Cancel Culture; Role models; youth; body image

 

RantWoman is seizing on #pandemic time to do a bit of cleaning out, in this case of her drafts folder. RantWoman intended to post this in October during, among other things, LGBT... history month.

As usual, the post is likely to be half content and half observations about the conversation venue(s).RantWoman does not want to scare anyone out of the conversation. RantWoman has other process concerns which mean she will address aspects of the conversation rather obliquely. This conversation came with some verbal acoutrements which RantWoman thinks could be worth weaving further into the conversation except that RantWoman can make plenty of the pieces that stick out for her.

This is a really interesting article.

Cancel Culture

The article is about someone making a movie. In the course of making the movie he spends a lot of time looking at the lives of tennis stars (and famous lesbian role models) Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova. RantWoman does not have much of a head for professional tennis, even less than for softball which "all" lesbians in good standing are supposed to care about. (Does the sport involve a ball smaller than RantWoman's head? Is one supposed to hit the ball? Are attributes such as depth perception and basic agility an advantage?  If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," RantWoman is already out of there.)

But RantWoman digresses. What interests RantWoman more is public figures and image. Navratilova apparently caused great controversy by hiring Dr. Renee Richards who is transgender as her trainer. The prevailing view seemed to be "we helped you escape Communist Czekoslovakia and you should show your gratitude by not doing anything controversial."  Navratilova, on the other hand embodied an "I'll take my freedom on my terms, thank you very much" point of view. 

Another point that sticks in RantWoman's mind is about body image: Navratilova over time acquired a very masculine appearance. It might occur to RantWoman to explore the question of whether the choice to do this had anything to do with gender identity or whether that also came from a professional sports culture in Czekoslovakia. RantWoman has no idea whether doping was as widely taken for granted in the Czekoslovakia of the day as in the Soviet Union or East Germany, but if RantWoman had extra time to graze in odd info streams, RantWoman might think to read more in connection with this question.

Third point of controversy: RantWoman is going to make readers read the whole article to digest Navratilova's views about fair competition, hormones and when people should be allowed to compete in sports events corresponding to their gender identity. RantWoman has not really thought through the issue well enough to have an opinion, but here the voice of someone who has been dealing with a transgender identity for a long time including in school where questions of fair competition loom very large. Here RantWoman apologizes: she sort of aspires to have a more cogent opinion, but so far, thiking of many public school realities RantWoman has not been able to get past "Gee, it could be kind of hard trying to be a supportive parent of a transgender child." RantWoman is going to leave this reflection there with one note: one of RantWoman's college housemates announced on Facebook awhile ago that her middle child has come out as transgender. So now RantWamn has ALL kinds of questions.