Kate Tempest - new name, new pronouns and a haircut

[MarSeeAh]

I was listening to Jo Wiley’s show earlier and she announced that Kate Tempest, singer/poet, has announced that she is non-binary, now to be known as Kate, changed her pronouns to they ....

To be honest, I didn’t even know what Kate Tempest looked like, and the only song of hers which I know is “Peoples’ Faces” which Jo had just played - otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue who she was talking about.

www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/06/kate-tempest-announces-they-are-non-binary-changes-name-to-kae

Going by images of Kate/Kae online, she had long hair until recently.

I grew up in the ‘70s and 80s when hair length was no indication at all of sex - because it isn’t!

Now, every time I see a girl or young woman get her long hair cut short, I’m waiting for the new name and pronouns to be announced.

Why this fixation on the superficial?

Kate’s poem 13 is wonderful. I read it to teenagers I teach all the time,

I can’t find a screen shot but heres reading of it. She certainly understands gender stereotypes

Too long spent surrounded by people blowing smoke up their arse. You become convinced that you really are that special little four leaf clover, and not just another common or garden pretentious tit.

It’s not cool or progressive whatsoever to say you are special and not like other girls. It’s just man-pleasingly fiddling while Rome burns. It challenges precisely fuck all and it helps no one but yourself. It’s definitely not an effective solution to misogyny (which can’t be identified out of) but even if it were, its only an individualistic solution. Everyone needs to think much bigger and with greater solidarity.

Text link - good poem and more than a little ironic to read considering this announcement
www.panmacmillan.com/blog/march-2016/friday-poem-thirteen

'Thirteen'
From Kate Tempest's first full-length poetry collection Hold Your Own.

The boys have football and skate ramps.
They can ride BMX
and play basketball in the courts by the flats until midnight.
The girls have shame.
One day,
when we are grown and we have minds of our own,
we will be kind women, with nice smiles and families and jobs.
And we will sit,
with the weight of our lives and our pain
pushing our bodies down into the bus seats,
and we will see thirteen-year-old girls for what will seem like the first time since we’ve been them,
and they will be sitting in front of us, laughing
into their hands at our shoes or our jackets,
and rolling their eyes at each other.
While out of the window, in the sunshine,
the boys will be cheering each other on,
and daring each other to jump higher and higher.

What ChattyLion said!

Ppl like KT are only interested in themselves.its tedious in the extreme

Well done dear, you’re now ‘not like the other girls’ but soooo much cooler 🙄

if KT thinks they will stop being regarded as magically not being a woman they’re in for a shock - but you know at 34 KT knows this. What this does is enable KT to join in the LGBTQ sparkle umbrella whilst not having to do anything but have a hair cut

How more LGB ppl aren’t furious about the appropriation of all the struggle people went through to have their sexuality accepted only for self centred overly indulged naval gazing wokesters to appropriated by ppl whose biggest struggle seems to be whether to dye their hair pink or blue baffles me

Thank you @ChattyLion. Irony indeed.

@MrsJamin

So disappointed in her them. What a let down to kt's female fans who love that kt doesn't conform to stereotypes and was just herself... Now she is just themselves?! The pronoun thing makes so hard to write anything... We're asked to suspend our senses that she's a woman and not multiple people...? Argh.

Aside from the whole gender thing, I would have much less of an issue with ze/zer(zim) pronouns for people identifying as non binary. Yes, there are certain scenarios where they/them can be used as singular pronoun, but not all scenarios.

Quote from Wikipedia: "They toured internationally with their band Sound of Rum until they disbanded in 2012 before being commissioned to write their first play".

This really highlights the problem: using they for Tempest and they for Tempest's band.

i think gender non binary is artificial identity.
man and woman are binary?
why?
why do i have to practice binary gender role?

I can't begin to describe how annoyed I am that this "news" was imparted to me via my own Facebook feed. I thought to myself - funny, I don't know this person, they must be a friend of a friend. So I scrolled through the comments to see if anyone I know had commented, but no.

I make no secret of my feelings on the sex/gender subject on Facebook so it seriously gets on my nerves that this story was dished up to me without my permission.

As a pp said - why is this happening to so many young lesbians? It's almost as if being a woman just isn't good enough ...

being a woman- a karen- is not cool.

she sold out.

I have a friend who is a teacher. She is 30. Extremely intelligent, lovely person. She was extolling the bravery and general wonderfulness of one of her 6th form girls who has come out as non-binary. How much support she was getting etc etc. I was just baffled.
I think it is general desperation/pressure to conform to current fads, just as teenagers have always done.

Posted too soon.
I meant to add that I think adolescence is going on well into the 30s for a lot of young people.

This upsets me because young girls need role models like KT to show they don't have to grow up to be Barbie. Every time a woman like KT comes out as non-binary the pressure grows on young girls who don't fit gender stereotypes to transition themselves. The space in which to be a girl or woman more and more narrow.

I think when the whole bubble is burst, they're all going to be so very very embarrassed of writing such nonsense. Your body is female, kt, whether you accept that or not.

Becomes more and more narrow.

I'm scared the bubble won't burst and all gender non conforming young people will be non-binary soon.

@ValancyRedfern

I'm scared the bubble won't burst and all gender non conforming young people will be non-binary soon.

That’s ok:

Good for her. Whatever makes you happy my love. I really couldn’t care less.

@endofthelinefinally did you friend say what support was being given and why? Lots of talking? New pronouns being used? I thought feeling like a misfit sometimes and not being sure who you are was a standard teenage developmental experience. It's not exclusive to the non binaries, maybe when they are older they will realise that there were plenty of other young women who didn't fancy adhering to a sterotype so they just didn't. No fuss or angst or naval gazing required.
I really don't understand what changes from one day to the next if you label yourself non binary, except your perception of yourself as "other" or "different" now has a (made up) name. So you might feel you have an answer and so happier but why would you need support once you feel happier? I feel like I'm being obtuse but I don't want to be.
I would love to know whether the lesbian and gay community are utterly pissed off with having their long fight for equality lumped in with this utter none issue. Just not sure what sources are reliable.

I had the idea that she was young, but she’s 34

Ah. I see. Stage school, sheltered upbringing, perhaps? Trying to be kind, here ...

Scout2016

Lots of praise, adulation, centre of attention.

@endofthelinefinally Urgh. Very very depressing. But thanks for responding.

I came met someone in a professional context who is female, wears dresses, is interested in fashion but maybe has a quirky style, loves makeup and looking good, has a very feminine name, works in a field where women are hugely over represented... But is a non binary they/them person interested in 'fighting against the patriarchy.' 'They' do have shortish hair. It just seems like an extremely lazy and ineffective way to respond to the patriarchy. There is no sense to be made of it imho.