Jack Monroe on being non-gender binary

[IShouldBeSoLurky]

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/10/being-non-binary-i-m-not-girl-called-jack-any-more-i-m-not-boy-either

I've got a lot of time for Jack and Jack's brave stance on poverty and honest approach to discussing it. I also think the the taunting Jack came in for when the Daily Mail took agin Jack was appalling (but then the DM treats everyone appallingly if they thing it's going to get them clicks).

But this article... I don't know. It seems to me it would all be SO much simpler if one were able to say, "I was born a girl and given a girl's name which I later changed. I'm a lesbian and a mother and proud of both those things. And I don't feel it's necessary for me to perform gender, because I think the things I enjoy like pushing weights and wearing high heeled shoes sometimes shouldn't be gendered things."

Instead we have this tortuous charade of writing copy that's confusing because individuals want to be referred to by a plural pronoun, and the massive shenanigans about deadnaming (of course it's offensive, but no more so than calling a woman by her husband's surname when she hasn't actually changed her name) - some of it might be bigotry but some might just be confusion. And some of it, like referring to the Olympic medalist as Bruce, not Caitlyn, Jenner, is just factually accurate.

I was talking to DP about it earlier and saying that almost all languages (all, maybe? I don't know) have been structured with gender as pretty fundamental, because when language was developing, a person's biological sex WAS significant in a way it perhaps isn't, or shouldn't be, now. What if language just wasn't gendered at all (eg if the phrase "Ladies and gentlemen..." were never used), and it was only necessary to refer to a person's biological sex when it was fundamental to the subject (eg pregnancy and childbirth)? What if we were all they/zhe/something else?

I'm sure this has all been gone over multiple times on here, but I find it so difficult. Part of me wants to give Jack the respect Jack deserves, and part of me is like, "Look, lots of us aren't comfortable with gender roles. Stop making out that you're some special snowflake who gets misgendered at every turn." And then I think maybe I'm just as out of touch and carmudgeonly as people who insist it's fine to call gay people "queers".

What do others think about all this?

those women will continue to be punished if/when they stray an inch from this imposed norm.

Or, to follow on from my own point, in some families (either super-liberal or horribly conservative) they will be told they aren't women at all, but men, as it's more comprehensible to the conservative mindset to cope with someone "born in the wrong body" (an outdated trope, I know) than to cope with a butch woman or a lesbian.

(Teena Brandon, long considered the poster boy for trans maleness, was in this position - she identified as a woman shortly before her death, and it has been very persuasively argued that her positioning as a boy was down to the lesbophobia and misogyny of her surroundings: www.triviavoices.com/the-inconvenient-truth-about-teena-brandon.html)

I think that JM has been very disingenuous. She's spent the last few years promoting her "a girl called Jack" brand, making a big point about how she's a girl with a "boy's" name. Her gender dysphoria didn't stop her posing for bikini selfies and she often blogged about being a woman bearing the brunt of misogynistic trolls.

I am actually surprised at how regressive her thinking is around gender, as mentioned by other posters. She seems to be constantly on the look-out for the next social bandwagon to jump on. I wouldn't be surprised if she does a Rachel Dolezal and comes out as black. I wonder if her son is allowed to call her "mummy" any more.

ArcheryAnnie, please can you explain how/where Jack is being homophobic?

I'm surprised that anyone cares how people define their own gender identity. It's an interesting subject and we should definitely discuss what it means to be male or female, and the relationship between sex and gender. But I really can't find Jack Monroe at fault in any way here.

Hmm, well the wider context is there - I think the general trend towards "HDU call me a butch lesbian, I'm non-binary trans" is rooted in a general hatred of lesbians and lesbianism. But I don't blame individual lesbians for opting into this, consciously or unconsciously, because why wouldn't you, to go from the most hated group to brave and celebrated?

But specifics: Jack uses their public platform to cast their ex-girlfriend as a horrible shallow transphobic lesbian. Jack describes the moment they talked to her about having top surgery, and the girlfriend reacted with horror at the idea of Jack transitioning. Was that response from the girlfriend a kind, nicely-worded, supportive response? No. But when your DP, someone you have planned a future with, suddenly announces something which not only impacts their identity, but yours in a pretty fundamental way, too, then of course you are going to be caught on the hop. If you are a woman who identifies as a lesbian and you are going out with someone who suddenly announces they are no longer a woman, then you may find you cannot any longer consider yourself a lesbian. Which, considering the real struggle that many lesbians have to endure to get to the point of calling themselves lesbians, is a really big fucking deal.

But Jack completely glosses over this. She says "When someone tells you that the core of your relationship is your bra size, you hightail and run." Which - if it happened as she describes - is bullshit, and disengenuous, offensive bullshit at that. Jack doesn't report the girlfriend as saying "I fancy big boobs", Jack reports her as saying "I fancy GIRLS". This wasn't a conversation about boobs. This was a conversation about a lesbian being upset (unsurprisingly) on discovering that her partner is no longer a woman.

