WHY NON-BINARY IS A CURSE WHEN IT SHOULD BE A BLESSING
or... the difference between celebrating diversity and telling lies, or... child abuse without throwing a single punch
Suppose you’re a boy who wants to play with girls, play with dolls, have tea parties instead of wrestling matches, who wants to dress in a tutu and go to ballet classes. Suppose you’re in a real life movie and it’s called Billy Elliot, only it’s not just dancing, it’s all these other unmanly things too: sugar and spice, instead of snails and puppy dog tails.
We could be saying, right on, brother, you do you, and we’ll love you for it – or we damn well should. You’re a good little boy. You’ll grow up to be a good man – with emphasis on the “good”, not the “man”, because the “man” part is kind of bullshit – nothing wrong with it, maybe, unless it’s imposed on you as a code, as a standard you have to conform to, aspire to, hate yourself for not living up to. No, it’s YOUR story. Take what you want from central casting and make up the rest as you go along. In other words, “Dance, Billy, dance. Dance your heart out. Twist and turn and leap up into the sky. Be brilliant. Be you.”
Or we could say, Billy, you’re not a boy, you’re a girl, and we love you for it. We love the hidden you that’s locked up inside. We’ll help you find it. We’ll change your name and your pronouns, and when you get a bit older, we’ll give you a knife so you can cut yourself open and get to the heart of you. And if you’re lucky enough, if we get to you young enough, if you’re particularly vulnerable for any number of reasons – autistic, abused, unloved, or just a sweet little kid who believes what you’re told, who wants to belong, as we all do – we’ll give you away to the monsters of money. We’ll give you a ticker tape parade to the chopping block. We’ll celebrate your bravery, your innate coolness. We’ll do it to you because we did it to ourselves, or because we wish we had, or just because, like you, we want to belong.
“Transwomen are women…” I used to respect people who believed that. There was a time when I even bought into it myself. Then I cracked open a few books. I started with the books my trans ally friends told me to read. I read them. Then I kept on reading. I don’t deny you have to wade through a lot of bullshit to get through the swamp, to get to the other side, but there is another side. It’s called science. It’s called intellectual honesty. It’s called fuck you, if you want to sell me this new religion, same as the old religion, different sacraments, same mumbo jumbo.
I know you are not all monsters. Worse than that, I know you are good people who want to do the right thing, but you have this monkey on your back. Maybe it’s indifference, maybe you just can’t be bothered. Maybe you think, “This debate is toxic. I’m not going to get drawn into it.”
Or maybe you’re better than that. Maybe you care. Maybe you care a lot. The world is full of monsters, and you are ready to fight them. You are a champion in your heart. But that’s not enough. You have to be a champion in your head too. You have to do the work. You have to do the research – not the q-anon conspiracy hunting bullshit – real research. Read critically. Read things you disagree with – and things you think you should disagree with. Don’t be afraid to consider the possibility that the other side is right. Give yourself a headache digging into the actual studies – and then dig into the analysis of those studies, and then dig into the analysis of the analysis. There is such a thing as truth. Fight for it. Don’t be afraid to piss off your friends, to turn them against you. Dare to go against the tide. If you don’t do this, you are not fighting monsters, you have become one.
Transwomen are human. Transmen are human. Non-binary, furry, gender fluid, queer, straight, gay, or just damaged and numb… we are all human, but we live in a world at war. Sex is not the only battleground, far from it, but it can be the most painful – it cuts so deeply into who we are. And there’s money to be made, big, big money for those who wield the knife. Every generation, the cuts go deeper. The wounds get uglier. We should love the wounded, not the wound, not the knife.
David, I think you hit the nail on the head. People, all people, for the correct ideas don’t fall from the sky, need to seriously investigate that which is essential. We call that process, perhaps practice is the better word, science. But most people think of science very differently than we do. It’s like calling yourself a Christian or a Communist, it means something important to the namer but is subject to the preconceived assumptions of the hearers. The fluidity of meaning makes communication difficult. For me it all goes back to my early Maoisms. How to distinguish antagonist contradictions from non antagonist ones, how to unite the many to oppose the few, and all the rest of our catasism.