i was putting together some notes recently trying to explore some of this from a slightly different angle under a title 'so much for the savages.' i stopped recognising that i probably needed to go to people more knowledgeable than me in *all* the areas is covers, so i post those notes here in that spirit, and also with the request for guidance where i've got stuff wrong. it was motivated by the initial suzanne moore bullshit, at the beginning of lockdown, and a passage in a passage from clifford geertz that i'd read. oh god, there's so much, please please tldr it - it's pretty rambly i'm afraid.
I started writing this just as lockdown came in, and ditched it as it seems largely irrelevant. I've resurrected it in the context of the Supreme Court passing employment legislation protecting LGBTQ+ rights, and in what looks like a highly regressive move, the UK government look like they're going to scrap plans to enable gender self-identification. It also comes through trying to think through (v clumsily) what it means to be a cis-het white male in relation minority and marginalised communities and groups, after being asked to <a href="https://diasyrmus.github.io/blog/2020/06/15/what-does-it-mean">present myself as an 'ally'</a> in a company wide diversity and inclusion intiative.
There is an extraordinary passage in Clifford Geertz's 1975 essay, Common Sense as a Cultural System (collected in his superb book Local Knowledge). I should stress, ahead of quoting this, that I am not suggesting intersexed people are in some way equivalent to transgender people, or indeed non-binary and other gender identities. The focus here is the cultural response to non-binary gender identities:
Gender in human beings is not a purely dichotomous variable. It is not an evenly continuous one either, of course, or our love life would be even more complicated than it already is. But about 2 or 3 percent of human beings are markedly intersexual, a number of them to the point where both sorts of external genitalia appear, or where developed breasts occur in an individual with male genitalia, and so on. This raises certain problems for biological science, problems with respect to which a good deal of headway is right now being made. But it raises, also, certain problems for common sense, for the network of practical and moral concepts woven about those supposedly most rooted of root realities: maleness and femaleness. Intersexuality is more than an empirical surprise; it is a cultural challenge.It is a challenge that is met in diverse ways. The Romans, Edgerton reports, regarded intersexed infants as supernaturally cursed and put them to death. The Greeks, as was their habit, took a more relaxed view and, though they regarded such persons as peculiar, put it all down as just one of those things - after all, Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite who became united in one body with a nymph, provided precedent enough - and let them live out their lives without undue stigma. Edgerton's paper indeed pivots around a fascinating contrast among three quite variant responses to the phenomenon of intersexuality - that of the Americans, the Navaho, and the Pokot (the last a Kenyan tribe) - in terms of the common-sense views these people hold concerning human gender and its general place in nature. As he says, different people may react differently when confronted with individuals whose bodies are sexually anomalous, but they can hardly ignore them. If received ideas of "the normal and the natural" are to be kept intact, something must be said about these rather spectacular disaccordances with them.
Americans regard intersexuality with what can only be called horror. Individuals, Edgerton says, can be moved to nausea by the mere sight of intersexed genitalia or even by a discussion of the condition. "As a moral and legal enigma," he continues, "it knows few peers. Can such a person marry? Is military service relevant? How is the sex on a birth certificate to be made out? Can it properly be changed? Is it psychologically advisable, or even possible, for someone raised as a girl, suddenly to become a boy?… How can an intersexed person behave school shower rooms, in public bathrooms, in dating activities?" Clearly, common sense is at the end of its tether.
The reaction is to encourage, usually with great passion and sometimes with rather more than that, the intersexual to adopt either a male or female role. Many intersexuals do thus "pass" for the whole of their lives as "normal" men or women, something that involves a good deal of careful artifice. Others either seek or are forced into surgery to "correct," cosmetically anyway, the condition and become "legitimate" males or females. Outside of freak shows, we permit only one solution to the dilemma of intersexuality, a solution the person with the condition is obliged to adopt to soothe the sensibilities of the rest of us. "All concerned," Edgerton writes, "from parents to physicians are enjoined to discover which of the two natural sexes the intersexed person most appropriately is and then to help the ambiguous, incongruous, and upsetting 'it' to become at least a partially acceptable 'him' or 'her.' In short, if the facts don't measure up to your expectations, change the facts, or, if that's not feasible, disguise them."
