This week, National Geographic announced their “historic special issue” on the so-called “gender revolution.”
But, wait! What does this revolution look like?
On one version of the cover we have a nine-year-old named Avery, who identifies as a girl. Dressed in pink from head to toe (including died pink hair), the child is described as “sitting pretty” by Brittney McNamara at Teen Vogue, who adds, “Avery is the perfect choice for this historic milestone.”
Some have questioned the ethics of putting such a young child on the cover of a magazine, especially if this child is truly struggling with a disorder. Also troubling is the regressive presentation of Avery, decked out in a colour and posed in a way that is traditionally considered “feminine.” McNamara claims the cover “drives the point home that being transgender isn’t a choice, but just something you are,” implying that this feminized presentation represents something innate.
Rather than saying that kids are drawn to various colours regardless of their sex and that boys should feel just as comfortable in pink as girls, the supposedly “revolutionary” cover conveys the opposite message: that this male child must be a girl because he wears pink.
Where does socialization and societal expectations factor into this “revolution?” Will it address the fact that boys are told they cannot wear dresses (lest they be called “girls?”)
Avery’s mother, Debi Jackson, is a self-identified “conservative, Southern-Baptists, Republican from Alabama.” In a speech that went viral back in 2014, Jackson explained that her child “transitioned” at four-years-old, “which means she changed her outward appearance from male to female,” thereby living as “her true gender.” Jackson explains that Avery was a “rough-and-tumble boy” until he was three-years-old, but then “asked her dad and I if we could buy her a princess dress.” They did not initially buy Avery the dress, assuming “she was going through a stage of liking bright and sparkly things.” But eventually Avery’s parents gave in to persistence and bought their child the feminine clothing requested (princess dresses, sparkly shoes, nightgowns…) After the child declared he “wanted his genitals gone,” Jackson did a Google search, which informed her that her child might be transgender.
Shunned by many in their family and community due to Avery’s clothing choices, Jackson says her family “went into hiding for about a year while [Avery] grew out her hair to look like the girl that she is.” That time enabled the family to reemerge with “a daughter.”
While indeed Avery may be suffering from what the DSM calls “gender dysphoria,” having declared himself to be a girl numerous times, both Jackson’s and National Geographic’s choice to focus so heavily on a feminized appearance is telling. Conservative America wouldn’t accept a boy in “girly” clothing, but shouldn’t liberal America see things differently? And if a child truly does suffer from body dysmorphia or gender dysphoria, why are sparkles, pink, and “princess dresses” the primary focus of discourse surrounding these conditions? Surely we can support kids to be whoever they want to be and dress however they like without further reinforcing sexist stereotypes…
A second cover is no less troubling.
While the cover features a male, two “transgender females,” an “intersex non-binary” person, a “transgender male,” an “androgynous” person, and an individual who identifies as “bi-gender,” notably absent is… A woman!
Is this really what a “gender revolution” looks like? A boy whose “femaleness” is proven by stereotypically “girly” clothing and colours and an apparent rainbow of “genders” that excludes women entirely?
Gender, under patriarchy, is not the “spectrum” so many well-meaning liberals claim, but is, as feminist activist Lierre Keith says, “a hierarchy.” Gender functions in our society to devalue those born female and systemically empower those born male. A true “gender revolution” would fight stereotypes that say girls are inherently drawn to wear pink dresses and grow their hair long, while boys have short hair and are “rough-and-tumble.” It would, in fact, challenge society’s idea of gender itself, acknowledging that some humans are born female and others are born male, but that this doesn’t mean one is passive and submissive while the other is aggressive and dominant.
The trouble with gender, in any case, is not really just in the superficial — though women’s status as sex objects defines the clothing and grooming rituals we are expected to adhere to — but in our lesser status in this world and the violence we are subjected to as a means to enforce and remind us of that status.
Prostitution, rape, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation (FGM), the mail-order bride industry, pornography, and domestic violence are all examples of this — none of which can be resolved by shunning pink and putting on a tie.
The group of people who most desperately need a “gender revolution” (you may recall there is already a movement afoot addressing the harm of gender — it’s called “feminism”) are women, yet National Geographic failed to acknowledge this on either cover, figuring, perhaps, that boring women and their gender troubles are old news.
Avery’s mother, Debi Jackson, is a self-identified “conservative, Southern-Baptists, Republican from Alabama.”
Whoomp there it is.
It really is a conservative mindset that liking princess dresses and being covered in pink = girl.
