I don’t watch much TV. The only kinds of shows I really like are what I call gentle competition. Meaning, competitive shows in which the contestants are supportive of each other, rather than “I’m not here to make friends!!!” So, No Cutthroat Kitchen, in other words. I like shows such as Blown Away, Sugar Rush, Glow Up, and the like. The first season of Next in Fashion as well. And, of course, OG Great British Bake-Off with Sue and Mel. Yes, they are competitions, but no one was trying to get anyone else. There was no nastiness (or very little. Mostly good-natured ribbing), and the shows were just very feel-good. My main gripe is that the host of these shows is usually cringe, but I just accept that–wait. No I don’t.
Just because Mel and Sue were the hosts of the original show of this type, it does not mean that a stand-up comedian needs to be the host of all these kinds of shows in the future. The scripted jokes of the hosts are awful. Just plain awful. There aren’t any that are good. Tone Bell from Drink Masters is probably the best of the lot and that’s mostly because his voice is so low and slow. Very easy to listen to. But, man, the jokes are so not funny. On any of them.
The reason I brought this up was because I was watching Barbecue Showdown: Season 2 over the last few days. This season was hosted by Michelle Buteau. I liked her by the end because she was caring and considerate, but they made her shout a lot as well. Look. For the love of all that is good and for my ears, please do not make the host of these shows shout, tell bad jokes, and cavort around. I really prefer they just be chill. I’m guessing I’m not the only one, but it’s hard to say if we’re in the minority or not.
The reason I bring up the show is because of the habit of people from the South to address people based on their gender. Older women were “Miss ____” with the ____ being their first name. The black judge, Kevin Bludso, who is an icon in the barbecue world (as is his co-judge, Melissa Cookston, also from the south). Kevin is from Califronia, but spent his summers in Texas learning how to barbecue.
Anyway, there was an older black female contestant whom he called Aunty Delilah. I get why, but it was just odd. There was a black male contestant (from the south, living in Iowa) who called another guy on the show (they became best friends) ‘Brother Logan’. Melissa was called Miss Melissa by him, if I remember correctly.
Let me be clear. That did not bother me if it did not bother them, but it highlights the soft sexism that is pervasive in this country. I know it was to show respect, but if I were the recipient of ‘Miss Minna’, I would not find it respectful. I can deal (somewhat) with Ms. Minna, but not Miss. Because my marital status doesn’t mean a fucking thing. Or rather, it does not matter.
In Taiwanese culture, elders are venerated (or were as I was growing up).We called everyone Uncle and Aunty without names, which made things so much easier.
Back to the show. By the third or fourth episode, it was mildly irritating to me. Why couldn’t they just call the contestants by their names? I knew why, but it didn’t mollify me. And it got me thinking about gender yet again. If I had to choose a title in this sense, I would choose ‘Mx.’, pronounced ‘mix’. It works for me on more than one level, and it’s close enough to the other titles not to be too grating to the normies.
The reason I’m thinking about gender again is because I delved into gender identity nnd autism on YouTube. Apparently, there is a bigger prevalence of gender nonconformance in people with autism, and a lot of gender criticals are latching onto this to prove that trans people are…something or the other.
The first video I found was by a purported psychiatrist. “Great!” thought I. “This should be a thoughtful, well-reasoned video.” I was sadly mistaken. He started out by saying repeatedly, “gender identity issues” and “body dysphoria” as if there was a problem with people who questioned the gender they were assigned at birth. And he was fixated on which one caused which (autism v. GNC) as if he had never heard of ‘correlation does not equal causation’. Which as a psychiatrist, he most certainly should have. Or the apparently radical idea that the two coexisted, but one did not cause the other. This is all basic shit! You don’t need a doctorate to suss that out.
I got about ten minutes in and he said that his clients with autism didn’t have a core sense of self, and it made sense that if they did not have a handle on their gender, they would be bad at romantic relationship. That’s when I rolled my eyes and turned off the video. He’s not completely wrong, but he was going about the whole topic the wrong way.
A true scientist tries to go in–oh, he was talking about a study that recently was released. I should have said that at the offset. A true scientist goes into a study knowing their own biases and trying to neutralize them. This guy did not do any of that. I wasn’t even sure he recognized that he was being biased (by saying gender identity issues repeatedly), and while I understood that it was because the people he saw were all in need of psychiatric help for one reason or another, you would hope that he realized they were not representative of the group in whole.
The fact that he leapt immediately to it being a problem if someone’s gender did not align with their gender assigned at birth meant that he was not a source that I could trust. It’s dangerous to start with a conclusion and work your way backwards.
Maybe, just maybe, people who are gender nonconforming are not broken or disturbed! Maybe it’s because of the bullshit rules and restrictions of society that causes people who don’t fit into them to feel shitty about themselves! Remember, homosexuality was in the DSM until 2013! That’s only ten years ago. So, yeah, pardon me if I’m skeptical about how harmful being GNC, genderqueer, genderfluid, nonbinary, or trans is or that they are the result of disordered thinking.
More later. I’m done for now.