Non-binary: What do you understand it to mean?

[AndyRM]

You’re not alone….

Likewise. Matt Lucas blacking up and wearing a fat suit, Vicky Pollard, the Victorian ladies, Andy, Daffyd...

Left me cold. Bit like Mrs. Brown's boys now.

 

[Archie_tect]

You seem to assume that all men use the stand-up urinal. Many use the cubicles for urination wanting more privacy.

... and what a mess they make- that's why the HA I design for banned unisex toilets.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Likewise. Matt Lucas blacking up and wearing a fat suit, Vicky Pollard, the Victorian ladies, Andy, Daffyd...

Left me cold. Bit like Mrs. Brown's boys now.

To be fair, being a west country lad, Vicky Pollard made me smile, but the rest left me cold…

 

[AuroraSaab]

I'm glad it's not just me then. Most people I know thought Little Britain was hilarious but whenever I saw it it just seemed like it was very 'punching down' whether it was doing blackface, mocking crossdressers, or mocking the working class. Likewise, Mrs Brown's Boys. I know it's very broad comedy, and done with some affection, but some of the stereotypes....

Having said that, there's lots of stuff I enjoyed as a child that makes me cringe now. I can just about still see the charm in some of the Carry On films, but some of the Bond films haven't aged well and it's hard to believe we routinely watched stuff like Mind Your Language.

 

[cookiemonster]

Having said that, there's lots of stuff I enjoyed as a child that makes me cringe now. I can just about still see the charm in some of the Carry On films, but some of the Bond films haven't aged well and it's hard to believe we routinely watched stuff like Mind Your Language.

Never heard of it and have just watched a few minutes of it on You Tube.

How did they get away with that?

 

[newfhouse]

I'm suggesting an ungendered world as something we could be working towards, because it benefits all of us, not something you can or should impose.

Your post does raise the question of whether a man dressed as a woman is 'displaying his own cultural stereotype' though, or appropriating another group's.

I don't think I'm entirely clear what an ungendered world would be, even if it were possible. I think you're saying that sex is all that matters - is that right? If so, that feels sterile to me. Gender based attraction and interaction feels more natural somehow. Perhaps I'm just a product of my cultural conditioning.

And connected to that subject, isn't culture only propagated through appropriation? My music collection includes a lot of blues and reggae but I pass for white. Is that acceptable? What if I sing or pull out my harmonica and play? In public? I don't mean in a Mike Read style, obviously. How is that different to being a drag artist?

Are the feminists that dislike drag the same ones that say that gender based dress codes are either wrong or meaningless?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm trying to learn and welcome a variety of views.

 

[theclaud]

But surely the answer then is to get rid of gender, because it really is just stereotypes, not to reinforce it through the idea that if boys like dresses and ballet they might be a girl.

Well, yes. Crack on. Unfortunately it's beyond the power of individuals to abolish whole systems, and it's a bit much to ask of five-year-olds to shoulder the responsibility for doing so, so living within them, even in a state of conscious resistance or rebellion, involves living with contradictions. The aforementioned Cordelia Fine described children as being like gender detectives, actively piecing together who they are using the excess of clues around them, which are constantly produced and reproduced. Gender is what we would have called 'overdetermined' when I was at university. And it's pervasive, because interaction between girls/boys/women/men occurs in the household, family, workplace, public, space, online and so on, perpetually reinforcing and/or undermining beliefs about gender difference in the context of structural power relations that are already unequal. The little boy in your example is already enmeshed in all this by the time he expresses his fondness for 'dresses and ballet', which is only noticed as a gender marker at all because it's the 'wrong' one. And how do you unpick what bit of dresses and ballet is an expression of some bit of his personality that isn't already about gender, and what bit is about him being to drawn to these things precisely because he associates them with girls?