So much for savages. Turning to the Navaho, among whom W.W Hill made a systematic study of hermaphroditism as early as 1935, the picture is quite different. For them, too, of course, intersexuality is abnormal, but rather than evoking horror and disgust it evokes wonder and awe. The intersexual is considered to have been divinely blessed and to convey that blessing to others. Intersexuals are not only respected, they are practically revered. "They know everything," one of Hill informants says, "they can do the work of both a man and a woman. I think when all the [intersexuals] are gone, that it will be the end of the Navaho." "If there were no [intersexuals]," another informant said, "the country would change. They are responsible for all the wealth in the country. If there were no more left, the horses, sheep, and Navaho would all go. They are leaders, just like President Roosevelt." Yet another said, "An [intersexual] around the hogan will bring good luck and riches. does a great deal for the country if you have an [intersexual] around." And so on.
Navaho common sense thus places the anomaly of intersexuality - for, as I say, it seems no less an anomaly to them than it does to us, because it is no less an anomaly - in a quite different light than does ours. Interpreting it to be not a horror but a blessing leads on to notions that seem as peculiar to us as that adultery causes hunting accidents or incest leprosy, but that seem to the Navaho only what anyone with head screwed on straight cannot help but think. For example, that rubbing the genitals of intersexed animals (which are also highly valued) on the tails of female sheep and goats and on the noses of male sheep goats causes the flocks to prosper and more milk to be produced. Or, that intersexed persons should be made the heads of their families and given complete control over all the family property, because then that too will grow. Change a few interpretations of a few curious facts and you change, here anyway, a whole cast of mind. Not size-up-and-solve, but marvel-and-respect.
That some of the language and conceptualising can seem out of date now only indicates that in many respects it is out of date. 45 years out of date. The language and awareness of gender identity has changed considerably since Geertz wrote his piece. Nevertheless I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in thinking there are parts of it that seem current.
I was struck by it in the context of the grotesque media circus surrounding a Suzanne Moore article, and today read this excellent piece by Juliet Jacques in the NYT – Transphobia is Everywhere in Britain. It's worth reading through, as it's a clearly stated description of the current state of affairs. However, in reference to the above excerpt from Geertz, it was this section that caught my eye:
To many, the sight of a center-left party failing to support trans rights without equivocation must be baffling — not least to American Democrats, whose party, divided in many ways, is firmly united in its support for trans and nonbinary people.
This passage highlighted something that I expressed elsewhere, that in fact most of the mainstream liberal space of the USA, and I include in this corporate and liberal institutional culture and governance (in eg education and the media), as well as the really quite centrist Democrats, consider trans and non-binary rights to be expected and unquestionable and, as far as I can tell, inalienable.
So, what changed? What's different between the US of then (1975) and the US of now, nearly half a century later, and why does Geertz's description of the US of then remind me so much of the current terrible... I hesitate to call it a 'debate'... a sort of nauseating and quite pathetic public litigation against transgender rights in the UK. Why is the UK debate so backward? How does 'common sense' get progressed?
I should add, and maybe this sort of exploration is necessarily always caveated, but it's clear that the acceptance of liberal institutional culture does not mean gender identity rights are universally accepted; it is still clearly a live and bitter fight against violent and murderous hate, as well as the more structural forces of social conservatism and conservative religion. 2019 was the joint deadliest year on record for transgender americans.
This is specifically about what might be considered the editorial voice in the UK. I'm not in a position to look at corporate, civic or legal standards, other than to note much of what is considered legitimate language and attitude in the commentariat would be unacceptable in most corporate environments of which I'm aware.
But why is the UK liberal media – the guardian is of course notable – so regressive? It is not generally, by which i mean editorially, either interested in the feelings or needs of non binary gender identities other than as a side to a controversy, or thinking honestly, curiously and generously about the frameworks that can be put in place to enable people to live their desired identity in society without hindrance or handicap. It is certainly not interested in editorially campaigning for those frameworks and that thinking.
Instead it is involved in what looks like a bitter rearguard action to spoil and crash any ability to look at the opportunities to improve society, and any obstacles there are to that, as clearly as possible.
uh, it gets even more 'note-y' from now:
COMMON SENSE & THE COMMENTARIAT
How does common sense change? And why has that common sense changed in the liberal institutions in the US and not the UK <- good example of an assumption that needs examining!
