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The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:43 am
by Bob
Also interesting, due to its discussion of gender relations.
The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack
IN the most recent season of the lesbian soap opera, “The L Word,” a new character named Moira announced to her friends that, through surgery and hormone therapy, she would soon be a new person named Max. Her news was not well received.
“It just saddens me to see so many of our strong butch women giving up their womanhood to be a man,” one friend said.
The sentiment was a tamer version of what many other women wrote on lesbian blogs and Web sites in the weeks after the episode was broadcast last spring. Many called for the Max character to be killed off next season. One suggested dispatching him “by testosterone overdose.”
The reaction to the fictional character captured the bitter tension that can exist over gender reassignment. Among lesbians — the group from which most transgendered men emerge — the increasing number of women who are choosing to pursue life as a man can provoke a deep resentment and almost existential anxiety, raising questions of gender loyalty and political identity, as well as debates about who is and who isn’t, and who never was, a real woman.
The conflict has raged at some women’s colleges and has been explored in academic articles, in magazines for lesbians and in alternative publications, with some — oversimplifying the issue for effect — headlined with the question, “Is Lesbianism Dead?”
more...
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 11:45 am
by iain
some lesbians i've met are so intensely masculine that it makes much more sense for them to have a male name. they are strikingly masculine, and I guess the name is one more reinforcement.
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 2:24 pm
by r1g0r
these things have never made ANY sense to me, probably because i'm a straight male. i don't have the right perspective, i guess.
i'd think that if i were a lesbian i'd try to be as feminine as possible, simply because the women i'd be attracted to would be interested in feminine types (not pseudo-MEN).
the inverse if i were a gay man, i'd be as masculine as i could be because i'd be trying to attract guys who were interested in MEN (not hyper-female types).
like i said, i guess i have the wrong perspective.
i can understand the upset parties problem with the sex-change plot. imagine if YOUR sex-partner decided to change their physical sex. you would probably be HIGHLY annoyed.
$.02
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 10:30 pm
by Bravehearts.us
Actually, I don’t understand what any of this has to do with advocacy for wearing MUGs. Who cares if Jane becomes Jack?........unless you’re married to her/him and you wake up one morning to hear, “Surprise, guess what I had done yesterday?” Whooooooooooaaaaaaaaa!!!
Lar
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:03 am
by Bob
It doesn't have anything to do with MUGs, but then again it does. Transgender stuff comes up all the time in discussing MUGs with some of my close friends; they can't seem to differentiate. Also, MUGs and fashion freedom have to do with gender relations in general, which the article touches on. The idea of MUG is so revolutionary precisely because it is trying to expand the definition of "masculine" WITHOUT going into any of those other issues.
Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:59 am
by WSmac
The story also seems to parallel the issues between those who see kilts as non-skirts and those who seem them as skirts.
What I mean is...
It seems to me there is one camp that says, "If you are a man, then you wear a kilt! If you are a man who is 'not quite a man', then you wear skirts!".
The other camp represents more of the folks I see here and the thought that, "If you are a man, you can wear a skirt no matter which rack it comes from and what pattern is on it!".
The basic problem is that too many people feel the need to have their world divided up into poles... male - female, heterosexual - homosexual, kilt - skirt, etc.
I'm glad to see more people who are understanding that humans cannot be defined by a bi-polar system. You could look at it as a line or perhaps more of a circle. Humans vary to so many different degrees that we should dispense with all this rigid categorizing.
In a perfect world that is...
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:10 am
by iain
that's an interesting observation. I think the tendency to label is an intitial security mechanism, so we can hold some people at arm's length and embrace others within our lifestyle. we always want to know initially who is safe and who isn't.
after a while we don't care about the label because we come to know the person: people near to us forget about our clothes. but society is so complicated that we meet strangers every day, and they may instinctively label us just as our friends maybe did in the first moments they met us.
if we all lived in little communities and didn't mix much with outsiders, probably men would wear skirts most of the time. nowadays, only those revolutionaries who are strong enough to not let the emotions of strangers concern them can wear what they want--when these items become acceptable, everyone will be a revolutionary, because it will be safe then to be one.
But,but,but,but.....
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:47 pm
by Since1982
iain wrote:when these items become acceptable, everyone will be a revolutionary, because it will be safe then to be one.
But,but,but, when skirts for men become acceptable and commonplace, a person wearing one can't be a revolutionary, he might be an ex-revolutionary, but not a current revolutionary unless he's doing something that is CURRENTLY revolutionary. Like perhaps making a habit of safely going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Now that would be revolutionary indeed. This whole response could be considered revolting too... LOLOL
