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?

"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?"

I did answer your point Annie by saying that I do not personally believe that there is such a thing as a 'woman' essentially - to me, it is a cultural construction and something that is 'performed' rather than essential. I would therefore put the 'is' in the phrase 'is a woman' in your statement into question.

I'm just trying to explain how Butlerian arguments against the gender binary work - this is a really long-established and well-worn groove in feminism . I happen to be convinced by them, but I'm not saying that means everyone has to agree with me.

almond - I don't understand your point at all?!?! Like I said, tired here. A is not B is a point-based binary (there is nothing in the middle). A to B is a spectrum. It's just my analogy to try to explain how the whole 'inessential gender' thing works - and certainly not a very good one since it's creating far more confusion than it's removing!!

I don't think they do undermine them. Saying "I am not a woman " to me reinforces the idea that there is such a thing as 'a woman': the way a woman behaves, the way a woman dresses, the interests a woman has. It seems to be saying "I do not fit the societal box of woman so I'm not one".

So, shovetheholly why should Jack's identity as non-binary be respected and be "real", but her girlfriend's identity as a woman and a lesbian not be respected or recognised as real?

We really are down the rabbit-hole, here.

I think that's one reading of Jack's article - I'm just pointing out that there is another logic that gets outside that reinforcement, via social construction and ideology.

Well-said, Libraries.

Holly, I think you don't understand what either the words binary or spectrum actually mean.

Think of Jack Monroe as being like a bilingual person. They are fluent in both French and English. Sometimes Jack speaks fluently in English. Sometimes Jack speaks fluently in French. They moves fluidly from one to another and back.

They previously said they were gender fluid.

There are other people who speak a hybrid between English and French, who are other kinds of non binary, but that isn't what Jack Monroe is identifying as.

"So, shovetheholly why should Jack's identity as non-binary be respected and be "real", but her girlfriend's identity as a woman and a lesbian not be respected or recognised as real?"

As I said on the previous page "I agree that there's something problematic in Jack's response to their partner". I would also defend the right of both of these people to express their sexuality in whatever way they chose, and it sounds to me as though this was a dealbreaker for both of them.

I would, however, personally question the identification of boobs with femininity.

I think it was Jacks interpretation that their ex saw boobs as a key part of who they were (I am sorry, I will respect the pronoun request, but I'm not writing they was). The actual account of what their partner said was that she found it hard that Jack was rejecting a female identity.

Well, it seems that Jack also associates boobs with being female, if as part of her transition she wants them removed.

Jack Monroe has a history of being trolled, googling themself and getting upset about remarks made about them but not too them.

Much as I think this is a really interesting discussion, I think it would be respectful to talk about the implications of what Jack has written without attributing to them beliefs and attributes they have never claimed to hold.

..sorry, they. (I do keep on trying, but forget,)

And sorry, that is a general comment, not one aimed at Annie or anyone in particular.

Like what, Almond? I am basing everything here on the article they have just written.

"If identifying as non-binary is resistance against the binary, why is it described by many as a 'transition' and why is there a need for the term 'cis' to be applied to people who haven't publicly announced their rejection of binary gender? Because the only issue I have with it is it appears to me at many levels to require the binary to exist, in order to define oneself as different from it."

I don't think that all transsexuals by any means have the same models of gender. I am no expert in this area, but it seems clear to me that many hold quite essentialist ideas that are very, very different to those I'm espousing here. (Perhaps the essentialism is just of a different type to that of gender mapping onto a biologically determined sex - it seems to work at a more psychological 'inner' level with this vocabulary of feeling absolutely certain that you are the 'wrong' gender, of transitioning etc - but, like I said, I'm no expert).

I am just outlining my personal reading of the Jack Monroe piece, from my own position which is pretty poststructuralist and highly indebted to Butler. Clearly, there are other readings too that differ greatly to mine.

This issue of 'requiring the binary to exist'. Again, we keep coming back to this issue of 'existing' and 'not existing', 'real' and 'fictional'. I can't think of a better way to put it other than to say that social constructions are very, very real in their effects and very, very difficult to shift. So the binary does 'exist' very strongly out there in society (pink for girls and blue for boys and girls will be nurses and boys will be doctors), and is still naturalised and essentialised by some people who map it onto biological sex - but (in my personal view, anyway), this is all an ideological construct that is designed to naturalise and normalise a very contingent, historically specific set of gender expectations.

