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.

Hello Jack.

Thank you for responding by openly coming and offering to answer questions. Hats off to you for this.
My question is

• You say you're non binary because you want to be treated like a person. But what on earth do you think the rest of us want?!

Hi Jack,

My question is: what is a woman?

Hi Jack. I just wondered where you see yourself in 10 years time? I know you've spoken about maybe going into politics, are you still interested in doing that?

Hi Jack, kudos for doing this thread. I've admired your cooking for a bit and your eloquence here is impressing me too.

Foodwise what you you think are the most over and under-rated ingredients? I love tarragon and am suprised how hard it is to find in the UK.

Ok, so.....I'm of the opinion that tinned or frozen veg are as good, if not better than fresh on account of the 'farm to freezer/tin is hours' in some cases, unlike days for fresh veg. What is your go-to frozen or tinned veg meal???

Welcome to Mumsnet, Jack. Thanks for stopping by and doing this.
(from a gender fluid mum qith at least one non binary child).

Nothing to ask, but think you're great x

DaisyDaisy

'Lots of young people look up to you, Jack. Sending them down this path of surgery and hormones is sick.'

How & where & when did Jack do that? Source please??? Otherwise it's just a spurious & vacuous attribution and a very nastily worded one at that.

Or are you suggesting Jack can't make own choices for fear others will 'copy' her? As clearly that's frickin ludicrous.

Well Jack I love you follow your blog Twitter and face book and seen your highs and lows love you and always will ps due to one of you blogs/speeches the Co I work for donated monies to the local trussel trust X

Robin: To rephrase more clearly: can you tell me if it is 'trans' to feel as if I don't fit the stereotypes of male and female, and don't feel comfortable with my body? And what does 'cis' feel like (to the best of your understanding - I am not attributing 'cis' to you, just putting it in inverted commas because I know it is a controversial term)?

Apologies, I was working backwards, sort of, so didn't see the first post. I am loathe to give a politicians answer but I can't tell you if you are transgender or not. There is some good information on the NHS website and other similar resources. I sought a medical diagnosis but not all transgender people do.

As for cis, I have no idea what that feels like. I have read that it is when your biology matches your brain, but I have always felt a disturbance between the two. I think cis has been used as a term of insult insofar as to lose its original meaning, and now sparks quite strong feelings. Also I find it bizarre that anyone would choose to label another person something that they do not call themselves, it seems to be exactly the kind of thing we should all be moving away from. Complex and spiky, that one.

I have no questions and missed the deleted threads but I will be reading and stalking the thread. Waving.

Hi jack - completely off topic but i just wanted to say a huge thank you, currently going through a bad time financially took my dd to the library and saw a copy of your book cooking on a bootstrap. Me and the three year old spent a fun afternoon making your tinned fishackes and marmalade cakes and honestly it was amazing. It cost us hardly anything cooking with what was mostly in and making it together lifted some of the "I'm skint" depression that seems to settle in after a while.

Huge thank you and I will be buying my own copy when things improve.

hi Jack
Can you accept or even back up or assist with women like myself who are:

1. worried about our safety in environments like public toilets, hospital wards and other spaces that have been sex separate if men with functioning male genitalia can access those spaces freely

2. worried that the law will start to consider us not women because we don't believe in gender.

Thank you.

Who??

Shit, sorry Jack - have just inadvertently referred to you as 'her'. Apols, was so taken aback by DaisyDaisy's assertions that was typing uber swiftly & brain didn't kick in.

Actually, on ^^^ that note, when people fail to get it 'right' (sorry, can't think of a more intelligent way of phrasing it) in the his/her/their department - IE as I have just done above - does it bother you as much as some posters on the now deleted thread claim it does?

I am not telling anyone else that they are in the wrong body.

Ok, but how do you know? And how should other people learn?

I remember you writing about sexuality. I am a fairly recently-out lesbian and I found it helpful to read other women talking about how they knew they were gay - because it wasn't immediately obvious. And I am aware that many other women have had the same experience.

Yet, when it comes to trans issues, it seems as if thousands of women - some of them on this thread - are saying, yes, that sounds like me too. And I feel as if some people, including you, seem resistant to that idea, that it might be really quite normal to be how you are?

Surely there's something interesting and useful here. Maybe the majority of women do experience the same thing as you? I don't see why there can't be a discussion about this, the same way there can be about sexuality?

From this thread it seems to me there is a clear line in the sand between what many women experience as children (role playing male characters and hating dresses etc.) and what Jack described as a child (wishing to grow male genitalia).

I take daisy's point that it is dangerous to blur that line - to suggest that not wanting to perform femininity is the same as being trans...but I don't see that Jack is guilty of that crime?

Jack "I have read that it is when your biology matches your brain, but I have always felt a disturbance between the two."

sorry, many cross posts.

Does this mean you believe in a male brain and a female brain? I don't have any use for my female parts (I'm childfree) but I don't feel the need to change sex, therefore I'm okay with those parts though if I could take a pill to make them disappear, I might.

does this make not a woman?!

Pawprintz: How do you feel inside? Are you happy?

Yes, most of the time on most of the days. And any spells of unhappiness are generally despair at the state of the Labour Party, terrorist attacks, war, larger world issues than nipple-gazing.

I haven't heard of you, Im afraid. But why should anybody label themselves? Is anybody that bothered what sex a person is these day? There are far more important things to worry about!

Jack said in the observer that she's ok with female pronouns

Cross post.

Thank you, that is very useful.

I have never felt as if 'cis' describes me. I do know a couple of women who feel it does - one is very feminine in the stereotypical sense, and we have had a lot of conversations about it. But, in my experience, it is so very rare. So I end up feeling like a outsider when people tell me I 'must' be cis, because I do not feel my gender fits my body! And, FGS, that is what feminists have been saying for decades, and I thought that made perfect sense, so I feel so frustrated when someone turns around and tells me - without bothering to get to know me at all - that I must be 'cis'!

Jack, do you think that males and females have structurally different brains?

Lorelei76

By brain I meant identity, but this answers it much better than I can. www.newscientist.com/article/dn28582-scans-prove-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain/

When you were debating with Julia Long on Newsnight & she gave reasons why women might not want to share certain spaces with biological males, your response was along the lines of "Women attack people too."

Do you honestly have no problem with the idea that any man should be able to claim to be trans and strip off in the communal changing area at the local swimming pool, and that women should be expected to ignore their self-protection instincts - the ones that are drummed into us from childhood - because transphobia? If so, then surely segregation of any kind becomes redundant and we should all just be in together?