The lack of ability for our moribund commentariat to examine what might underlie their assumptions of ‘common sense’ is one of their hallmarks – they are old asserters of a historical status quo. They are people who say that progress stopped when they stopped thinking and examining (eg Suzanne Moore)
Is the controverting of what might be considered common sense into areas of expertise around social and economic liberalism causing the space of what people consider to be their common wisdom to be squeezed, and for it to assert itself aggressively?
the role of marketing in establishing common sense - geertz's example is people's basic 'common sense' acceptance of the germ theory of disease not being based on science, but the move from 'feed a cold and starve a fever' to 'brush your teeth twice a day and see your dentist twice a year' (we might also add in the uk 'coughs and sneezes spread diseases.'
sense held in common – the kantian sense – that allows shared communication
to be clear I am not talking about that, though retaining a sense that it *allows us to communicate* may well be helpful here.
It occurs to me the defence mechanism of common sense is against the vehicles that attack it – expertise, where training and learning have found that the best analysis is one that runs counter to existing common sense (usually sense that is outdated). Maybe we are just seeing a consequence of the rapidly generalised learning across society (no one likes their offspring telling them how things *actually* are), and, conversely, within that general learning, specialisation.
in that sense the failing media, to get specific to the UK, may be performing a specific function of trying to create a fungible language that can freight between specialisations - the need for commentary rather than reportage. there are people who do this certainly, but in general the commentariat retains its common language of communication by erecting barriers around its (increasingly bubble like to the commentariat) common sense.
How would we know if this were the case? What examples of trying to find a common language between different linguistic spaces or conceptual spaces can we find? Layman’s books - danger is we create feelings of expertise which are ‘thin’ to use Geertz’s term.
WHY ARE LIBERAL INSTITUTIONS MORE PROGRESSIVE IN THE US?
The question is obviously not here one of intersectionality, but intersectionality as one example handling the complexities and intersections of identity and identity vectors (eg race and gender). Is the US in a more sophisticated position (i tried to avoid ‘advanced’ and ‘mature’ to avoid prejudicing my thought, but frankly those are reasonable words to use), because it has legally and socially litigated frameworks for identity to a far greater extent than the UK?
Such imports from the US (check your privilege) we love to scorn. And I probably need to unpack why that may be a little bit, but it’s worth noting now that we also find ourselves taking them on after a while - for example the professional class love of exercise, scorned by the man with the pint a couple of decades ago as faddy, and in a sense unmanly because of a vain pursuit of bodily image.
Is that litigation because the US is a significantly more plural than the UK? It's very hard to get away from the overwhelmingly white middle class in the UK and a sort of rather silly nostalgia for the moral and societal frameworks of their youth and upbringing that anti-trans commentators can show. (needs support)
BACK TO THE COMMENTARIAT AGAIN
As I understand it eye-rolling is technically, historically and literally an invocation of God, but in its mundane form of ‘oh for God’s sake’ is effectively an indication that for the eye-roller, something is typical of a behaviour of a person or group and therefore the content of the behaviour can be disregarded. I wonder to a certain extent whether it forms the same protective ‘warding off’ signal of common sense, as described here by Geertz:
In this context, at least, the cry of witchcraft functions for the Azande as the cry of Insha Allah functions for some Muslims or crossing oneself functions for some Christians, less to lead into more troubling questions - religious, philosophical, scientific, moral - about how the world is put together and what life comes to, than to block such questions from view; to seal up the common-sense view of the world - "everything is what it is and not another thing," as Joseph Butler put it - against the doubts its inevitable insufficiencies inevitably stimulate.
They are not cognate certainly, but it is a sign of denial and dismissal, which says ‘i will not regard this matter further, as it goes beyond what i can reasonably consider’ and while there is no doubt that eye rolling can take place in isolation (god knows I’ve done it), it is also frequently used as a communicative device to people with one whom one wants to assert shared values. Imagine for instance eye-rolling at a person in a room, while someone else on a phone is talking, and you note with alarm the person is room is taking the person on the phone seriously. The alarm is twofold, but predominantly that lack of shared value and the exposure of yourself as the isolated one, the second is suddenly a concern that the content of what is being said matters.
We may with reason see our commentariat as in a collective state of eye-rolling at each other in this as in many other matters. But rather than occupying what even with charity can only be described as a position of ‘we understand and *you* don’t’ (because we are the commentariat and if we didn’t understand, then how could we justify that position?), or because of ‘special access’ to politicians etc ('we have special insight'), it is of course a deeply atavistic mode, incredibly susceptible to authority (who tells you that you are right? you need, like a neglected child, *someone* or indeed the world in same way (data/scientism) to show that you are *right*.)
