By David Futrelle
Terry Gilliam is tired of talking about his movie The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Instead he’s decided to take advantage of the media attention surrounding the film’s late UK release to expound at length on his rather tiresome (and decidedly unoriginal) theories of gender and race and how white men like him are the most persecuted people on planet earth.
Yes, he’s turned into one of those guys. Or perhaps, given his reputation as kind of a dick, he’s always been one.
In an, er, wide-ranging interview with Alexandra Pollard of The Independent, the 79-year-old director called #MeToo a “witch hunt,” whined that white men are “being blamed for everything wrong with the world,” and then, for funzies, declared that his manifestly white self was somehow really a “black lesbian” because lots of people with his last name are black.
Refusing to talk for more than a moment or two about his movie, Gilliam began the interview with a tirade about the alleged evils of #MeToo.
We’re living in a time where there’s always somebody responsible for your failures, and I don’t like this. I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’ .
#MeToo is a witch hunt. I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered.
After all this humorless bloviation, he then wondered aloud why people don’t think #MeToo jokes are funny. While admitting that a lot of #MeToo accusations are true, he added that “the idea that this is such an important subject you cannot find anything humorous about it” was just plain wrong.
Gilliam then brought race and gender identity into the mix, making the One Trans Joke that so many reactionary would-be comedians think is so hilarious.
When I announce that I’m a black lesbian in transition, people take offence at that. Why?
Pollard, who at this point must have been inwardly cringing at each new pronouncement from Gilliam, told him it’s because, er, he’s manifestly not that.
He explained that many people with his last name are indeed black so maybe he’s half black or something? (The exceedingly white looking Gilliam doesn’t seem to realize that it’s infinitely more likely that his similarly lily-white ancestors owned the ancestors of the black people who now have that last name.)
He then gave up the fatuous claim, only to insist that
I don’t like the term black or white. I’m now referring to myself as a melanin-light male. I can’t stand the simplistic, tribalistic behaviour that we’re going through at the moment.
But he quickly returned to the joke about being a black lesbian.
I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. So I better not be a man. I better not be white. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. What else can I be? I like girls. These are just logical steps.
It’s not hard to see why Pollard says that it’s “deeply frustrating to argue with Gilliam. He is both the devil and his advocate.” And a pretty tedious devil at that.
Get some new material, dude.
NOTE: In case you’re wondering about the title of this post, it’s from an old Monty Python routine.
H/T — thanks to Twitter’s@WeaselFidget for alerting me to the interview.
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@mobiusclimber
I agree. Unfortunately, many institutions holding repressive norms still have a great deal of influence unto people. If not certain political parties, I can list mainstream religion, philosophers and a few strands of science used for harm (namely consumer psychology and evolution psychology, but others too) as to blame for this.
As someone mentioned here, it’s also because it’s deemed easier to see the out-group with less favour.
I do wish we can enact change though, but I feel like in some aspects, I’d get death threats and die and not even get anything achieved. I wish a meteor would hit this world soon because I am getting sick of how quickly it’s turning to fascism to solve its problems. Leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, Putin, those in central and eastern Europe, Australia’s Liberal Party and others elsewhere are all orchestrating this terrifying, controlling and hateful norm.
@Sapphire: with regards to Rachel Dolezal, I would recommend this article before asserting that she wasn’t doing any appropriating: https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/04/19/25082450/the-heart-of-whiteness-ijeoma-oluo-interviews-rachel-dolezal-the-white-woman-who-identifies-as-black
Terry, Terry, Terry. Love the cartoons, but the mere fact that you feel threatened by things like gender equality, transgender people and, um, people’s bounderies doesn’t make you the comic. It makes you the joke.
Okie dokie. This is going to be long, since many of the replies were long, and quite a few of the “disagreements” about what I said, assumed my words in the worst possible way prior to asking what I meant, or possibly seeing it another way.
I decided to join this conversation not because *all* conversations devolve into it, but many. Not necessarily ones I’ve participated in, but have been able to witness IRL, online and in the media. I decided to give this group a chance. It’s a mixed bag so far. In general, I try to not use absolute words, but if I do, please trust that it is a mistake and I am well aware that there are no absolutes when dealing with people.
No, but I am willing to bet that no one was using female pronouns and saying they are an asshole to do it means you will not allow people to self identify without judgement. Yes, this is on the very far end of the spectrum of issues because have no questions/disagreements with the near end of the spectrum. The basic things don’t give me the same pause as the extremes, because I think of inconsistencies and then it just bugs my mind because I can’t circle the square.
I think this is very misperceived by modern males frequently. The reason many of the female separated things were created were at the request of and protection of women. It wasn’t designed to be a separate but equal situation and while some of the protection was paternalistic in the past, it continues to be a protection that is needed. Women are a protected class. As far as the law is concerned, it is just like protecting disabled people or people of color.
Please see above, I don’t mean *any* in a true sense. Many is more appropriate, bordering on most, but definitely not all.
This is a very big and honestly bizarre to me assumption. I wasn’t thinking about the trouble the coroner would go through – but rather the difficulty in identifying missing people and being able to successfully prosecute crimes against people who may have killed someone who is trans. Doe cases are so much harder to solve, because there is no context and no way to be able to follow their patterns or people they knew (who might have even witnessed the crime)
It’s not at all about the work it would cause, that literally would never have occurred to me. I was more worried about victims getting justice and families being able to find missing.
I’m not addressing the rest because none of those thoughts were ever ones that would have occurred to me.
