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?

@onegirlandherdog

I'm not really into her music or poetry, but the piece she wrote about coming out as non-binary was beautifully put. Good for her, and the courage she will give to other young people (and older people!) who fear coming out.

This is hilarious. In a post gushing over coming out as non binary you say she and her everywhere.

It's such a silly affectation.

Saying you're non-binary when you're female is shitting on yourself from a great height, this casting off of your womanhood, its like siding with the boys that you want desperately to like you. Its the equivalent of saying 'I'm not a feminist but...'

I mean how do you even understand your body as a 'them' - how do you deal with the reality of periods and smear tests?!

Very disappointing but not surprising if you move in woke circles I guess.

I feel desperately sorry for young lesbians though - who the hell have they got to look up to now?

Her work is quite sentimental, boarding on trite but 'People's Faces' is utterly beautiful. (Bloody loath her song 'Theme for Becky though', which is some vague sort of glorification of the happy hooker).

I don't hold out much hope for future work tbh, I expect it to be self-involved naval gazing. Though this use of they 'them' suggests is already making sentences unreadable and incomprehensible.

Just been on a teachers fb group where someone was asking for ideas for an 'inspirational people from diverse backgrounds' display. JKR was roundly rejected for her transphobic views and Kae Tempest offered as an inspirational alternative. I just don't get how people can't see how regressive it all is. I feel like soon there will be no gender-non-conforming role models left for young girls.

A whole bunch of deciduous trees locally have decided that they identify as coniferous. I've sold my leaf-blower.

I feel like soon there will be no gender-non-conforming role models left for young girls

What's a "gender-non-conforming role model" when it's at home?

I'm suspicious of that term. I've said often on here that I think "gender critical" feminists are far too fond of making up lists of things which are supposed to be stereotypically for girls and stereotypically for boys. This has includedcthe perennially absurd one of riding a bicycle (boys) or liking music (which even more absurdly I have seen designated as stereotypically for boys and stereotypically for girls)

It strikes me that for different reasons radical feminists and trans rights activists both love rigid stereotypes; the former because they can tick off how "gender non- conforming" they are , despite many items put forward as proof of this are nothing more than things people do.

One of my favourite musicians is Courtney Marie Andrews. Is she "gender-non-conforming" enough for you (general you). She's extremely pretty, has long, straight hair (and how boringly often are there posts on here bemoaning that all young women have long hair) wears long dresses and on stage often has flowers twined round her mike stand.

She started touring round the US, solo when she was 17 and then spent years driving round Europe busking, playing in pubs, working as a back up singer and guitarist for other musicians until her own career took off.

For me, it's about having a role model that looks/acts a bit like you. I loved Marilyn Monroe as a teenager because I had enormous boobs and an hourglass figure and she was someone with a body like mine, unlike the 'heroine chic' Kate Moss fashions of the time. I am pretty gender conforming myself in that I wear mainly dresses, but I also never wear make-up (must be non-binary!). The point of my comment about gender-non-conforming role models was that the girls I teach who like 'masculine' (for want of a better word) style haircuts or clothes are losing women to look up to who look like them and share their tastes.

The point of my comment about gender-non-conforming role models was that the girls I teach who like 'masculine' (for want of a better word) style haircuts or clothes are losing women to look up to who look like them and share their tastes

The bit about "sharing tastes" still seems a bit pigeonholing. As a teenager Iooked exactly like Courtney Marie Andrews. I also adored heavy metal, heavy rock and prog- rock -genres which mainly attracted male fans. It never occurred to me I was "gender-non-conforming". I was just a hippy girl who liked heavy- metal.

Oh dear, I used to admire her fiercely independent feminine nature. Definitely one of the most powerful and mesmeric performers I have seen. I suppose that won't change but I feel at some level she has jumped on a bandwagon. Or maybe that's just because I'm from a different generation and I don't understand the modern way of needing to proclaim your identity on the gender spectrum.

'I just don't get how people can't see how regressive it all is'

Same here. It's so incredibly stupid, and really depressing

I don't think it's the gender crtitical feminists making up the lists of what's for boys and girls. They are mainly pointing out that people who trans their kids are very much saying the reasons are that their child likes "boy" or "girl" things. I'm not sure I've seen GC women say that certain things are for boys or girls. Surely that goes against everything we're saying?

