman.

faire - because they're scared.

It's really upsetting and crap.

Scared of what Robin?

I have always felt that I should have been a boy, since I was very young. I had hissy fits about dresses as a child not because they were dresses, but because I was being treated 'like a girl'. I always role played male characters, went to fancy dress parties as Captain Scarlet, nicknamed myself Adam. The best explanation I can offer is that my brain thinks I am male and my body doesn't quite match up to it. I wrote a piece for the Guardian a while back that said when I was a young child I would pray to God that my tiny willy (my clitoris ffs - although of course i didnt know what it was or what it was for at the time) would grow into a proper one. I'm past that now, but the brain and body still don't match. I find it hard to explain as I have never known anything else.

Sorry if this might be a massive cross post, as I have just got to this bit. You have just described me. That was my childhood. At 5 declared I wanted to be a boy. Hated dresses etc. My parents sasaid ok. I cut all my hair off, and wore trouser. They still referred to me as a girl and didn't change my name. But I wore and did, played with what ever made me happy

I have wrote my story before on MN. Under a different name. The short story is it wasn't until late teens I entertained anything feminine.

I"m nearly forty, still Tomboyish. But enjoy dressing up on occasions. I never had any confusion about my sex or gender because I was just me, and people excepted me how ever I came across.

I worry that if I were growing up now, I!d be pushed into claiming I was a boy. I would go along with binding and such.

What is your favorite homemade meal? I'm looking for inspiration for tomorrows main meal.