The way you mention is not the way I speak. Splitting in more than language. It started in the 70s from a societal sense.
Again, this is not the point of view I was taking. When someone says they are non-binary, they are saying they have changing or flexible gender identity, if I remember correctly. I think there is a risk that like our society enforces gender roles on us, like those people above, that you could grow up in that society of gender roles, not fit into the female stereotype, and have that make a girl feel less of a woman. Or an effeminate man feel like if he is effeminate, he couldn’t possibly be a boy. That’s not to say people would be brainwashing children or anything negative, just that society influences how we see ourselves and instead of being pushed into two gender roles, with the knowledge that no one conforms fully to any gender role, we inadvertently have two strict gender roles that if you don’t match, you have to be an “other”, either by saying non-binary, or maybe even starting to resent the fact that the body you were born with does not conform to what the society has said it should. It’s not like people who are trans are horrible and to be avoided, but feeling like you aren’t in the right body has to be incredibly distressing and the treatments for that are not without risk, and the stress on the person is just huge.
I’m not sure if I’m wording it in a way that is conveying my meaning well enough. But if there is a girl who displays masculine traits, or a boy who feels feminine traits, they should not feel that is outside their gender and therefore it doesn’t match their sex. If a boy is told dresses are for girls, and he likes wearing dresses, it might start to feel to him that he should be a girl (just like a girl who wears dresses and is allowed to wear dresses feels like a girl.) Now I’m not trying to say anything negative about a boy that feels like that now or in a different world, just that I feel it would cause less pain and heartache for those who don’t conform to their traditional gender roles.
I admit that part of it seems like a pipe dream, that essentially someone’s presentation is welcomed, no matter what sex they are. I understand why it’s done the way it is now, because of all the problems, but I guess I think it is something to think about for the future, once gender non conforming people have more acceptance. (though I still think there will likely be issues due to lizard brain problems that people refuse to overcome)
Again to be clear, I do not oppose trans rights in the least. I just pulled this out because I want to be clear that in all this discussion, I recognize it is far more academic for me than someone who is trans, and I don’t want people to think I’m trivializing their existence or something, this is similar to the way I try to figure out all things, including things that affect me. I am not trying to say my feelings or opinions are more worthwhile than anyone’s else or that I think they shouldn’t exist, and I ask these questions about cis issues, and general human being issues.
Also, when I say fear, I mean it in the figurative sense, not the literal sense – I meant that I was concerned for or unsure if something is the optimal situation. Language and tone are easy to misunderstand on the internet. I would ask, if possible, please try and assume that I am not arguing something horrible, or if you think I might be, ask for clarification first prior to deciding I meant the worst thing. I probably didn’t, just suck at getting the information that is in my brain communicated to you in a way that you can see what I see.
My brain does not follow the same patterns as many, and I know some people in the past have seen my point of views and way of viewing patterns as very alien and confusing. So I can frequently fail in my attempts to translate that view to the page. Especially when the assumption is that I’m trying to say something bad or hurtful. If I mean to be harmful, I will own it. If I don’t, I will apologize for my poor communication ability or ignorance and hope we can move on.
I didn’t know that, and will endeavor to change in the future. For the record, I would like to note that I very much tried to never use the term woman to indicate a cis woman. If I missed an instance, I am sorry, I was viewing it a women is split into two groups “ciswomen” and “transwomen” (just used to demonstrate that I referred to cis women consistently as well) Again, I am going to try to not forget and type it the wrong way in the future, but just wanted to share why I had previously felt it wasn’t othering, since cis women were referred to in the same way.
I definitely can see how it could be used for that, but I also see how it could be used for the opposite effect. I also understand that people’s experiences are what described and I’m not trying to deny them or belittle them.
I few it as similar to the psychological finding that if you confront an aggressor with and unexpected acceptance of something that isn’t *inherently* harmful (ie self identification even if in bad faith) they struggle to come up with arguments about why you shouldn’t do that and it causes them to reevaluate what they are saying. It’s not an option for many and I’m not saying anyone should be required to do it, or they are bad if they don’t, but it is a technique that could be used for those in a safe enough position to use it. Similar to the concept that if someone is trying to steal my coat, I instead give it to them, along with all my cash and credit cards while asking to be able to keep my picture ID because it’s a pain in the ass to replace. I know many people view that as terrible, but it has unexpected success in disarming people and deescalating dangerous situations. Again, not universal, and not easy, but it is something that can work.
As said above, I’m looking at it from a different angle. There is some evidence in some religious groups, it’s more acceptable to be trans and strait than cis and gay. And since treatment carries some risk (any drug carries risk and for many the risk is far outweighed by the benefits) It would be nice if someone could live as they wanted without having to assume additional medical risks, it would be preferable. Again, this is only referring to people who might feel trans because their community is so unsupportive of gay people, I’m not insinuating that all or even most trans people are actually gay people who are “confused”, but that it is a phenomenon that has happened and finding greater acceptance for them would be important too.
Yes they are. The shape of the pelvis is different in males and females.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/skeletal-studies-show-sex-like-gender-exists-along-a-spectrum
Above link I think has a deceptive title, because while it is saying it is not always clear whether a skeleton is male or female, they do try and sex it, they are just better at saying “indeterminate” now, instead of assuming male.
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/written-bone/skeleton-keys/male-or-female
The above highlights the differences in male and female bones. And definitely there will be people whose skeletons are more androgynous for whatever reason, but that also lessens the ability of people to be able to identify and help find justice for them.
