In imaginary games
Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.
In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the former Ellen Page, star of the anti-abortion movie Juno.
But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.
Hey guess what: me too. Or not quite, not that literally, but close. I spent a lot of my play time pretending to be a boy or man character too, though I also pretended to be Laura Ingalls (who was herself a tomboy kind of girl) or Mary Lennox or Jane Banks.
We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.
No, because men don’t cry, especially not before the interviewer has even said anything besides “Hello.”
It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.”
Ok slow down there. Let’s think about this. “Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans”…which can be seen as tolerance and liberality, or as social contagion that encourages “young people” to make drastic and irreversible changes to their bodies. It can be seen as both.
Second point: it’s not just conservatives who see that “increased social acceptance” can be a euphemism for “social contagion” and that the latter is not always beneficent. Given the inherent absurdity of what people mean by “trans,” it’s inevitable that it’s not just conservatives who think the whole idea is futile and destructive. Constantly framing “trans” as the latest expansion of human potential rather than a perverse and anti-reality daydream just throws more wood on the fire.
But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”
No, that’s the big lie again. Nobody is debating anyone’s existence, what we’re disputing is the description. We think you’ve got the description wrong.
Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism…
No, not in the name of feminism. She really is a feminist, she’s not faking it. It’s funny how fans of the ideology think changing sex is completely real while feminists who call themselves feminists are fake.
Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off.
It’s not complicated. Forget about gender, focus on sex. It’s not complicated: you are what you are.
“Gender” is what you do with it, so by all means disrupt that if you want to, wear the “wrong” clothes if you want to (and can get away with it, which is where it does get complicated, but not the way Katy Steinmetz means), just don’t pretend that the social rules about gender are identical to the physical facts of sex.
A lot of it just has to do with clothes. In a way that seems absurd, but I guess in another way it doesn’t – they are in our face all the time after all.
Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be.
That part I can get. I would find it acutely uncomfortable and weird to have to wear feminized clothes, not really for any coherent reason, just because of the “not me” feeling. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a suit and tie either; I rely on that androgynous middle ground, kind of Rachel Maddow territory (I could put on a blazer if I had to). Maybe if Hollywood conventions could just allow that, Page wouldn’t have felt forced to join this masquerade.
And ultimately, what we dispute in the description isn’t transgender people’s personal testimony about what they think and feel, but the explanations for why they think and feel as they do. They’ve got a backstory which not only involves an innate gender identity formed during fetal development and an unmistakable awareness of it from birth, but radical assertions about sex, and whether gender trumps it when it comes to determining if you’re a male or female (which has also been redefined — along with feminism and women as a political class.)
What other category or phenomenon subsumes an explanation into it? If atheists say there’s no God they’re not denying that Christians exist. I’ve never seen an atheist/theist debate where the latter broke down in tears claiming “and my opponent is saying I’m not REAL but I AM and I’m HERE!” like the smallest Who in Whoville.
No, he wasn’t a tomboy kind of a girl, he was a man. He wrote books, and we already established a few posts ago that women don’t have books, they have pouty poofy lips the better to suck you with.
Though I suppose Laura Ingalls could have been non-binary.
During those few periods of my life when I have had short hair, I have not assumed that was anything to do with being male. I have long hair not because I am female, but because my hair behaves when it is long, and stands straight up and sticks out when it is short, so I look like I’m wearing a porcupine on my head. That has nothing to do with sex, with gender, or with anything but the oddities of my hair. Short hair does not equal boy; long hair does not equal girl. Unless we are to assume from all the pictures of Jesus that he was a woman (a trans woman?).
I also played boys at times. In fact, my siblings always insisted that I had to play Robin whenever we played Batman; I never got to be a villain even once (and I loved the idea of being Catwoman, but there were a lot of male villains I wanted to play, too). I also related strongly to Laura Ingalls, and to Jo March. Strong, intelligent, and female were my preferred characters. I do not believe I ever thought I was a boy, or should be a boy, even after my mother finally allowed me to wear jeans to school instead of dresses. (To be fair to my mother, girls weren’t allowed by the school to wear jeans until I was a sophomore, and she let me start wearing jeans when I was a junior, so only slightly behind the curve.)
