And after Joan of Arc we bring you - ta da - Elizabeth I

[Gymnopedie]

Dear God, when will it stop???

Didn't she say, 'I am a queen, and a queen of England too'?
She seemed to think that she was a woman.

But what did she know, the silly girl?

Exactly this.

What a ludicrous anachronism. This “trend” is becoming very tiresome.

But I thought being trans or non-binary was nothing to do with stereotypes, and was just about a feeling in someone's head. Have they now changed their minds and decided it is all about stereotypes after all?

If I'm honest I do think that it's perfectly reasonable for theatre to play around with this stuff and* mix up contemporary and historical information. That's theatre's job. I don't want to see this production particularly but maybe I will. Or at least read a biography of Joan.*

This is how I feel about it too Permanent, but something about this doesn't sit well with me. The announcement shoehorning in they/them pronouns as a definitive element of the production (and/or Joan's entire existence) just made me cringe. All well and good to look at things in a different way, but this just seems like performative, agenda-driven queerwashing, a virtue-signalling trend of little substance.

The production is certainly getting talked about more than it ever would otherwise.

It's things like this that make me realise how wide the gulf is between trans ideology and GC thinking.

For me, gender is all constraining. Expects women to behave and be a certain way. I celebrate examples of women who don't conform, especially historically when it was much harder to do so. Because women can be all those things and more. If they choose to be. Nothing wrong with being gender conforming, but you shouldn't have to.

To say a woman who doesn't conform isn't a woman but is instead a man or nonbinary is the antithesis of that and to me is deeply offensive and antiwoman. But in trans ideology is something to be celebrated.

Please can you provide some examples to back up your final sentence? Thanks.

Also, are you by any chance under the age of 35 or so? I’m just idly curious.

Our entire military, clergy and judiciary are women. Look at those uniforms, look at those papal hats, look at those frilly collars, look at those wigs. It’s obvious.

It’s episode 5 entitled 1981, it’s about 34 minutes in. I think it’s Dominic Sandbrook speaking.

Do you really need examples? Every instance of a woman saying she is nonbinary or a man is celebrated by believers in trans ideology.

To say a woman who doesn't conform isn't a woman but is instead a man or nonbinary is the antithesis of that and to me is deeply offensive and antiwoman. But in trans ideology is something to be celebrated.

This is because trans ideology is anti-woman.

Any woman rejecting womanhood is celebrated, as she has escaped from the inferior class.

Any man adopting a woman identity is to be pitied as one of the most marginalised because his 'gender identity' gives him no choice but to enter the inferior class.

Look, obviously anyone who has the guts, intelligence and wherewithal to do anything interesting or political or powerful is secretly a man, or wants to be one.

Women, thoughout history, have been the ones who are quiet and look pretty and sexy. That's all they do.

Know your place, women!

Yes. It's about power, isn't it?

Precisely, women are essentially useless so anyone who does anything of merit must actually be a man. It's pretty simple really.

Imagine actually sitting through this play with the kind of audience who would be going to see it.

And lots of rather non-plussed tourists wondering if their English teachers had taught them pronouns all wrong.

Catherine the Great. She must have been trans Took the throne by force,ruled Russia with as n iron hand, went to war in a military jacket, brought the Enlightenment to Russia, had her pick if lovers, played men at their own game. .
she must have been trans - no woman could have done what she did.

Did anyone ever wonder why Mary conceived without having sex? Clearly, Mary was male and used a surrogate.

Cleopatra - that's no asp, honey.

I knew it!

Um the story about Joan of Arc being non binary, the stuff about Bill in Mallory Towers, George in famous 5, Elizabeth 1st. Etc. Lots of women in history (real and in literature) who challenged stereotypes and dared to suggest women can be other than a narrow stereotype of gender. All have been in the media in recent times as non binary or trans.

Not sure what my age has to do with it? Feminism is ageless.

If I'm honest I do think that it's perfectly reasonable for theatre to play around with this stuff and
mix up contemporary and historical information.

I agree it's reasonable to apply contemporary thinking to historical information.

The problem is if the contemporary thinking is as muddled and full of holes as this is, applying it to historical examples really shows it up as utter nonsense.

Elizabeth I knew, better than almost anyone else who ever lived, that she couldn't identify out of the reality of being female.

If I'm honest I do think that it's perfectly reasonable for theatre to play around with this stuff

I'd be more convinced it was just playing around with ideas if the entire cast hadn't declared their pronouns, and if both the actor playing Joan and the writer weren't 'they'.

www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/joan-2022/#cast-creatives

Why would tilder be/not be (can’t work out which one you are suggesting) under the age of 35?

Dr Kit Heyam's article about the play and Joan's words - though not very many of her words. Good stuff though, challenging to me.