I know this isn’t how it happens, I’m just using this as a demonstration: if a poor white child was adopted to a rich black family, they would gain untold generational benefits that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. Again, just a way to demonstrate why my thought process is the way it is, how generational benefits can be altered by something other than race. Unfortunately in the US, there is generational poverty that is suffered by minorities more than white people, because of the racist institutions keeping them in poverty, through explicit and subtle ways, and it makes it hard to separate race and wealth and the affect on a person’s life and path and obstacles.
That it could subconsciously force people to think they non binary because they exhibit non-conforming traits and so then can’t be a man or woman. It’s not inherently wrong, but it seems to be an extra layer of complication that isn’t necessary. Again, not saying trans people are trying to convert children, are a threat to children, or would harm children at a rate any higher than cis people. (because I know that is absolutely not true) It’s that societal pressures can be unintended and unexpected.
This is partially what I am referring to, though what little I’ve seen has not been about inclusive language, it’s that some want those issues taken off the agenda for women’s rights, since not every woman was AFAB. I’m not going to say it is an every day thing, on this aspect, but it is a small section. I see it more with gender protected space, where the goal isn’t to exclude trans women, but to not traumatize cis women, and I can understand why that feels (and is) exclusionary, but I also understand as well that there is a physical vulnerability and cultural internalization of male violence that necessitate women to still be able to be protected. Like places that are trying to help victims of racial violence might feel unsafe if white people are around, no matter what the intention, safety of those white people, or amount they could help potentially. Or even if they were victims themselves somehow. And that traumatized person needs to be able to have a space to go where they can feel protected. I know that is a hard thing to accept for trans women, because even though they are women, they may carry the societal baggage that comes with having a penis and that’s not fair.
I think this is a situation of two protected classes whose rights can come in conflict and that makes it an incredibly difficult issue to solve, moreso than it seems on the surface.
The bathrooms I don’t give a hoot about. There are private stalls and a lot of problems could be solved if all the bathrooms were gender or sex neutral and people were just given privacy. That doesn’t bother me in the least. Whatever bathroom makes you feel comfortable is cool with me.
I’m more referring to rape crisis, domestic violence etc. It is not that the trans women are a threat in reality, but it is a deep-seated cultural fear that many cis women internalize thanks to the patriarchy. I don’t think cis women *should* consider all men as threatening, but unfortunately, in many ways, some women have been conditioned to feel that way. It’s simply the current reality.
I absolutely agree that it would benefit all and I think you misunderstand my way of viewing it. It’s not that trans people want to more strictly enforce the stereotypes, it’s just I see a path where it is an unintended, unforeseen consequence. I definitely don’t think it is the goal of anyone who is trans or allied to enforce that. It’s more about how society “forces” us in all sorts of roles.
And I read the article linked and I respect the author’s view, but she also came into with a very biased view and of course would view her behavior as appropriation, because she doesn’t feel it is ever possible to self identify race. By her definitions, it is appropriation. That isn’t the only possible viewing of it. I will admit though, I have not read the woman’s book, I’m going largely from the way the story went down and comments I’ve heard people make. But even if she isn’t black the way that some other people would be black, if that’s how she views herself, it is black to her. Black people aren’t all alike and some of them are even crazy (see any trump supporting person of color)
Thank you for giving me some space to reply, if only because this has gotten disturbingly wrong, because I get really wordy when trying to be overly careful to ensure I’m not misunderstood or thought to be saying something I’m not.
You’re shifting the goalposts here. Crip Dyke was responding to your assertion that the government-issued gender markers don’t matter because legally men and women are supposed to be treated the same.
Crip Dyke pointed out that men and women are NOT treated the same, and your response is “well okay but the difference is good actually!”
Which doesn’t defend your original point that identifiers don’t matter, and in fact basically contradicts it.
Is your argument that trans people shouldn’t present as the gender they are because in the event that they are murdered, it might be more difficult to get justice for them?
Because that sounds similar to those “well if women don’t want to be sexually assaulted, they just shouldn’t go to parties or go out at night or live their lives freely. It’s for their own good.” arguments. There’s some logic in it, but being expected to severely alter your life because the worst might happen is a pretty shitty thing to labor under.
Generational impacts are not merely economic. There are also cultural and historical aspects to consider, as I mentioned in my post above.
Even leaving that aside, a hypothetical of something that happens surpassingly rarely and ignores the reality of what marginalized people actually deal with is… Not a great argument?
For example there’s no reason for a lone woman to be more afraid of a strange man approaching her at night, because women can also rape and kill men, and he’s alone too, so they’re both theoretically in the same amount of danger, aren’t they?
Is your argument that if society no longer considers “penis= man” and “vagina=woman”, that the only form of gender would become over-exagerated stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, or neither?
Do you have any evidence to support this assertion? If gender identity is so fragile that without a solid framework based on genitals it collapses and huge numbers of people have an identity crisis, why do trans people exist in the first place?
Or is this just something that’s bad that you think might possibly happen, so it’s better not to risk it?
Because that latter option isn’t very persuasive. I can come up with a lot of scare tactics, too. People shouldn’t be able to have abortions because what if everyone decides to have an abortion and then humanity dies out? We shouldn’t have welfare because what if no one decides to work and then the economy collapses? It’s scary so we shouldn’t do it!
Also, it forget that fundamentally, a lot of nonbinary are *both* a man and a woman. Not being “neither”. I don’t see much problem in having everyone think they are a mix of both, probably on average heavily weighted toward one side. A lot of people live like that currently and don’t seem to have problem with it.