I am obviously writing this in the context of the fall-out from the Suzanne Moore article, but it’s notable that every time I think of linking it or analysing it, or say a public response like Piers Morgan’s on a public service broadcaster, i’m reluctant to do so because it feels too grotesque and embarrassing to do so. that they are people who are exhausted by the category “commentariat”, precluding a wider expertise or richness they can bring to any subject (and categorical exhaustion they ironically intensify by demanding their right to continue to be heard on public platforms and in the papers).
The principles of intersectionality should for instance tell us to be wary of the resistance of one identity to oppression does not and should not exclude the possibility that those same oppressions are visited on others and that people who do not exclusively define themselves by one identity may be ostracised further - that identity is not a singular matter of excluding that which you are not but a plural matter.
Clearly, the complicated matter of the practical enfranchisement of transgender people and enforcement of their rights, and defining public spaces and legal frameworks to ensure those rights are supported by our public, private and institutional governance is ill-served by this so-called “discourse”.
the irony perhaps is that moore feels her identity is being encroached upon which she aggressively defends from her privileged public platform, by denying people their right of others to their own stories. we must all, when it comes to Moore’s view, live her story, or we are not valid (one might say that this only reflects an uncertainty about the validity of her own story, the need to prosecute it so publicly and the need to ensure other people also participate in and support that story. in some respects that is the point of the commentariat - their actual function.
Moore wants the sense held in common to be dictated by her and her own experience.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 21 November 2020 10:26 (three years ago) link
Dw Fizzles, you will never be as incoherent as me.
I’d agree with that, onimo. Which is what the recurring conversation on this thread is about, the inherent danger in what should be progressive allies acting as mouthpieces for regressive values under the banner of feminism.
I can’t tell you how reductive and blindingly sexist it is to be reduced, as a woman, to my fucking organs, which is what my upbringing was like in Ireland, and yet you see supposedly smart and educated women falling for this and pushing this message every day. Can’t stand it!
I was talking to a friend the other day in Poland about the anti-abortion movement there and he felt (and I agreed) that British people were largely ignorant of the grassroots efforts to extend access to women in countries across Europe where it’s either illegal or limited. I am aware of and donate to the various charities and non-profits, for example, that fund travel for women in Poland, Malta etc and the reason those organisations are necessary, but there seems to be real ignorance about this wrt British feminists (you’ll see more articles about the GRA in a week than about the protests in Poland).
Obviously there are people interested and active, but considering the situation in NI and considering that it’s still technically a crime here, I’m surprised how little thought it gets. But this is me talking about one of the most formative political issues of my life.
I suppose this is a very rambling way of phrasing it, so let me try and then end: after abortion was legalised in Ireland, there now exists a slightly unusual situation where the laws that are in Ireland are more liberal than those here in Britain, where it continues to be a criminal offence (albeit one that is de facto legal though it is not prosecuted!)
In Great Britain abortion continues to be regulated under criminal law, but is legally available through the Abortion Act 1967, which permits abortions if there is:
risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
a necessity for abortion to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;
risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation); or
substantial risk that if the child were born, it would "suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".
Like that’s crazy to me, that there hasn’t been a big mainstream push to at least remove it from the realm of criminal law. We know how much sustained effort from a minority can change the law in this country (how
is Brexit going?) and we know too that the fash never take a day off. So I tie the relative stasis on reproductive rights here with the stasis on a lot of women’s rights as conceived by the commentariat - they have been stagnant for so long and blind to the idea that things could change for the worse so suddenly that they’re incapable of progressing the way they view the world and therefore they obsess over trans and nb people as a live, urgent
issue while they pal around with people who are in no way interested in the rights and freedom of women.
The biggest example of this remains the fact that JKR allowed gr1pt.ie to publish her essay.
The one where @jk_rowling gives right wing grifters, homophobes & transphobes permission for gript 'media' to republish her transphobia. pic.twitter.com/E3UutQClDr— Daithi K. (@tvcritics) June 16, 2020
I would really,
really like to know why she gave permission to a site run by someone notorious in Ireland as the spokesman for the campaign to keep abortion illegal, whose site publishes all manner of racist filth and conspiracist filth daily. Just glancing at the site now, there are two anti-abortion stories, an antivaxxer story right there at the top and more in the archives. If she didn’t know the nature of the site, it still sends a message regardless of her intentions.
So yeah tl;dr, don’t take progress for granted because it’s easy for things to get worse very suddenly and then of course the fellow travellers never stick to one group of people. Why would they?
― scampus fugit (gyac), Saturday, 21 November 2020 12:26 (three years ago) link