Over at Rod Dreher he says that a genderqueer couple having a baby and trying to decide what they want that kid to call them -- maybe "mather"? Maybe "abba"? -- will destroy society.
His exact words: "If it should catch on, society will unravel."
I cannot fathom being this terrified of any little difference in behavior among my fellow citizens. OH NO, this person practices sex differently than I do! OH NO, this person worships a different God than I do. OH NO, this person wants their kids to call them mather instead of mother!!1! OUR WORLD IS DOOMED.
I can't imagine that a culture or a belief system which is that fragile is actually worth saving.
6 comments:
Rod Dreher is somewhat of a hysteric (about this and many other issues). But here's the thing: he's manifesting discomfort with different names in a way that many, if not most, parents would. Not on the basis of hating any particular person, but on the basis that good parents always try to create a sense of stability and predictability for their young children. If we tell parents that its fine, as a parent, to tell your children that you're more or less making your gender up as you go along, that's flies on the face of one major facet of the stability/predictability paradigm, which revolves around "who are my parents? what are they like? how are they the same as other parents? how are they different?" I do think we've gotten to where two moms or two dads are comprehensible to children (yay!) but we are very far from being OK with "my parents are of some unknown gender." You may want society to get to a place where children are uninterested in what gender (common or uncommon)their parents are, but were are not there yet, and I think it probable that we will never be. That's not to say that the parents you cited won't do a great job in the life-long adventure that is parenting. But why is it so hard for a parent to just choose the currently-used name that most closely (if not perfectly) fits the body that s/he has and/or role that s/he will be playing in the child's life?
It's true that (some) children like a stable and predictable world. I'm not sure that this desire for a stable and predictable world precludes having a parent who calls themselves "mather" instead of "mommy," though.
As for the rest of your comment, I'll just say I think you're wrong in almost every respect, except for the part about these parents doing a great job.
In my experience, parents who aren't rigid in their gender roles / gender performances / gender expectations make much better parents than those who get obsessed and "uncomfortable" about any deviation from "predictable" gender expectations.
I agree that parents who aren't rigid in their gender roles/gender performance expectations are better parents. That would describe my parents, actually, and it would certainly describe how I parented my children. What I'm talking about, though, is the reality that there are two sexes that typically map to the "mother" function and the "father" function. There have been plenty of genderqueer people in the past who nonetheless comfortably enacted the role of "mother" or "father."
I don't know why you would say that you think everything I said was "wrong;" there is no settled science about current ideas on gender. There are plenty of hypotheses and narratives, both old and new, but no settled science. So I see no reason to deprive children of a paradigm that is useful, but not confining since we agree that the way one performs one's named sex identifier is up to the individual.
This is one part of your previous comment I think is wrong: "If we tell parents that its fine, as a parent, to tell your children that you're more or less making your gender up as you go along, that's flies on the face of one major facet of the stability/predictability paradigm..."
First, I don't think anyone is "making up" their gender as they go along. That's not what being genderqueer is.
Second, I don't think children are that interested in the gender of their parents. They are much more interested in whether their parents are available, are invested in them, are decent human beings. Yes, they're interested in having stable parents, but that stability has little to do with their parent's gender, or how their parents perform their gender.
I also think this part of your previous comment is wrong: "But why is it so hard for a parent to just choose the currently-used name that most closely (if not perfectly) fits the body that s/he has and/or role that s/he will be playing in the child's life?"
I can only assume you don't know anyone whose body and gender are not in alignment. I'd advise you do some research. It is, in fact, very hard for some people to "just choose" to use such names.
Finally, your belief that it is "probable" that we will never be in a place where people don't behave in such a ridiculous way about other people's gender behavior is also, I think, wrong.
Fifteen years ago, no one would have believed we would have been so accepting of gay people. Fifty years ago, no one would have believed we would have been so accepting of interracial marriage. The world can change. With luck, and education, and persistence, it will change.
Actually, I have a transgender nephew, who would call himself "father" if he had a child. I agree that children care most about having parents who are loving and supportive. But it is not true, in my experience, that they do not care about their parents' gender. Especially once they are pre-teens or teens. And I have some direct experience with this in a family nearby whose daughter my daughter is close friends with -- both now 32, friend's Dad transitioned 20 years ago. The Dad wanted her children to call her by his new (female) name, but the kids wanted to continue to call her "Dad." This of course is not the same as the situation of the parent who plans to be called Mather. Transgender people want to use the pronouns of their new gender, not entirely new pronouns. I'm just trying to make the point that names do matter to children, and they use those names to locate themselves and their parents not just within their own family structure (where, of course, you're right, you can choose any word you want to designate a parent/child relationship when the child is small and exists mostly within the family) but also within the larger scheme of things. Gay people and interracial marriages have been around since the dawn of time, but people who create new parental designations have not. I agree that no-one should be vilified for expressing their gender differently, or for choosing to change their gender, but by the same token, we would do well to understand why people are shaken by those choices, or by an insistence on devising new names for parental identities. Laws change overnight, cultures take longer.
I am not at all confused about why people are "shaken" by trans people, or by genderqueer people, or by any of this. They're "shaken" because they were very badly parented, and have an unresolved trauma centered around their understanding of gender. This is true of far too many Americans, sadly.
Nor have I missed your point. I just think your point is wrong.
It may be true that some trans people glory in using the pronouns that align with their gender. It is also true that genderqueer people glory in using (what you insist on calling entirely new) pronouns that align with their gender. And it is also true that genderqueer parents want to use names that align with their identity.
You might consider why this is a problem, for you or anyone else.
Surely it is simple decency to call people what they want to be called?
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