————
To be honest, I have the impression that Sapphire struggle with the mighty problem of being a sea lion, what with asking repeatedly about the same question. I may be wrong, but people out there, don’t burn out answering Sapphire if you feel that it’s a lot of effort.
Again, I am couching everything with as many disclaimers as possible, would it be possible for people to not assume I’m arguing against them, or taking the most offensive position, but that I’m trying to have a good faith discussion? I’m trying to have an exchange of ideas, not argue against anyone’s rights. I sort of am starting to feel like bending over backwards to verbalize that though doesn’t matter, because it will be assumed to be meant the worst conceivable way.
I’m not meaning to shift goalposts. I’m trying to clarify what I originally meant. You can say the same about race is what I’m trying to say, it’s not that it is exclusive to gender.
No, again, that’s taking my thoughts in the worst possible way and presuming my intention is to keep people from presenting the way they want.
I just was saying it because it seemed to be something that could occur, and maybe to think that if a loved one is trans and missing, despite their gender identification, it could be helpful for missing person reports to include biological sex. Not as a way to shame them, lessen their status as a person or a gender, but merely to help with potential identification so their loved ones can be found.
I like to think of potential pitfalls and solutions. Trans people could be at a disadvantage that way, and wondering if there is a way to fix that disadvantage without dehumanizing them.
I’m not sure I agree with that as a definition of race. That loss of culture and history can happen in many situations, but isn’t limited to race.
I’m not trying to talk about what marginalized people deal with. I’m saying I disagree that race is generational.
With your last example, I’m not sure how it fits into the discussion. Women do have that fear of men, and while trans women feel it, it’s not the same as the culturally ingrained fear that many cis women have. That’s not to say it’s wrong or makes them less of a woman, but it is different. Which is similar to the cultural fears ingrained in different races (for good and for ill). I’m trying to say that I see the same factors in race and gender.
Again, not an argument, just something I thought about and wanted discussion about and no, this isn’t an accurate description of what I was thinking about. It was that strict gender roles can make people feel othered without intending. I am a female that exhibits more “masculine” traits. Combine that with my brain, and it means that I have life experiences that often conflict with the “typical” experience of women.
Because of this, I have felt subtle impression/feeling/pressure(? not really the word I’m wanting, but I can’t think of a better one) from social groups/society that I am less of a woman because I don’t fit those boxes. That I need some sort of different identifier because I don’t fit the typical gender role, in order to justify my experiences and opinions. I think that could potentially magnify with generations, which could create a new set of problems.
Again, I’m not saying that means trans people shouldn’t live their lives as themselves, just it is a thought and if we could avoid negative unintended consequences by thinking about and discussing those pitfalls, there could be benefit.
Nope, more “if this is potentially a problem, is there a better way to address it that doesn’t have the same risk that we haven’t considered yet?”
While that is a way to look at it, it could be felt by people that by being non-binary they are neither. As I was saying before, I have felt that subconscious something that my having non traditional stereotypical experiences as a cis woman does make me less of a woman from some, and to feel more unwelcome in spaces for women internally because I’m not “woman enough”. And my experiences and background also do not fit with a man’s point of view. So that makes me at times that I am neither, which in some ways could be viewed as unconscious pressure to change how I identify myself to conform to how society has defined gender roles.
I doubt I have worded that well, so I beg all to not assume the worst or most intolerant view.
I think calling someone a sea lion is prejudicial way to try and shut down discussion. I am trying to have an exchange of ideas and discussion. Sea lions by definition are not working in good faith.
I am trying to make my brain understand concepts that are difficult for me, and to find ways of viewing concepts that make sense in my world view, and it is incredibly difficult to have any of these discussions because many times when you ask questions or have thoughts that are different from the strictly designated group, you are presumed to be arguing against that group, trying to harm that group or being a sea lion. This is what I referred to in my initial post about the difficulty of being able to talk about the topic without getting labeled negatively.
@Sapphire
I’m not non-binary, but from what I know about non-binary people it is an umbrella term that can contain being both a man and a woman, being neither, being something totally different, being a mix of both to varying degrees, or having no gender. So that may be true of some non-binary people but not others.
Any enbys want to weigh in?
Part of what many trans* activists and feminists are trying to do is reduce forced definitions of what it means to be a man or a woman. That is, you don’t need to have had one specific set of experiences to be a man or woman or any other gender.
That’s another example of enforced gender roles and that’s part of what we’re trying to reduce. I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to change their identity or presentation. Ideally, people should be able to identify and present how they are, regardless of societal norms, and that’s the type of world we should move towards.
Sapphire, in your last comment alone, you stated four times that everyone who disagrees with you is misinterpreting your comments:
You’re not some poor misunderstood soul who just can’t communicate clearly. Let me assure you that you’re communicating very clearly. You’re getting pushback because you’re wrong. You’ve been wrong repeatedly in this thread, as many have already demonstrated.
Before you launch another sixteen paragraph comment full of gaslighting, bad-faith accusations, and transparent emotional manipulation, please be aware that we know what you’re doing.
I’m not assuming anything. I specifically asked you if that was what you meant, because that was the way your comments were coming across to me and I wanted clarification.
Also, now you’re saying that we should treat people differently when they’re acting in good or bad faith? That wasn’t your position when it came to people who identity as black women in bad faith.
Or is your position that we should just be nice and civilized towards everyone regardless of their intentions?
I see!
Generally my experience with people who just have so many “concerns” about trans identity (or about refugees or “welfare queens” or any number of marginalized people that conservatives like to target) is that they don’t give a single damn about any of the marginalized folks, and just want to distract people into talking about minutiae so that no progress can actually be made.