I'm rambling on, but my question to you is - do you honestly think the moral panic around transgender people in women's spaces is dismantling the edifice of gender in some way? Every argument seems to head inexorably towards either a) the importance of toilet segregation or b) calibration of the superior physical abilities of men in sports. I predict you'll come back at me with one of the usual set pieces, and I urge you to grasp that you are barking up the wrong tree - you and I almost certainly agree on much of the detail of well-known totemic cases (Karen White should never have been in a women's prison, Lauren Hubbard probably shouldn't have been at the Olympics, Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv should be in prison, Eddie Izzard is a pillock, and so on). So why are you trying to enlist me in a Culture War, instead of having a conversation?

 

[AuroraSaab]

I don't think I'm entirely clear what an ungendered world would be, even if it were possible. I think you're saying that sex is all that matters - is that right? If so, that feels sterile to me. Gender based attraction and interaction feels more natural somehow. Perhaps I'm just a product of my cultural conditioning.

And connected to that subject, isn't culture only propagated through appropriation? My music collection includes a lot of blues and reggae but I pass for white. Is that acceptable? What if I sing or pull out my harmonica and play? In public? I don't mean in a Mike Read style, obviously. How is that different to being a drag artist?

Are the feminists that dislike drag the same ones that say that gender based dress codes are either wrong or meaningless?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm trying to learn and welcome a variety of views.

An ungendered world would be one where people were free to behave and express themselves as they wished without any gendered expectations attached. I find it depressing that for kids things are more gendered than they were when I was young. Toys and clothes especially. There are just toys and clothes - none of it needs to be coded to denote it's a boys toy or it's a girls t shirt.

You might think stuff like this is incidental and of little consequence, but it has a cumulative effect. Girl especially are relentlessly bombarded with imagery of what girls should be like, and by their teens the ideal at the moment seems to be a hyperfeminised, overtly sexualised, Kim Khardashian type figure.

You have to ask why so many teenage girls are being referred to gender clinics or are calling themselves non binary. Many of these girls are same sex attracted, and I would say it's because they are rejecting the hyper feminised, oversexualised, female stereotypes of today. I think it's a terrible thing that girls think 'I'm not 'girly', I'm attracted to girls .... I might be a boy', rather than being taught that girls can be anything they want.

Sex is why women are oppressed. Gender is how they are oppressed.

Why would an ungendered world be sterile? It would be just as it is now but with more freedom to express yourself as you wished. That's better for all of us, surely.

Re: attraction. Most people aren't attracted to gender identity*, they are attracted to the person because of their physical sex. Gay people fought a long battle to have their sexuality recognised as innate and something they couldn't change. If you say that homosexuality is now redefined as 'same gender attraction', as Stonewall say, aren't you erasing the concept of what being gay means? It makes everyone bisexual.

Re drag: I would ask why 'Woman face' is acceptable but 'Blackface' isn't. Personally, I wouldn't ban drag but I can see why some women find it an offensive characature.

Edit: * We've had this discussion before, but I don't think gender identity exists. There's your sexed body and your personality.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Well, yes. Crack on. Unfortunately it's beyond the power of individuals to abolish whole systems, and it's a bit much to ask of five-year-olds to shoulder the responsibility for doing so, so living within them, even in a state of conscious resistance or rebellion, involves living with contradictions. The aforementioned Cordelia Fine described children as being like gender detectives, actively piecing together who they are using the excess of clues around them, which are constantly produced and reproduced. Gender is what we would have called 'overdetermined' when I was at university. And it's pervasive, because interaction between girls/boys/women/men occurs in the household, family, workplace, public, space, online and so on, perpetually reinforcing and/or undermining beliefs about gender difference in the context of structural power relations that are already unequal. The little boy in your example is already enmeshed in all this by the time he expresses his fondness for 'dresses and ballet', which is only noticed as a gender marker at all because it's the 'wrong' one. And how do you unpick what bit of dresses and ballet is an expression of some bit of his personality that isn't already about gender, and what bit is about him being to drawn to these things precisely because he associates them with girls?

I'm rambling on, but my question to you is - do you honestly think the moral panic around transgender people in women's spaces is dismantling the edifice of gender in some way? Every argument seems to head inexorably towards either a) the importance of toilet segregation or b) calibration of the superior physical abilities of men in sports. I predict you'll come back at me with one of the usual set pieces, and I urge you to grasp that you are barking up the wrong tree - you and I almost certainly agree on much of the detail of well-known totemic cases (Karen White should never have been in a women's prison, Lauren Hubbard probably shouldn't have been at the Olympics, Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv should be in prison, Eddie Izzard is a pillock, and so on). So why are you trying to enlist me in a Culture War, instead of having a conversation?