My mother was always very disturbed by me, because I didn’t act “girl” enough. I wasn’t interested in building a hope chest, finding a husband, and having babies. I was interested in science and history and all sorts of other non-girl things. But she never thought I was a boy. She thought I was some sort of grotesque pretense of a woman, inferior to both women (because not feminine) and men (because not male). With that sort of confusion in my upbringing, I still managed (after years of therapy) to figure out who I was and work within my own self and my own being without having to change sex.
And I could wear jeans, discard my barrettes, and cut my hair without being a boy. I could play Robin or Captain Hook or Peter Pan without being a boy. I could go down to the silo and jump in the grain with my sisters, and none of us believed we were boys because we found that more fun than sitting in the house playing tea party. Or because we cut branches off trees to play war with my brother, who had no one close to his age except sisters to play with.
I am so sick of this anti-science, anti-reality bullshit.
I’m curious if Elliot Page thinks she could have identified out of Brett Ratner sexually harassing her and abusing her for being lesbian back in 2006. If she had told him up front she was really a straight man, would he have ignored her? Or perhaps this is about something more than just expressions of gender…
We in the follically-challenged community find this long hair / short hair obsession exclusionary. Stop denying our existence.
AoS, just identify as having a full head of luxurious, sweeping, rich brown hair. It’ll be just so.
AoS, there’s no problem. You just have to identify as someone with hair, and voila! You are hirsute.
This is certainly important, given that another behaviour that is spread via social contagion is suicide. Trans are quick to dismiss any discussion of social contagion or Rapid Onset Gender Disphoria, but are happy to promote teen suicidal ideation as a threat to wield against reluctant parents and anyone else who wants to encourage watchful waiting.
Take a look in the mirror, Elliot, because here you are, an “extremely influential person” spreading ” myths and damaging rhetoric.” You’re telling lies. Lies for a “cause,” but lies nonetheless. Unless you live in an impenetrable bubble, it would not be hard for you to find out what JKR is actually saying. Her actual words prove that what you’re saying is a lie. Given what her words actually say, the fallback position seems to be that Rowling’s feminism is a charade, as is her concern for women and girls. Her actual goal is harm to trans people. It’s interesting how someone so fiercely devoted to their own personal need for truth can be so careless and dishonest about the truths of others, and that maintaining the lie seems to be more important than being forthright about the views of those with whom you refuse to engage. What do trans activists have without this lie? It is their shied, their reason to refuse to engage the legal and policy concerns of GC women. The persistent use of this lie (among others) is a continuing demonstration of bad faith in TA dealings. There is to be “NO DEBATE” of the existence of trans people. That’s good, because that’s not the debate that gender critical feminists want to have. The health and safety of women and girls is up for grabs, but women are not allowed to question demands for access to their spaces, and such questioning is portrayed as an attack on trans identifying people, with the boundaries and well being of women and girls being a pretext or smokescreen instead of the entirety of their legitimate concern.
No, “hair” is a social construct. It’s not a binary, but a spectrum. If someone with a single hair is bald, then someone with 2 hairs is bald, then 3, and so on. There’s just no way to justify that a hair ever makes any difference! Hair then makes no difference. It’s what’s in the mind, not what’s on the skull.
So the only reasonable way to tell if someone has a full head of hair or not is to ask them.
Yeah, sorry Elliot, men only cry manly tears. Funerals, sunrises, and war movies… not interviews.
I know what I can do: I’ll get a lot of rabbits tattoed onto my head. From a distance they’ll look like hares.
I’ll get my coat…..and hat.
I love it that # 6 and # 7 appeared at exactly the same moment.
I also love “the follically-challenged community.”
One time in college I was late to a class (very unusual, and the prof knew that). When she said I was late, I told her I was time challenged. She groaned; now they had to accommodate the time challenged.
If I’d been ahead of the curve, I could have just identified as being on time, and all would be well.