“Oh, we can’t address transphobia until after we fix this one thing. And that other thing, and that thing, and that one, too” ad infinitum basically.
If you don’t wish to come across as one of these folks, I would recommend specifically saying why you’re bringing up a particular point, instead of just going “hey I’ve got this concern” (and, no, slapping disclaimers on everything isn’t good enough. See: J.K. Rowling’s tweet about “identify however you want, wear what you like, but [transphobic bullshit]”. Folks acting in bad faith like disclaimers too!)
I mean, if your definition of race consists of only skin color and physical features and none of the associated cultural and historical baggage associated with it, then I’m not going to be able to convince you of my point. Do as you like.
Ah, apologies, I was unclear. I was attempting to provide an analogy of an argument based on feminist theory, since you’re more familiar with that.
Essentially my attempted point was that providing a hypothetical assuming that none of the background of reality is present (“let’s assume that women are equally likely to assault men as visa versa” being equivalent to “let’s assume that rich black families adopting poor white children is just as common as visa versa!”) is not a compelling argument and is frankly a bit tone deaf.
I’m not sold on how people being able to more freely identify as a variety of genders would lead to that in any way, and nothing of what you’ve said so far has convinced me.
Given the high rate that trans women are murdered by cis men, I think a lot of trans women feel just as much, if not more fear of men than cis women do.
Sapphire? I’m going to work on a reply to you.
I am, in fact, thinking generously of you, but while I’m working on this reply I think it would be helpful for you to take a moment to remember that it ultimately doesn’t matter what we think.
If we think that you’re a sea lion or a jerkface or a pooey pooey poo pants, we’re at the other end of the internet. You don’t have to come here if you don’t want to, and I’m pretty confident that no one here would try to follow you across the internet to follow up on a conversation that you don’t want to have.
You’ve got some safety, here. It’s not the same as comfort (something I’ll address more later) but it is safety: you get to leave whenever you want and people won’t follow you.
If it gets too much, you can walk away, temporarily or forever. None of us here will think worse of you because we don’t actually know you. Even if we think badly of some internet name, Sapphire, were we to ever randomly meet each other in real life, you’d still start out with a fresh chance to make a good impression.
In the meantime, you have your own ethical standards, your own ideas of what makes a good person. It is far more important that you be consistent with your own values than that you live up to anyone else’s. Look inside yourself, and if you can be satisfied with what you find there, it won’t matter how much I (or anyone else) likes some paragraph you wrote on the internet one time.
First up for Sapphire, let’s take:
and
You’ve put various statements like these in your reply. I want to explain how they put me in a bind. I can’t know what’s in your brain. I’m not telepathic. I can only respond to words you write in your comments. If it becomes wrong to criticize your words, then we can’t really have a conversation at all.
I can act as if you’re a good person, but you being a good person has nothing to do with whether or not your words are good words, your sentences are good sentences, your arguments are good arguments, or your statements are accurate statements.
I’m not judging you good or bad. But I am going to judge your words, because otherwise there’s no dialog to be had.
So while you ask me to remember that you’re a good person who means no ill, I ask you to remember that when I critique your words, I’m critiquing your words. I’m not saying anything about you as a person. If your words seem callous, I’ll say they seem callous. If your words seem wonderfully inventive or clever, I’ll say that.
Now, in reality, you might have seemed callous because a slip of the mouse accidentally deleted the word “not” and changed the whole meaning of your sentence and while the sentence seems callous, you are obviously not callous at all.
Meanwhile, i can say your words are wonderfully inventive and clever while you know that those were lines from an old movie that you just copied and pasted, and thus even if the words are inventive or clever, they don’t reflect any inventiveness or cleverness in you.
Get it? Your words are separate from your person. I’m going to focus on your words. I’m not going to even try to tell you what kind of person you are.
This sentence is grammatically a bit weird. I’m not sure what you’re saying here, but I will point out that I don’t give a fuck if Jerry Falwell “judges” me while I’m getting queer married or changing my passport’s sex identifier or working at Planned Parenthood or praying at a mosque. In fact, it would be really, really bad if society tried to punish Falwell for “judging” others. That’s thought crime and even attempting to punish thought crime leads to incredibly bad consequences.
As for whether Falwell should be allowed to announce that judgement, well, to a reasonable degree that answer is also yes. Free speech isn’t absolute, but it is important. If Falwell repeatedly calls my boss to describe how my passport prays to a gay, muslim abortionist, the problem isn’t that Falwell said something out loud. The problem is harassment. If you do not discriminate, say in jobs or housing or access to voting or health care, and you do not harass, merely announcing that he thinks that I or my sapient passport are assholes isn’t something that Falwell should be punished over.
So this whole thing about allowing people to self-identify without judgement? I don’t believe in it. We’re always going to be judged by others. What matters are things like harassment and discrimination. The only reason this is complicated at all is because of relationships that are hard to escape, like relationships with one’s parents or college roommates. In those situations, stopping someone from announcing their judgements feels like an impingement on their rights, if they’re doing that in their own home or dorm room. But if the effect is the same (or worse) as the effects of harassment by strangers, then obviously repeatedly voicing those judgements is a problem. And, yet, we are reluctant to call such things harassment because the person doing the harassing isn’t physically following someone. The person doing the harassing is only speaking out in the place that they live … which the victim can’t escape.