Wouldn't it be better if we worked to disassemble gender? If there were no 'clues' about what were boys things or girls things, kids could grow up free to explore every possibility without being labelled. Nothing is innately for male or females, yet we relentlessly make them so. If a boy likes dresses and ballet, either because he thinks they are cool, or because they are 'girl's things', so what? Neither of those mean he is somehow not male.

I'm not trying to enlist you in a culture war. Too often this is framed as a trans rights issue when it's a women's rights issue. It only ends up being about toilets and sport because they are things people can relate to. We've all used public loos or watched the Olympics. Not many of us will end up in prison or in domestic violence refuges.

 

[newfhouse]

You might think stuff like this is incidental and of little consequence

I really don’t. I recognise the dangers you describe, not least as a father who tried very hard to leave all routes to an adult identity open.

Why would an ungendered world be sterile? It would be just as it is now but with more freedom to express yourself as you wished.

Sorry, but I still see a contradiction here. Freedom of expression as long as it is not through the lens of self recognition of gender? I think you will say that gender doesn’t actually exist, but if it feels like it does it remains powerful, and from a straw poll of my family can even bring joy.

Accepting that doesn’t mean that I support sexism. I absolutely support anyone living and engaging in society in whatever way feels right to them at the time. Yes, there will be areas of potential conflict, but I’m not yet convinced that saying that sex is immutable, even if it is, moves humanity forward very far.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Who is asking that people shouldn't be allowed to recognise their own gender identity (whether it is an imaginary thing or not)? That would be like saying you can't call yourself a Christian or a Piscean.

I don't believe in God or astrology, but people are welcome to adopt either of those as part of their identity if they wish.

You can self-identify as whatever you like. What is not appropriate is to ask others to validate those identities when they do not subscribe to the ideology.

Nor is it appropriate to base laws that impact on others on things that are basically a nebulous feeling in your head.

I think we might be talking at cross purposes regarding definitions of sex and definitions of gender identity.

In what way is biological sex not immutable (ie unchanging)? In the five million years humans have been on the earth not one of them has ever changed sex.

Edited for spelling.

 

[PK99]

, but I’m not yet convinced that saying that sex is immutable, even if it is, moves humanity forward very far.

Surely it is a matter of scientific fact.

Sex is genetically determined:
For mammals;
XX = Female
XY = Male
XO or XXY or other cobination = DSD

None of these can be changed in an individual - sex is immutable.

Not recognizing that and distinguishing it from the psycho-social construct that is gender is what fails to move humanity forward very far.

 

[newfhouse]

things that are basically a nebulous feeling in your head.

Nebulous seems unnecessarily pejorative. I suspect that self belief about gender is far less amenable to rational thought than, say, religious affiliation.

Surely it is a matter of scientific fact.

Facts don't motivate, beliefs do. So while you are narrowly and technically correct - and I have never disputed it - there still needs to be an accommodation of feelings. I accept that doing so will cause conflict and that this needs management and mitigation, but the alternative will cause pain too.

 

[PK99]

Facts don't motivate, beliefs do.

Some people believe the Earth is flat. Science says they are wrong.

Some people believe the Earth is 6000 years old and was made in 7 days. Science says they are wrong.

Some people believe it is possible to change sex. Science says the are wrong.

No matter the nature of a belief, no matter how strongly or sincerely it is held, belief does not trump science.

 

[Archie_tect]

Some people believe the Earth is flat. Science says they are wrong.

Some people believe the Earth is 6000 years old and was made in 7 days. Science says they are wrong.

Some people believe it is possible to change sex. Science says the are wrong.

No matter the nature of a belief, no matter how strongly or sincerely it is held, belief does not trump science.

As NACA demonstrates, strongly held opinions rarely change despite immutable evidence- people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.