Annie - I keep having to edit too. They is ridiculous, it really is. I am fine with the sentiment of a non gender identifying pronoun, but we need to invent one!

"You can't deny though that we have been socialised to connect breasts with femininity. And all sorts of other problematic associations with female oppression, male gaze etc. So what I always wonder is, how does a historically realist ontology fit into all this?"

Hopefully that last paragraph I wrote answers this?

I'm hoping not to be flames here but I find all this really really confusing. I agree I think with much of what artemis said upthread and am trying so hard to understand it all. My dd who is 16 and bed bound through very serious illness for last 2 years has started talking a lot about cis, binary, non binary and all sorts of other stuff which I do not follow at ( though trying very very hard to for her sake). She only has the Internet ( a bit on iPad) to talk to as all her friends have dropped her and I worry about her. She told me recently she though she was bisexual and is now talking about transgender all ten time. She has a lot going on inside her head but honestly how do I support her? I think ( from what I know of her as a 14 year old before she became suddenly ill) as very like her elder sister at same age, interested in mates and school and animals and curious but not that interested in either boys or girls sexually - because she hadn't reached that stage yet. I think her interest stems from watching performers on YouTube. I am not knocking her or her curiosity but am so confused. It seems like a hugely popular topic with teens though. Any advice/ reading I can do?

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

See, that just isn't my interpretation. Although Jack has stopped short of identifying as a transman, I do very much feel they are rejecting femininity and are leaning more heavily towards the male end of the spectrum.

But I've read more from Jack than The Statesman article, I have to say. I follow Jack on Twitter and they have posted photos of themself as a teenager wearing male clothes - to prove something to their detractors, presumably. Putting it all together, I'm not getting such a gender-neutral vibe.

I'm not criticising Jack or suggesting they should just have bloody well said they are a transman (although, admittedly, I would not be surprised if that announcement came later, when they were more comfortable saying so) because, honestly, on a personal level you can call yourself whatever the fuck you want and that's all cool. But all this "what is binary" discussion is fascinating

overthemill - I fear that your question, which is a really important one that I feel very unqualified to answer, might get lost on this thread. I wonder if its worth making a separate thread, maybe in the Relationships forum? I am sure there will be lots of people with great advice.

My only contribution, sadly, is that love and understanding - both of which you clearly have in abundance - will go a very long way to supporting your DD.

I need to do some "proper" work! I'll try to check back to this discussion (which I'm really enjoying) later on - but I have guests over the weekend so if I don't reappear please don't think I've flung off in a huff or anything!! (I'll just be trying to cook something edible and non-poisonous, always an interesting, ahem, experiment).

My dd who is 16 and bed bound through very serious illness for last 2 years has started talking a lot about cis, binary, non binary and all sorts of other stuff which I do not follow at ( though trying very very hard to for her sake).

FWIW overthemill (although I agree you might want to start your own thread), without dismissing your DD's feelings at all, I've noticed it's quite trendy in young person circles to be very specifically labelling one's gender and sexuality - hence cis/genderqueer/genderfluid, and bi/pan/demi and asexuality. Tumblr is full of it As a jaded 35 year old I tend to feel it's just a bit of teen navel gazing and figuring out who they are as a burgeoning adult. All healthy and fine and not necessarily indicative that your DD is really trans - although of course eventual she may decide that she is.

Annie, I suppose that this comes back to trans activists being very evasive about what gender is, what the characteristics of men and women, masculinity and femininity are, and so on.

That makes it possible for people to make claims about gender being or not being a binary, a spectrum, a mosaic, socially constructed, innate, biological or a hundred and one other things, because the traits themselves were never defined.

So if we (not trans activists) want to look at feminine personality traits, we'd define them. Psychologists have done this and studied them for years. In psychological terms, femininity and masculinity are not on a spectrum. Some people have a lot of both - compassionate and competitive, imaginative and aggressive. Some people have little of either.

But someone else can equally say gender is a spectrum because they mean something else which they decline to specify.

But Jack Monroe has specified. Jack has explained that in gender expression they are sometimes very feminine (tea dress and stilettos) and sometimes very masculine, and has dysphoria about both their body and social role.

So while there are various wider implications to everyone - reinforcing femininity on to female bodies that can come from what Jack has said, that at least responds to what Jack actually said.

I don't think Jack should be used as some kind of totem to pin every transgender ideology on to. They can't be held responsible for every trans theory just because they say they are non binary.