My position on such things is equally clear: I don’t want to take away a person’s self-determination. But I also don’t want to take away the freedom of thought that is necessary to form judgements or the freedom of speech necessary to say what one believes. But there comes a point where the person hearing you already knows what you believe. At that point, you’re probably crossing the line into harassment (or abuse) and I oppose that, even if you’re doing it inside your own home or church.
So, yeah. I don’t have the right to self-identify or determine the structure of my own life without judgement. I have the right to self-determine. Others have the right to judge. That’s it.
So, you’re probably not a lawyer, and you should know that women are not a protected class in US law. Rather, sex and gender are protected classifications. This means that discrimination against anyone on the basis of sex and, to a weird and insufficient extent, gender is wrong. Whether or not the discrimination is wrong doesn’t actually depend on whether or not the person is actually a woman. Discrimination against men is equally wrong – not more, not less, just the same.
That said, I went to law school in Canada and we in fact have our own laws up here which are not always identical to the US. Although we don’t speak of “protected classes” we do have a fairly similar concept up here which is used to determine when (and to what extent) affirmative action and similar programs are legal. The situation in Australia and New Zealand is fairly similar. The situation in the UK is something you’ll have to ask Alan about.
But the point is that wherever you’re from, “protected class” has nothing to do with being able to use public restrooms.
When I said race is different from sex, I said – and I stand by saying – that you don’t get a race marker on your passport or driver’s licence that makes certain rooms legal for you to enter and certain rooms illegal for you to enter. And yet the government has decided it will list a marker of so-called “legal sex”, and the type of marker you receive makes it legal or illegal to enter certain rooms.
In other words, if two people enter the same public bathroom and do exactly the same activities in exactly the same way, one could be arrested while one is immune from prosecution solely on the basis of a difference in that legal sex marker. The fact that governments put that marker on your ID and reserve the right to arrest you and jail you on the basis of that marker makes sex very different from race.
For this reason, a movement demanding the right to change one’s legal sex in government records is inherently different than a movement to change one’s legal race in government records.
Please recognize that.
And I mean that literally: please acknowledge that you’ve heard and agree that trans* advocacy movements as they currently exist in relation to transsexual, transgender, non-binary, agender and other gender atypical folks is dramatically different than any hypothetical movement advocating transracial rights to self-identification.
@Crip Dyke
How do I get a passport that does this? I’m pretty sure mine doesn’t do that.
Oh, and great response to Sapphire. Much better than what I could have done, and presents some new arguments I hadn’t heard before.
@ crip dyke
Oh gawd please don’t; he’ll just use it as an excuse to bang on about how vegans are now a protected class.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/03/ethical-veganism-is-a-belief-protected-by-law-tribunal-rules
But to answer the actual question…
The Equality Act 2010, inter alia, prohibits discrimination and/or unfavourable treatment based on a ‘protected characteristic’. The Act lists nine separate protected characteristics. They are: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity.
About the murder thing. You originally said,
After my critique, you replied:
Yeah, who do you think identifies them, if not the coroners and the detectives – exactly the people that I said? If you’re worried about the difficulty identifying missing people, you’re worried about the work of coroners and detectives.
So I’m not assuming anything. I’m just reading the words you put on the internet and ignoring the words that you kept inside your head. I have to do that. Your words on the internet are all I have.
Moreover, don’t forget that I led off with,
I didn’t say your thoughts are bad thoughts. I didn’t say your attitude is a bad attitude. What I said was that you come across badly. And you do. The appropriate thing to do is say thank you.
you might begin,
you might conclude.
I’m trying to help you. I didn’t say you are a bad person, I said it comes across badly to talk only about the problems other people will have doing identifying work and not how much it sucks that a trans* person got murdered. And I don’t back down from that. It really, really sounds bad.
And when you take the time to go on about osteoanthropological determination of biological sex, you’re compounding the error. The problem with your original statement wasn’t that you failed to include enough peer reviewed literature. It’s that the words you wrote didn’t include anything in them that expressed sympathy with your hypothetical murder victims. You fix that by expressing your concern for murdered trans* folk, not by linking the latest cool science.
No matter what’s in your thoughts, sometimes things you say sound bad. I didn’t say you were bad person, I said that what you actually wrote gave a bad impression. That’s the perfect time to show how much compassion you really have. It’s not the perfect time to declare how I responded to be irrelevant because I didn’t telepathically know your secret thoughts.
You want us to read you generously. It’s easier to do that when you read us generously. I’m not attacking you, I’m saying your words sounded bad. Can you understand that? Can you please understand how a trans person who has been the victim of more than one anti-trans hate crime and has been threatened with death many, many times might feel negatively about a paragraph that speaks clinically of trans* murder victims, with no sympathy in sight, with the only words of concern about some identification process that is going to be performed by people who are still alive?
Use those empathy skills. You ask us to see you. See us, too.
You’re going to have to say a lot more about this, because I think you’re probably quite, quite wrong, but without more details I can’t know for sure whether your wrong or exactly where.
You say, It started in the 70s from a societal sense. But no. People had stereotypes before the 70s. Stereotypes are one important part of social gender and they are definitely not biological sex.
Nothing “started” in the 70s that hadn’t been happening for hundreds and thousands of years. Even Simone de Beauvoir’s statement, “One is not born a woman, but becomes one,” is an observation of a process that already existed, was already well established, in her 1940s Parisian environment. Moreover, that’s not dissimilar from things articulated by certain suffragists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries or, really, from some of the observations in Vindicatipn of the Rights of Woman, the famous feminist treatise by Wollstonecraft, the English francophile writing near London after returning from Paris where she was exposed to the ideas of Rousseau and some other influential thinkers.
