I’m always hungry for historical queer representation,” says Charlie Josephine, the non-binary playwright of I, Joan, a sweaty, heady, joyously queer new drama about the patron saint of France. “Because our history has been erased – particularly transgender people’s – there is very limited documentation of us throughout history, even though we have existed since the beginning of time.”
Whose history? “Queer” people’s? So the fix is to erase the history of women?
To Josephine, Joan being written as non-binary felt both obvious and natural. “I could have written this play as a cis woman who is feminist and passionate about expressing themselves in this way,” says Josephine, shrugging the idea away. “But the more I read about Joan, the more I think they’re what we would now call non-binary or trans.”
Because feminism is so yesterday, so your mama. Non-binary and trans are so much more up to the minute and exciting…until they too become your mama.
There was, however, one part of the backlash that caught Josephine by surprise. “I forgot I was blaspheming a saint!” they say with a laugh, hands lifting to their head and almost forming a halo. When first considering how to write the play, they add, Joan’s devotion did prove a challenge.
All those confusing theys – I have every sympathy.
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11 responses to “Sweaty, heady, joyously queer”
It’s a fascinating proposition:
1. Gender exists.
2. The female gender can be characterized.
3. Nobody can develop such a characterization more accurately than people who spend their lives obsessing over how to appear female, so the proper characterization of the female gender must be provided by MTF transgender people.
4. A natal female who does not exhibit such characterization is gender non-conforming at the least, but probably FTM transgender.
5. A natal female making an argument that she is not transgender, but just gender non-conforming, is indicative of a level of argumentativeness incompatible with female gender, and further proof she is actually transgender.
6. Any historical woman who did things that don’t comport with 21st century MTF transgender characterization of female gender was trans.
7. She can’t argue for herself, because she’s dead, and if you disagree you’re suppressing trans history, and how dare you.
8. All your female are belong to us.
…to the extent that I will make it up when it’s not actually present.
Yes, all the electrons and neutrinos, protons and neutrons were trans or NB. Neutrons. It’s right in the name!
“But the more projected my own obsessions and concerns through the anachronistic filter of an ideology that’s still new enough to be cool, I couldn’t have seen her for what she really was if my life had depended on it.”
If the history has been erased how does “they” know about it? Is the knowledge innate, in the same way that “their” gender is? Is the knowledge carried by DNA and if so can we identify the genes responsible and learn more about our prehistory? The possibilities are intriguing.
How does “they” tell the difference between there being no record of “trans history” because it’s been “erased,” and there being no such “history” because nothing of the sort happened? What faculty of perception is “they” using to obtain this “knowledge”?
There’s astonishingly little actual documentation about Joan. So ‘the more THEY read’ is going to be a mishmash of French nationalism, Catholic apologetics, and Wimminz History fantasy. So why not project trans-orthodoxy into the mix?
I’m always hungry for female historical representation. Seems I will have to starve as they “queer” the women who were those representatives.
I never found Joan a great role model, though. She was too pious, and probably delusional.
She’s always fascinated me.. Consider that as a teenager she convinced the French to put her over an army, and her family was not nobility. Whether she was deluded that she was a Messenger or not, the persuasive abilities need to do so are formidable.
And I’m not sure which delusion is more incredible between being nonbinary or a Messenger of God.
Trans and queer people have always existed, and until pesky western science came along, everyone knew this. But they aren’t attested to anywhere… absence of evidence of existence ==> evidence of erasure. A classic conspiracist line of reasoning.
Mike, Joan did a man’s job (ran an army) instead of a woman’s because… well, the only possible answer is that she wasn’t really a woman. There’s really no other way to explain it. Unless you think that man and woman are sexes and not attitudes. Which would be preposterous.
Guess I’ll have to get to reading Mark Twain’s treatment of the subject and start reading between the lines…
Gender identity doctrine is well-suited to this sort of storytelling. Nobody can define “transgender” in very precise terms, let alone “non-binary”, so you’re free to take the legends you’ve heard and give them your own spin.
The men (and, possibly, one woman*) who wrote the gospels did the same. By the time they sat down to tell their “histories,” Jesus, assuming he was based on a real person, was long dead, and there were conflicting stories about him. Each gospel writer used the stories they liked, and here and there changed bits they disliked (some stories had Jesus healing a blind man by applying a hunk of spittle and clay to his eyes, but the anonymous author known as Matthew didn’t like the earthiness, or the suggestion of magic. His Jesus didn’t need any home-made salve. No spit for him.) And of course each author was free to inject his own theology–and politics–into the mix.
Those first century authors were concerned with immortal souls; “Charlie Josephine” is concerned with gender identities. Like the soul, gender identity is an amorphous concept, convenient for storytellers. Talitha, koum! You’re non-binary now!
* I think Randel Helms makes a good case that “Luke” could have been a woman (that gospel is surprisingly female-centric, especially for its time.)