What's a "gender-non-conforming role model" when it's at home?

I assume that what people mean by a "gender-non-conforming role model" is a woman who doesn't perform femininity.

What appears to be happening is that so many young women in the public eye who don't perform femininity have started to declare themselves non-binary, and therefore that they are not women at all, because they don't 100% perform femininity, although some of them, in order to be a bit 'edgy', decide to retain a bit of femininity just so that they can be a bit different from the run-of-the-mill non-binary person who totally rejects femininity.

I'm suspicious of that term. I've said often on here that I think "gender critical" feminists are far too fond of making up lists of things which are supposed to be stereotypically for girls and stereotypically for boys.

Do you think feminists invented gender stereotypes? I think what is being pointed out here is that things that weren't gendered at all in previous decades are now being marketed as 'for girls' and 'for boys'. When feminists talk about being gender non conforming it's to point out the absurdity of gender stereotypes, which mean that children are now sometimes sent for irreversible medical treatment if they fail to conform to them.

This was never the case until the world went insane and some people decided that what sex you are (or whether you have one at all) is a choice and that your personality and interests should govern which sex you choose to be.

I assume that what people mean by a "gender-non-conforming role model" is a woman who doesn't perform femininity

Personally I think Courtney Marie Andrews despite her extremely feminine appearance is an excellent role model. (An aside how I loathe the term "performing feminity") She went on the road, on her own at a very young age, driving herself around the US and Europe , building up her reputation as a musician, writing her own music and never once appearing in the sort of video which feminist apologists for the likes of Miley Cyrus , claim women are "forced " to make (as opposed to colluding with to boost their limited musical ability).

In my own case I "perform femininity" yet have avoided all the constraints of "wife- work" ; never occurred to me that childcare would ever be anything less than equally shared, or that my career was less important than my husband's.

Do you think feminists invented gender stereotypes?

No - what a bizarre question. I said nothing like that.

What I said is certain feminists are rather keen on making up lists of gender stereotypes (lists which are often strained to ridiculous levels) to tick off how "gender nonconforming " they are. The "I'm not like the other girls" isn't the exclusive preserve of non-binaries.

What I said is certain feminists are rather keen on making up lists of gender stereotypes (lists which are often strained to ridiculous levels) to tick off how "gender nonconforming " they are. The "I'm not like the other girls" isn't the exclusive preserve of non-binaries.

You seem to have misunderstood what is going on here. They're not doing competitive gender non-conformity, they're pointing out the absurdity of children and young people now saying that they are transgender or non-binary simply because they don't conform to gender stereotypes, which have reached previously unheard of levels of absurdity in recent years.

In my own case I "perform femininity" yet have avoided all the constraints of "wife- work" ; never occurred to me that childcare would ever be anything less than equally shared, or that my career was less important than my husband's.

This doesn't sound at all like 'performing femininity' to me. If you were doing that you would have given up your job on marriage to be a good little housewife who made sure all her husband's needs were met. You actually sound pretty gender non-conforming yourself.

I do sometimes see some odd things here labeled as gender non-conforming. Like girls who prefer pants, or play sports. Like my 70 year old mum when she was a girl, and not even considered a tomboy.

I appreciate that some things seem to have become more gendered now - mainly a marketing related I think. But it's easy when pushing back against something like that to inadvertently strengthen the tendency to think of it as "GNC".

While you might say, wouldn't it be good for girls with short hair to see role models with short hair, you could equally ask such a girl - why is hair length meaningful in the way you are saying it is? Does it really make that person different from you?

Though in truth, I think such role models do exist, often though young women who become overly focused on gender roles don't notice them, it's a sort of blind spot because it doesn't fit their pre-conceptions.

@Beamur

It is a rather sad reflection of the contraction of expression young men and women especially seem to feel able to express. From talking to my DD I think what my generation thought of as personality, many people now filter through the lens of identity.

Worth repeating, important observation, very well-expressed.

Reading that poem 13, which is fairly poor, it's clear that she sees women/girls as indelibly boxed into a second-rate, limited role.

So I guess it's hardly surprising that she imagines that the only way out is to identify as not a woman, so that she can escape from the boxes she sees as inevitable.