Again, I’m happy to learn more about exactly what you mean, but you can’t just say, “I’m talking about the thing that happened in the 70s” and expect that clears everything up.
===>And as a separate note, I notice that you did not admit that you use words to describe people using gendered pronouns without checking genitals and/or chromosomes. But I’m confident that you do this. So what do you use? You use social cues and stereotypes. This is a separation of gender from biology. It would be nice if you could admit that this is something that you do.
You realize that something kind of like this has been happening all through human history, with different cultures, with different stereotypes, with different levels of strictness of enforcement, right? We have good reasons to believe that a certain number of people are going to grow up feeling like they aren’t the gender society tells them that they are no matter what rules society makes up for determining your gender for you. So it can’t be the mere existence of stereotypes that causes this. And, also, this is again an argument for self-determination. If society is never going to get everyone’s gender right when dictating from the outside, why not let individuals determine for themselves how they want to interact with gendered systems and schema?
It might be useful to you to think about how this is similar to the concerns of sexist men who object to feminism. They frequently tell us that if we say that abortion is an option, someone is going to think that abortion is mandatory. They use this as an argument for denying women control over themselves.
When you have concerns that providing people choice will result in some people making a bad choice, even if you don’t say the next part out loud (the part that says, “and therefore choice is a bad thing”) the social context in which you’re speaking leaves people with no reason to think you mean anything else. If you’re only bringing this up because you have fears you know are going to lead us to bad, authoritarian policy places, you can say,
And your fear is reasonable. I know because I’m trans* and I had people important to me tell me that I wasn’t a man because of various different crap reasons. Now, as it happens, I felt no stress whatsoever when they said that I wasn’t a man (or boy). Thinking of myself as “not-man” or “not-masculine” wasn’t stressful. Thinking of myself as feminine was only slightly stressful. And thinking of myself as a woman wasn’t stressful at all. Then I grew up and I’m a woman who wears jeans instead of miniskirts and almost never wears makeup, but enjoys dying her hair all the time and painting her nails once or twice a year. But here’s the big thing: they couldn’t know that. It could easily have been that I was an androgynous guy, but still a man. If it happened to me, it has to have happened to guys like that. So your fear is reasonable.
But, and here’s the important thing, if you’re just looking for support and you’re not trying to argue a point or change minds, why are you visiting a website where no one knows you?
I’m not saying it’s impossible that this is the best place for you to get support. There have been lots of feminists who have been isolated in the past. There have been lots of feminists who don’t have any in-person feminist friends. It sucks, but it happens.
But it doesn’t happen that often. So when you come here and say these things about your fears, you really sound to others not like you’re a best friend looking for a hug. You sound like you’re a stranger who thinks that too much tolerance for trans* people (and especially NB people?) is a bad thing.
Why do you sound like that? Because we’re not best friends and because there are literally millions and millions of people who think trans* people need to back off on the advocacy. We can only guess where you fit in our social milieu unless you tell us.
Even now I don’t really believe that you’re just coming here for a hug. So what is it you want? Are you feeling like your fears are telling you trans* advocacy is going too far, but you don’t trust them, so you want to hear an argument that helps you kick your fear to the corner where you know it belongs? What is it?
We can’t sympathize with you if we don’t know what’s going on for you. And until we understand your reasons for repeating the same messages that other people are using to oppose trans* rights, the most logical explanation is that if you’re repeating the words of people who oppose trans* rights, then you yourself oppose trans* rights. In fact, that’s where the suspicion about sealioning comes from. Sealions (as opposed to sea lions) are polite by definition. They say, “I really, really support your rights,” right before they, “but I am concerned with X. Can you provide me with an explanation of why I should support your rights if they end up causing bad consequence X?”
It may not seem fair to compare you to those folks because you know what’s in your head. But because actual sealions deceptively employ the language of people having a conversation in bad faith, it is inevitable that when strangers come in to a trans* positive or feminist or anti-racist space and talk about their “concerns” with trans* advocacy or feminism or anti-racism they’re going to sound like sealions. Now, unless you’re lying to us and you really are a sealion that’s not your fault. But those jerkfaces do exist, and you are a stranger in trans* positive space expressing your concerns about trans* advocacy leading to bad outcomes. So there’s going to be some similarity there.
The only way through that uncomfortable situation is to simply stick around. Participate in conversations in good faith. Don’t ask repetitive questions – if you have a concern and you bring it up once, you get your answer and drop it. Eventually people will develop a certain amount of trust and confidence that you’re here because you like the people here and generally want to join with us in having good conversations and creating a better world.
It’s not the fault of newcomers who are acting in good faith that sealions have poisoned some conversations, but it is the reality of the internet. Don’t worry: if you’re hear for good reasons, you’ll gain trust and respect and even friendship here soon enough.
Yes, this is true. But if people are telling that boy that he must be a girl, the problem is with people who are trying to enforce stereotypes. Trans* people are doing the opposite of that.
We are the ones fighting hardest to end stereotypes. We are also the ones who suffer the most from the enforcement of stereotypes.
So whether or not it’s your intention, the feeling that people get when reading these words is that you’re blaming the victim.
your readers will ask themselves,
Again, this is an example of something you’re writing that simply comes across badly.
But people do brainwash children. All the time. You find it most often in orthodox religious communities, deeply devout groups of people whose religion is conservative in tone almost always work their asses off to force kids to accept that there are only certain ways they are allowed to be, and that those ways are dependent on sex and gender.