What would lead this 4 year old child to wanting his genitals gone other than “you’re a boy, you can’t wear that, you can’t like that, you’re a boy”? You’re going to tell me no one in Alabama would have said that to him?
The family felt the need to disappear for a year to disguise the fact he’d ever been a boy (regardless of now parading him on the cover of a magazine.)
Now he’s being groomed, from age 4, to possibly one day remove his genitals. How is that a solution to the problem?
What would lead this 4 year old child to wanting his genitals gone other than “you’re a boy, you can’t wear that, you can’t like that, you’re a boy”? You’re going to tell me no one in Alabama would have said that to him?
Now he’s being groomed, from age 4, to possibly one day remove his genitals. How is that a solution to the problem?
These lines alone show how fucked up this gender discourse is.
Completely. It’s like we’re getting to a whole new level of fuckery everyday. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact some people read this and are like “it totally makes sense!”
Child grooming is real. A child can be maneuvered into believing abuse is love. It makes me think about Munchausen syndrom by proxy: what we have here is a parent inducing a mental condition in their child with the primary motive of gaining attention and sympathy from the public.
The pose is indeed odd for such a young child. It’s clearly an “odalisque” pose and gaze, anyone who knows a little art history can see what references the photographer had in mind:
An odalisque refers to the eroticized artistic subgenre of orientalism in which woman lies on her side on display for the spectator. Odalisques were chambermaids un Turkish harems, and the whole genre caters to a certain vision of prostitution of course, and women being at men’s service.
So yeah. Odd choice to picture a child, to say the least.
You see how the face is secondary and the crotch just below the title?
As you can see, the red line on the right side of the picture goes through the left eye, the mouth, the chest, and the crotch. The right hand, turned inward, creates a “mirror” line. Those red lines cross on the crotch, and if I had continued them, they would end touching the two vertical blue lines.
Now, the child’s body is tilted on the left side, which normally indicates the past. The whole upper body, face included, is “in the past” while only the legs are in the future (note they’re folded and so incomplete). The only part in the present, in the center, is then again the crotch.
The chest is open (the left arm is limp) but the legs are closed.
I could go on but yeah this image disturbs you for a good reason!
I vehemently disapprove of the comment on the odalisques—although, for reasons related only to 19th-century history—but there is no denying that the child above is posing in mimicry of Édouard Manet’s Olympia, one of the most famous paintings in French art history, which in 1863 was the source of much scandal for depicting, in a realistic manner, with an inordinately confrontational look, a… prostitute.
Her name is one which was fairly common amongst prostitutes of the time, akin to today’s “Amber” or “Crystal”; she is nude but still wearing clear symbols of material wealth: pearls and earrings; she is lying on a shawl, undressed but still wearing slippers as if used to walk around the room naked; an orchid adorns her hair; she is disdaining a large bouquet which her servant is presenting her, implying a gift from an admirer; etc.
She is modelled after contemporary painter Victorine Meurent, who often served as a model in her prime, but also regularly exhibited at the Paris Salon. She also posed for Manet when he made his even-more-famous 1963 The Luncheon on the Grass. Look her up. She was awesome.
Olympia is a pastiche of famous paintings of Venus, especially from the Renaissance, portraying the goddess’ ideal body in the nude, with only one of her hand to cover her sex. What shocked Manet’s public wasn’t Olympia’s nudity at all, rather her stare, more defiant than languorous, her thin body—thinness wasn’t exactly synonymous with beauty at that time—and the precision of its depiction, far from the soft glow of the old classics and their idealised backgrounds. In the words of famous writer Émile Zola: “When our artists give us Venuses, they correct nature, they lie. Édouard Manet asked himself why lie, why not tell the truth; he introduced us to Olympia, this prostitute of our time, whom you meet on the sidewalks.”
Olympia is a well-known and beloved work of art which has become something of a commonplace over the last century—which explains why I’m particularly astonished to see it used to model a child, especially to exemplify a so-called “gender revolution”. Although it is true that the 19th century was somewhat reticent to display children in more-or-less overt sexual poses.
I assumed that the girl above is posing with her hand on her crotch to hide the outline of her male genitals; like Olympia, she is ambiguously pointing at her sex and defying the spectator: thou shalt not look. Honni soit qui mal y pense, eh? Sure. I find it alarming enough that the photographer would give me the stark impression to be pense-ing an awful lot, though.
In other words, I find the cover just as bizarrely counter-intuitive as it seems to be counter-productive. In the midst of so many paedophile affairs in the media, in a time when we are (finally) seriously questioning the over-sexualisation of little girls everywhere in the world, that photograph was remarkably tone-deaf…
So that’s why everyone’s eye is automatically drawn to his crotch.