It's quite sad that she has the failure of vision or ambition to realise that actually the boxes only exist in the imagination not in reality, and that it is perfectly possible to aim for a future in which NO WOMEN OR GIRLS are made to feel they have to limit their lives to fit inside the boxes.

Instead, she's gone for the easy, self-centred approach, that in pretending to uniquely exist in a space outside the two gendered boxes effectively announces that these boxes exist and are a reality for everyone else.

Nothing feminist about this.

Reading that poem 13, which is fairly poor, it's clear that she sees women/girls as indelibly boxed into a second-rate, limited role.

I also read the poem as men big each other up, women tear each other down.

From talking to my DD I think what my generation thought of as personality, many people now filter through the lens of identity.

It seems to be perhaps about tribalism, to me. A huge need to find a way of classifying oneself. I wonder where this strong and deep need comes from - is it loss of things like nationalism and religious identity that leaves a vacuum people struggle to fill? As some group identities become weaker, people look for other group identities to replace them, perhaps?

In the case of non-binary identity, it seems to be a strong (almost violent) rejection of the rigid gender stereotypes. But for some reason it seems some find it unpalatable to stop there, so a new category is created to identify with.

What is lacking is the recognition of quite simple truths - one doesn't identify in or out of being male or female, it's just an inescapable fact. No amount of category-creation or tribal imagining will change it.

The thing, I suppose, is whether we feel our 'gender identity' affects us more than our sex. Personally I feel very little constrained by the former, having short hair, wearing usually practical clothes, acting largely as I wish. However my sex has defined my life enormously - I find it a pretty inescapable feature of living in a body.

I think it must be really hard for a lot of kids finding their place in the world. Social media is a constant window in on their lives putting pressure on to commit to their own likes, opinions, present in certain way and all up there on public record. Then there is time consuming maintaining and updating of it all to ‘keep up’. At any minute someone can take exception in a way that rarely happens in real life. It’s a very easy way to bully. It’s nice that they can feel connected but also it’s all a bit of a recipe for anxiety.

I’d imagine kids feel they have to constantly define themselves and feel like they should know what they want and who they are from a young age. I am not surprised if off the shelf teenage ‘tribes’ to slot into are appealing- they always were, but I can imagine social media culture makes that even more so. I feel like a lot of adults also form tribes in a similar way.

I genuinely think KT is a great artist. And a great role model for girls - happy in jeans and a t-shirt, seemingly comfortable with being a lesbian, just getting on with the music without engaging in the glamour of showbiz. I can’t think of any other role models like KT that girls can look up to. I hope KT doesn’t start to deny their sexuality. That would be sad and would send a worrying message to girls, young lesbians in particular.

How can you be a lesbian if you are non binary though? That's what confuses me. Surely she can no longer be a lesbian.

Sorry 'they'

You seem to have misunderstood what is going on here. They're not doing competitive gender non-conformity

No I have not misunderstood things. There is very definitely an element of competitive gender non conformity and by implication how much more enlightened and superior they are to those of us "performing feminity".

Yes, Chatty, I think maybe tribalism is quite intrinsic or at least a very strong impulse. I suppose it seems a bit jarring that people are rejecting one type of tribalism only to invent another (with a just as arbitrary or even less logical set of rules) - but perhaps that is just what humans tend to do.

@xxyzz

Reading that poem 13, which is fairly poor, it's clear that she sees women/girls as indelibly boxed into a second-rate, limited role.

So I guess it's hardly surprising that she imagines that the only way out is to identify as not a woman, so that she can escape from the boxes she sees as inevitable.

It's quite sad that she has the failure of vision or ambition to realise that actually the boxes only exist in the imagination not in reality, and that it is perfectly possible to aim for a future in which NO WOMEN OR GIRLS are made to feel they have to limit their lives to fit inside the boxes.

Instead, she's gone for the easy, self-centred approach, that in pretending to uniquely exist in a space outside the two gendered boxes effectively announces that these boxes exist and are a reality for everyone else.

Nothing feminist about this.

That's an excellent critique of that poem.

Reading that poem 13, which is fairly poor, it's clear that she sees women/girls as indelibly boxed into a second-rate, limited role

To be honest I think a lot of feminist thought suffers from that approach.