Boyne’s critics won’t win allies by bullying
Compared to author John Boyne, who was so horrified by the vicious backlash against his opinions that he closed his Twitter account, actress Charlize Theron must be flavour of the month with trans-rights activists. The South African star, who enjoyed a long-running romance with Irish actor Stuart Townsend, announced she is raising her oldest child, who she adopted as a baby boy, as a girl.
‘She looked at me when she was three years old and said: “I am not a boy,”’ said Charlize, when asked why her child Jackson, wears tutus and pretty girls clothes.
Charlize is an example of modern liberal parenting which, taking its cues from the child, gives it the freedom to develop as it likes, without worrying about social approval.
At this early stage, allowing Jackson express herself doesn’t call for much more than buying girlie clothes and
But as puberty approaches, it gets trickier with the decision about whether to delay treatment until adulthood or to embark on hormone blockers and irreversible surgery to help them look more masculine or feminine.
Up to now, common sense said that the best thing for an adolescent who was confused about their identity is to carry on dressing and pursuing interests that may not be stereotypical of their sex while living in an openminded milieu free from bullying or ridicule.
For that’s the thing about gender – in this day and age when gender roles are blurred so much that men can become stay-athome dads and women mechanics, it has never been, if not less important, then certainly less of a determinant over career paths and lifestyle. Yet dare we suggest that gender is just one aspect of our humanity, or refuse to place it at the very core of our identity, or turn it into something that for nonbinary people who ‘identify’ as neither male nor female but can change according to their mood, and we face the wrath of transgender activists and a level of aggression and entitlement that ironically stinks of nothing so much as toxic masculinity.
The intolerance and abuse deployed by transgender activists is utterly at variance with the grace
and generosity of Irish transgender people who, describing their experiences in the media, have helped educate us about the condition.
Many of them bear the scars of a marginalised and tormented existence and deserve compassion for their suffering.
A mild-mannered author like John Boyne, a gay man who includes LGBT characters in his novels, would seem like a natural ally for the trans community. Yet thanks to its leadership, all hell broke loose when he wrote that he considered himself a man, not a cis man which in the vocabulary of the trans movement means ‘normal’ or the opposite of trans.
‘I reject the notion that someone can force an unwanted term onto another,’ wrote Boyne which again one would think would be music to the ears of a community that has been insulted in the most derogatory terms over the years.
Aoife Martin the spokesperson for Teni, (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) struck back saytoys. ing: ‘Boyne whether he likes it or not, is a cis man speaking from a position of cis privilege.’ Now the trouble with this dressing down is that mainstream society hasn’t a clue what it means.
For most people, gender and sex are interchangeable while terms like ‘gender identity’ or ‘misgendering’ which were originally hatched on college campuses, are a minefield. For most of us, babies are born as boys or girls, they are not ‘assigned male or female at birth’. The more language is turned on its head and made meaningless, the more nonsensical seems this battle to change what it is to be male or female.
On the other hand, enhancing the lives of transgender people is not beyond the realms of understanding.
After marriage equality and women’s rights it may be the next progressive crusade. But it will not be won by bullying would-be allies like John Boyne for the crime of dissent, or hounding them off social media.
It will be won by transmen and transwomen becoming more visible in public life and the dawning realisation that, as with any ostracised group, there is more that unites than divides us.