Unfortunately my mirror’s not buying it. It resolutely refuses to show me a me other than the me standing in front of it. It will show me no alternative, fantasy photons. How dare it! I’m crushed. Trapped in bald mode! I am taller than my hair, and my porcupine is dead.
Of course I don’t want to debate trans people’s literal existence. They exist, and would go on existing even if they categorised themselves as I think more sensible, gender non conforming people, or opposite gender conforming people. That’s fine.
I would quite like to discuss HOW they reached their conclusions of being trans, as I think that would be productive for them, and ultimately helpful for their mental health, and physical health. But, of course, they don’t have to, and I won’t make them.
My issue is what they want the rest of us to do with these conclusions they have reached, because I don’t think that poorly regulated and experimental medical and surgical treatments are wise, and I think it is unconscionable to ask for compelled speech from the general public, and unconscionable and disproportionate to end women’s rights and children’s safeguarding on the strength of their thoughts. That is what I want to debate.
I think the “debate my existence” argument is more like the argument about witches.
Witches don’t exist. A person might say, “Well I’m a witch and I exist; you’re denying my existence.” Not really; it’s obvious that you exist, but, by what I consider a reasonable and appropriate definition of “witch”, I do not think you meet the definition, and I think no people who meet the definition exist. People who claim to be witches exist, but actual witches do not.
Similarly, with a definition of “boy in a girl’s body” or “girl in a boy’s body”, I could say that there is no such thing and trans people don’t exist, which is again a different question from the existence of people who claim to be trans.
I think the trans activists want these questions conflated, and they want the existence of someone claiming to be “boy/girl in a girl/boy’s body” to make the claim actually true.
Your mirrors are follicuphobic and is erasing you(r hair)!
Once again, if that person is a “man” then I’m not. There is no non-trivial definition of “man” that includes Page and me at the same time while excluding “women”.
I can’t say that I’ve forgotten something I never knew. Looking at her pix on the internet I’m struck by how manly she looks.
Sackbut wrote:
That’s exactly what they want. I currently have a TIM whining, consistently and at length, that I have no right to talk about the trans issue because I don’t even understand what trans IS — and until I sit, listen, and learn there’s no point dealing with me at all. And of course what “transgender” means includes the dubious explanation, so that accepting that there are transgender people means buying completely into the whole gender identity scenario where it forms in the womb and sex is assigned and the whole ball of wax. Otherwise, I’m just making up definitions without knowing what I’m talking about.
Saying I’m listening, but not agreeing, doesn’t seem to be an option.
It’s like Christians saying that Christianity is a loving union with Jesus Christ and then pitching fits about how atheists who think Christians ‘believe’ in Jesus are denying their existence. Which, to their credit, they seldom if ever do.
So much for transitioning being a solution to the emotional strain of being in the ‘wrong gender’, Elliot appears to be an emotional trainwreck. Granted, some of this has to be due to all of this playing out while also being very famous, but still. Emotional stability seems to have gone in the wrong direction, as far as we public can see.
Oh, tears of joy, Holms, tears of joy from the blessed release.
Or maybe tears of justifiable frustration. But a train bears no responsibility for being wrecked, it’s never the engineer.
Well, this post hit a nerve somewhere!
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/03/17/when-the-worst-of-bad-takes-comes-from-a-former-friend/
Neither PZ nor his commenters understand sarcasm, taking the ‘men don’t cry’ bit as literal proof that Ophelia is a staunch defender of gender roles.
Oh, and Sastra, they are shocked and disappointed in you commenting here. The poor lambs.
See comments on the “Scientific?” post.
Thank you for noticing about the “men don’t cry” bit, which is so stupid I can hardly believe he typed it.
@AoS;
Yes, I saw.
It’s okay. When I disagree with people I agree with on so many other things, I can’t help but think that if we both just sat down with good will, reason, and something to sip, we’d eventually come to an agreement that the other person means well and has a point — but they’re still wrong. Or, maybe, even better than that, in that we’d move closer together.
Tends to disperse the shock and disappointment, and make it manageable.