I am so sick of lesbians being told that fancying women is not actually acceptable, and that in order not to be bigoted, lesbians must fancy people who are not women - whether that's people with female bodies who don't identify as women, or people with male bodies who do, as well as all the bazillion straight men who think lesbians just need a bit of dick to turn them. It's such a pervasive trope, and such an old one, and I never expected Jack Monroe to be one of the ones doing it.

I am so fucking disappointed.

I agree with that Annie. Jack writes about their ex-girlfriend as if she is a shallow, cruel person for having difficulty with Jack wanting a double mastectomy. It's OK for a lesbian to say "I fancy women, not transmen". And FWIW, Jack has also ended their relationship with Allegra McEvedy, so presumably there were similar issues in that relationship too.

Incidentally, using "their" instead of "him/her" still feels grammatically wrong to me, because when I typed "Jack writes about their ex-girlfriend" the their makes it look like I'm talking about an unnamed third party.

I agree with you Annie. That part of the article was very strange and, as you said, she was being disingenuous with the boobs comment.

That's an interesting article. On the one hand, as a measure of basic compassion and humanity I can wish Jack only the best, and am totally content to respect their choice of pronoun, and I'm sorry for the struggles they've faced - it can't have been easy.

HOWEVER, that article is just so full of things I find problematic, worrying or downright horrible. For a start, as annie said above - where was Jack's compassion for their lesbian girlfriend who was just expected to accept without murmer her lover getting their breasts removed because they didn't think they were a woman any more? What about HER identity and self expression, why don't they matter? It would have been much more graceful to accept that they were not in fact compatible and move on with kindness and acceptance, not slag her off for being overly obsessed with tits.

For someone who wants to be non-binary and upset notions of gender, Jack really needs to have a think about why they believe muscles, polo shirts and martial arts are essentially masculine, while ballet is profoundly not. And also why someone non-binary should continue to qualify for a Woman of the Year award, while at the same time distancing themselves from their previous incarnation in which they actually earned the accolade which seems very cake-and-eating it to me. Why would their birth name be such a source of shock and horror to them, but being referred to as a woman for the purposes of reward, is not?

Missing a graduation because you're being asked to wear a skirt just seems a bit...petulant to be honest. The whole point of a uniform is that it kind of erases you as an individual in favour of meshing into a group. Sure a skirt is impractical, but most dress uniforms are unsuitable for anything except swanning round in. It all just seems a bit muddled and confused. Which is of course, I suppose, what humans do best.

Sorry I meant their.

I found that very difficult too. I am straight. I fancy men. If my partner said "I no longer identify as a man. I'm going to remove my secondary sex characteristics" then that would be a big fucking deal.

And I'm straight, I get to be the societal default. To paint it as shallow and callous to struggle with that as a lesbian seems remarkably lacking in compassion or self awareness.

For someone who wants to be non-binary and upset notions of gender, Jack really needs to have a think about why they believe muscles, polo shirts and martial arts are essentially masculine, while ballet is profoundly not. And also why someone non-binary should continue to qualify for a Woman of the Year award, while at the same time distancing themselves from their previous incarnation in which they actually earned the accolade which seems very cake-and-eating it to me. Why would their birth name be such a source of shock and horror to them, but being referred to as a woman for the purposes of reward, is not?

I agree with all of this. Leaving aside the issue of removal of breasts, an enormous amount of what Jack defines as being non-gender binary seems to amount to rejecting traditional performance of femininity.

And does why being 'non binary' seems to amount to accepting all sorts of 'male' elements whilst expressing revulsion at the 'female'. I mean, there is a massive focus on dress. Surely we should be challenging the idea that dress is an essential element of identity and reclaiming the idea that it's just, you know, clothes. Rather than saying "I want to mostly wear suits and therefore I don't fit in the box you call female". And, whilst rejecting the female (or male) pronoun, it seems perfectly acceptable to have a boy's name and not one of the few truly unisex names like Alex.

Annie - I don't really understand this: 'Yes, and as long as we continue to insist that if you aren't "girly" then you can't possibly be a girl, those women will continue to be punished if/when they stray an inch from this imposed norm'. Because what you are saying and what Jack is saying seem to be the same point? (Equally Freshwater - as I said earlier, Jack makes it clear that they don't think 'ballet is for girls and martial arts are for boys' but that SOCIETY creates these pressures that need to be resisted).

I agree that there's something problematic in Jack's response to their partner. BUT if a woman has a double mastectomy because of breast cancer, and doesn't want to have reconstructive surgery for medical reasons, does that make it OK for her partner (male or female) to reject her sexually? And is there really that much of a difference between this case and that of someone who just feels more comfortable without breasts, but doesn't identify as a 'man'?

BUT if a woman has a double mastectomy because of breast cancer, and doesn't want to have reconstructive surgery for medical reasons, does that make it OK for her partner (male or female) to reject her sexually? And is there really that much of a difference between this case and that of someone who just feels more comfortable without breasts, but doesn't identify as a 'man'?

Yes. That whole conversation, if it happened as Jack describes, was not about boob size but about gender identity. If you are a lesbian you go out with women. If what you thought was your prospective life partner (they were apparently planning a wedding) is no longer a woman, then yes, that makes a difference. A woman with big boobs, small boobs, lopsided boobs, no boobs at all because masectomy is still a woman. That's different from removing your boobs because you no longer identify as female.