I’m sure there’s something to be said that the general public still views transgender as a sex thing, as a fetish. And where I believe transgender is a regressive movement and social pathology I think one could make a valid argument that that’s an unfair and damaging stereotype.
But on the other hand: the trans movement itself doesn’t do much to dispel it. And what is going on here other than this little boy is being prepared to be turned into a sexually appealing “woman”? Isn’t that the point of catching them early and blocking their puberty so they “pass”? He might as well be a catamite or a puer delicatus.
At least we got a lesson in art history and composition out of this?
This is more of that “well it worked for the gays!” attitude you see so often in the trans community, and other communities for that matter. Like, the gays showed people how they were this way since childhood and it garnered sympathy, so surely we can do the same with something completely different.
Thus we have adults inducing pathology in children to legitimize themselves.
I mean goddamnit, after the whole “born this way” started everyone and their gimp started appropriating it. I would see young idiots on devArt with out-there cartoon fetishes saying “I was born this way! Don’t judge me!” Hell that was probably an early demonstration of all the “kink-positive” nonsense you see now.
My point is: stop appropriating the gay rights movement and applying it to your weird sex shit. People are only doing it because they still view gays as weirdos and perverts and figure they can get the same recognition and normalization.
Of course then there are the people who resent gays for being normal. Ugh.
We say we were born this way because realistically, we were. Whether we choose to pursue it or not, the fact remains that homosexuality is–by definition–a natural manifestation of the reproductive drive.
We know it’s natural, too, because it appears in the rest of the natural world. I have yet to find an analogue to transgenderism–unless you include cross-sex behaviour on the part of male organisms to mimic female behaviours in an attempt to evade “alpha males”.
Cuttlefish are the example that spring to mind—but somehow I doubt the Trans activists would thank me for /that/ analogy.
You can prioritize females and know the difference between males and females and be critical of pornography, prostitution, and sadomasochism and be a liberal feminist. That’s what liberal feminism looked like prior to the third wave. Please, if you believe in reforming males and find radical feminism ‘victim-blaming,’ go take back liberal feminism. Liberalism is based in legal reforms, education, hope. I’d be relieved to see liberal feminism restored to what it once was. Fight for Planned Parenthood, make alliances with gender critical males, keep trying to tell males not to rape, but don’t call it radical feminism and stop diluting radical feminism with old fashioned liberalism because the only liberalism you think you’ve been exposed to is modern transactivism and Slut Walk-type sex positivity. Liberalism doesn’t have to be all glitter and orgies. Go write letters to your representatives, go vote for your candidates, raise money for non-governmental organizations that help women and make liberal feminism realize females matter again. Just don’t call it radical feminism simply because its better liberalism than where liberalism is at now.
if right now today, every single person in this entire world identified as “non-binary” and used they/them pronouns, guess what? the same half the population would still be oppressed by the same other half. it doesn’t matter what men and women “identify” as, women will still be oppressed by men, regardless of what they call themselves. the oppression of women by men is not an “identity”, it is sex-based, you do not get to choose whether you will be oppressed or an oppressor.
distant relative at family event: It's been so long since I saw you!! How's school?
me: none of the things that once excited me make me happy anymore i'm living off caffeine and anxiety i'm paralyzed by my future my diet is trash and my body is slowly rotting but otherwise i'm good hbu
identifying gender as a system in which biological males and females are socialized into two distinct gender roles based on their anatomy in order to maintain male supremacy = HATEFUL TRANSPHOBIA!!
You are blatantly pointing out in this graphic (the different colored chains portion) that we literally do not need transgendered persons. You are invalidating them, and invalidating any person on what they internally identify with IS hateful.
the different color chains represent new “gender identities” like genderqueer/agender/genderflux or whatever teenagers are calling themselves these days
all of these “identities” are predicated on patriarchal gender roles - ex. “I’m a female person who isn’t very ‘feminine’ so i guess i’m genderqueer” or “I’m a male who likes to wear skirts, but somedays pants, so I’m not a boy, i’m genderflux”
it upholds biological essentialism - that females are biologically feminine, males are biologically masculine, and if they aren’t, they are somewhere “in between” male/female
gender, according to feminists, is a hierarchical system in which people are socialized into masculinity and femininity based on their sex to maintain male power, it’s not a fashion statement, not a fun thing that we should “explore”, and not an “identity”
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