It feels… odd, that you’re saying people wouldn’t be brainwashing children. People already are. Trans* advocates and feminists are fighting that, but it’s far from over.
Now, probably you mean something like, “I’m not afraid that trans* advocates or trans* people will be the ones doing the brainwashing,” but again, we only have the words you type, not the words still inside your head. And so, once again, we have something that sounds weirdly prioritized.
We’re well aware that trans* people aren’t the threat to gender liberation. We’re well aware that many people are threats to gender liberation. So your information isn’t new, even if you phrased it in the better way I suggested you might in the previous paragraph (if that does, indeed, reflect your thinking). So what purpose does it serve?
Again, it could just be that you’re feeling nervous and confused and have to have some place to talk about this stuff and happened to show up here. But maybe you’ve heard the statement that it’s not the job of women to end sexism, it’s the job of men?
It’s not the job of trans* people to end cissexism. It’s the job of cis people to do that.
Imagine, just for a second, that a man walks into a feminist space where you’re participating and says, “I have concerns about where all this feminism is going. I’m TOTALLY pro-woman, but I just want you to talk to me about these real concerns that I have that feminism is going to damage people and make them make bad choices. You know, accidentally. Not because feminists are bad people. It’s just that if we do the things feminists say we should do, society might make that turn out bad. So I have concerns.”
Would this feel comfortable to you? Think about that when you read comments responding to you. It might help you understand where trans* people and people who love a trans* person are coming from when they are speaking.
You remember incorrectly. What you just described is gender fluidity. “Non-binary” refers to anyone who, for any reason, doesn’t fit the standard male/female model.
Dang, Crip Dyke, that is an impressive and very well-put breakdown of the issues that have been cropping up with Sapphire’s posts! Fantastic job, thank you for the time and effort you took in writing all those posts! Reading those was educational for me as well.
I just want to single this out as a great response by you, Sapphire. When you’re trying to learn, and someone spends time helping you learn something, it’s always appropriate to say thank you, but it’s even more important to let people know that the lessons they’re trying to impart have been received and that you’re going to act differently in the future.
This is the kind of thing that tells others in the room that they can begin to let go of fears you may be seasoning and start to trust that you’re here in good faith.
Yes, but you’re talking about it here, and you’re speaking about it in a way that doesn’t always make clear that you think we already have this stuff handled.
If you were to ask, “Hey, does anyone know how to handle the fucked up situation in Iran where you can be executed for being gay, but if a trans* person who is rich and know the right doctors you can actually get trans*-related medical care and change certain aspects of your ID? Because obviously going through sex transition when you’re not trans* is going to be hell, but for some people it’s going to feel worse than death and so the Iranian government is setting up an incredibly coercive and destructive environment.”
And I wouldn’t have any idea about Persian culture, but I can tell you that I do know a little about the problem, I know that gay men have been executed there, I know that medical transition is available for some, usually wealthy, people who have the right connections and don’t get arrested for being gay before they can get into a transition program, and I would remember that I got my knowledge about those cases through Amnesty International, so I could encourage you to contact AI, who I know employs actual Iranians.
Do you see how that question is different from a generally expressed concern? When the concern is general, as yours was at first, there’s nothing in it to say, “I’m not concerned about you.” The very fact that you’re bringing it up here and not somewhere else creates a tendency for people reading you to think this is about us. And maybe it’s not, but you’re going to have to include something specific in your comments to overcome that bias.
So if your concern really is about Iran (or wherever), you don’t have to throw in 16 levels of apology (though here in Canada we’re used to it and it’s no big deal). Just say, “Hey, I have this concern that this bad thing is going to happen in Iran.” None of the commenters in other countries will think you’re implying that they are the problem, since you’re talking about Iran, and not their country. You don’t have to feel bad. Win win!
Again, you’re mirroring the concerns of the anti-feminists by saying, If we give you three choices instead of two, people might might the wrong choice!
Yes. When people have the freedom to choose, they sometimes make the wrong choice. But on the general level, the fact that people make bad choices isn’t an argument to limit choice – if it was, then no one would be able to own a car or a bicycle, everyone would ride the bus because people might buy the wrong car or drive to fast or ride their bicycle without a helmet.
I mean, if you let people think riding bicycles is cool, then some people will want to ride a bicycle even before they have the money to buy a helmet because they just feel like they can’t miss out on the cool kids’ experience. And if kids ride bicycles without a helmet, some of them are going to get hurt, a few even badly hurt or killed. Therefore … no bicycles?
Of course not.
But more importantly for this conversation when we move from the general (about choice at all) to the specific (choice in the specific context of having your self-description of your gender be tolerated by society even when it falls into neither the category “man” nor the category “woman”), the people who would tell a child that they have to be non-binary or have to transition in a binary manner are not the people who are here on this website. They aren’t the trans* advocates. And currently those same people are already either telling people that they have to transition binary-to-binary and/or that they have to stop violating stereotypes.
This means that respecting non-binary expression and identity doesn’t create any problems at all. The people who are assholes about gender already exist. They aren’t being created by non-binary people. Because of this, there is no concern about respecting the self-determination of NB folks. The problem you’re worried about already exists, it isn’t exacerbated by the thing you’re worried about, and the folks who are fighting that problem are the very people whose freedom “concerns” you.
Instead of being “concerned” about NB folks, it really seems to me that you should be thanking them. They’ve been addressing your concerns since before you knew you had them. Now might be a good time to tell them how awesome they are.