But if you believe that gender is not a binary but a spectrum (and you don't have to be any kind of sexuality to believe that), then does it make that much difference? Jack doesn't identify as a woman OR a man - they are pointing to shades inbetween.

A spectrum still has points on it. If you are a lesbian then you go out with women. Why is it so hard to get people to believe that? Why won't lesbian sexuality every be respected without having to justify it, again and again?

shovetheholly are you pansexual, then? Do you believe everyone that isn't pan is a bigot?

But it's absolutely not the same thing shovetheholly. Jack's desire for "top surgery" cannot be taken out of the context of feeling transgender. Even that phrase is unique to transmen. A woman who undergoes a double mastectomy and doesn't opt for reconstruction isn't also rejecting their femininity and all that goes along with it.

Seems a bit lose-lose for lesbians.
If they object to sleeping with male-bodied people who identify as women, they're bigots.
If they object to sleeping with female-bodied people who don't identify as women, they're bigots.
So are they meant to define their sexuality by body type or identification? Seems they must be wrong either way.

If gender is not binary but a spectrum, isn't it the case that probably 95 % of us are non binary (ie not at a societally suggested end point ). In which case isn't it a bit odd to be saying "I am non binary" as if it is a departure from the average?

BUT (for about the fifth time) - Jack isn't rejecting either femininity or masculinity!! They are saying they are a kind of hybrid.

I don't know how I can put this to make the point clear. (I am really tired, so this is my fault). It's like you have a binary system, which is A or B. B is defined by being not-A and A by being not-B.

Then you have a different model, that of a spectrum, which is a sliding scale from A to B. Imagine, just for the sake of simplicity, that it's divided into ten completely arbitrary points. A point roughly a third from the end of that spectrum, at imaginary number 3, isn't a rejection of A and an embracing of B. It is quite a lot of A but a little bit of B. If A is black and B is white, then point 3 is a dark grey, a mixture of both.

Now add in the idea that the binary model - A or B - is a fiction that has been created by society to wield power and that has done a lot of damage to A in particular. One of the ways it has done so is by mapping A and B to biology and thus constructing A and B as inevitable natural characteristics (essentialism). Suddenly, if you reject the binary no-one is at those extreme ends of the scale, and everyone is some kind of a 'point' because there is no such thing as 'essential A' or 'essential B'.

However, because society is very, very powerful you can't simply 'step outside' it. Firstly, it's impossible to live outside of your own context and time - how on earth could anyone do that? Secondly, because it does a lot of work for the rich and the powerful and the Bs of the world, there are all kinds of disciplinary, regulative frameworks that will stop you from trying to escape that binary.

So showing how gender is "performed", how it is a cultural and social construction and not something essential, can become an act of resistance against it.

"Isn't it a bit odd to be saying "I am non binary" as if it is a departure from the average?"

Yes, everyone would be non-binary.

But no, it's not odd to point it out, because that is be to ignore ideology. The binary is a 'fiction' in the sense that it is a construction that is designed to shore up certain power relations that are quite artificial and present them as natural and inevitable and biologically-based. However, because that fiction is supported by power and believed by a great many people and used to discipline and regulate things into a binary, it has very, very real effects on everyday life.

(Basically - Judith Butler's 1990 book Gender Trouble is superb on this).

So your argument is that defining as non binary is a rejection of the binary model for everyone? A stepping stone to recognising a spectrum?

Because, personally, that isn't how it seems. The idea of a spectrum is an artificial construct in itself. The idea that (using your anaology) you say you are a 3 and therefore non binary reinforces the idea there is some sort of 'A1'' which is archetypal female. And what are the attributes of being an A1 exactly.

To me, it seems rather like saying that you want to live in a different room of the house when in fact the whole house needs to be pulled down.

Still didn't answer my question, shovetheholly. Even a spectrum has points on it. If your point on the spectrum is that you are a lesbian - ie you only go out with women - why should you be asked to justify not going out with anyone who is not a woman?

And are you pan? And do you think anyone not pan, a bigot? Because that's the logical end point of your premise.

Gender (in the sense of masculine and feminine traits) aren't a spectrum though.

Saying A is not B doesn't mean A and B are two points at opposite ends of a spectrum.

That is like saying that because a dog is not a canoe, there is a spectrum between the two things.

Some people have lots of feminine and lots of masculine traits. Some people have very little of either. You don't lose some of one as you gain some of the other.

Jack Monroe seems to be saying they have lots of masculine and feminine expression. They have both sets of traits. That is not analogous to being grey rather than black or white. It is analogous to being a whole dog and a whole canoe, not some weird hybrid that has some parts canoe and some parts dog!

Yes - that once you reveal gender to be inessential and constructed, you can no longer believe in the binary.

The A and B on the spectrum would be the A and B of the binary (cultural fictions that are nonetheless socially powerful). And by pointing to the fact that they are based on a fiction of 'naturalness', those positions in between both 'quote' or 'perform' them and simultaneously undermine them.