Butterfly- a view from the cocoon

The cast of ‘Butterfly’

I watched the first episode of the new ITV drama ‘Butterfly’ with interest and growing discomfort.

From the opening credits, where Max removes his lipstick and pink nail polish, to the firm handshakes dolled out by his bearded father, I was especially struck by the programme’s blithe promotion and acceptance of gendered stereotypes.

As Max removes the trappings of femininity, the hair adornments, the nail polish, lipstick and jewellery, the camera pans back and we see his face. This powerful opening speaks volumes: remove the adornments we associate with girlhood and this boy-child is just that: a boy.  How could he be anything else?

Max dancing – from trailer

We learn that Max’s parents are recently separated, and that Max’s penchant for feminine things has played a large part in this split. It’s made clear that Max feels guilty about the split and desperately wants his parents back together.

In a bid to impress his dad on weekend visits, Max tries to enjoy playing football. We learn that he has also cut his hair in an attempt to please his father.  And this pretence works, up to a point.  But the moment the mask of machismo slips, dad is having none of it. When Max spins and dances in a pink top at home, it become too much for his father, who tries to stop him, first saying,” I’m warning you, Max,” and then striking him.

Dad has made rules in the past about what Max can and can’t do. “There’ll be more rules about it now,” he warns, darkly.

“In our house you get to do ‘girl things’ but nowhere else.”

Even his supportive mum can’t see beyond conforming to conventional sexist stereotypes of how boys and girls should behave, telling Max,

“Outside you’re a boy, you do what boys do.”

 

Which brings us to the elephant in the ‘Butterfly’ house. At no point does anyone tell Max that he’s just fine as he is, that liking traditionally ‘feminine’ things doesn’t make him any less of a boy.  That it’s ok for a boy not to enjoy ‘manly’ pastimes. His grandmother dismisses his feelings as a ‘silly phase’. Grandad, at one point,  suggests the family should “all just say you’re gay and it’s no problem at all,” but we all know grandad is old and foolish and the idea that Max might not be the problem is not even considered by any other character.  No wonder he thinks he must be a girl. In Max’s world, it isn’t possible to enjoy the things he does and still be male. The message Max receives from everyone around him is that he is not a ‘proper’ boy.

A glamourous-looking Max on the hospital trolley (from trailer)

There follows a suicide attempt, brought on by Max’s mother’s attempt to go out on a date. Rushed through the hospital, Max lies like a modern day Ophelia, hair lightly curled, impeccable and perfectly made up, on a hospital trolley.

After this, the family visit a medical health practitioner, possibly from CAMHS, who, on this very first visit, raises the subject of puberty blockers.

When Max’s dad mentions the fact that he’s heard most kids ‘grow out of it’, the idea is dismissed with the ominous prediction, “Puberty can be a ticking clock… gender dysphoria might escalate, might not.”

 

After dancing in the playground with some girls and being bullied on the way home by some boys, Max’s teenage sister tells him “ I think of you as my sister,” and he is ready to let her take him under her wing.

At the end of the first episode, Max comes downstairs with his sister, in a school skirt, make-up and a hairslide. “How do I look?” he asks his surprised family.

“You look lovely,” manages his mother.

On going to school dressed like this, Max says “I don’t want to do it but I feel I have to”.

It is as if Max has realised that the only way anyone is going to let him express his personality is if he forces himself into the ‘girl’ box.

“She,” he corrects his mother when she refers to him as ‘he’.

“She,” she breathes back.

A necklace similar to the one Max removes at the start of the series.

The influence of ‘Mermaids’ is apparent throughout the first episode.  In the opening sequence, Max removes a mermaid necklace and a momentary close up reveals it to be very similar to the one  on the ‘Mermaids’ logo. In a visit to an aquarium with his dad, Max imagines a beautiful mermaid swimming over to him and trying to make contact with him through the glass. In a later scene, Max’s parents visit a support group and are told  “Listen to your child.” A Mermaids poster is clearly visible in the background.

Jake Hurfurt reports in the Mail that writer Tony Marchant and actress Anna Friel, who co-produced the program and plays Max’s mum, have ‘lavished praise on Mermaids’.

It comes as no surprise that CEO Susie Green, whose son underwent ‘gender reassignment surgery’ at just sixteen, and who advocates for under-16s access to cross-sex hormones, is listed in the credits as a series consultant.

“I can’t even begin to thank Susie Green enough for all the help she gave me.” gushes Friel.

This afternoon, with the first episode of Butterfly about to be released, the homepage of the Mermaids website was promising that their ‘helpline will be open until midnight on the 14th, 21st and 28th of October to coincide with the launch of new episodes.’

Today, Mermaids’ Twitter feed is full of scores of pictures of butterflies and scores of moving quotes from anonymous happy parents who have transitioned their children. Gender critical parents have made their own version of the mermaids hashtag.

 

In fact, apart from the obvious idea of emerging from a cocoon, I really can’t work out why they called the program ‘Butterfly’ in the first place. “Mermaid” would be a far more appropriate title, as at times the show verges on little more than a glorified advert for the contentious and controversial charity.

For a production with a fair level budget, ‘Butterfly’ isn’t very well put together. The acting is excellent but the writing is weak, a frequent flaw of ‘message pieces’.

While questing to become compelling characters, the actors struggle with the challenge of becoming something more than mouthpieces for the message. This was nowhere more notable than in the painfully gauche scene where Max’s sister tells him he should correct people who refer to him as ‘he’ and that she thinks of him as her sister not her brother.

The editing is also somewhat haphazard. Scenes seemed mashed together, rather than paced, which leaves the viewer feeling as if they’ve just watched one long trailer.

Of course, it isn’t meant to be real.  It’s a story. It’s a fictional show. It’s prime time TV drama.  But the show pushes the sexist and homophobic narrative that a boy liking dancing, pretty things and pink is reason enough for not just concern, but medical intervention.  I wonder to what extent the self-congratulatory adult crew involved with making it have seriously thought about that.

In addition, the beautification and idealisation of attempted suicide in this show, and the way that it gets Max what he wants (his dad moves back home because of it) may give mixed messages to other confused kids.  Writer Marchant has suggested that “kids going through this, with or without the support of their parents” might watch the show and get “some sense of what we need to do, that this is ok.” 

What he doesn’t seem to be asking is how many effeminate little boys are going to watch or hear about this show and decide that they too must be ‘born in the wrong body’? How many well-meaning teachers will watch the show and wonder if little Tommy isn’t just a bit quiet and effeminate after all- perhaps he is a transgender child?!   How many parents, concerned their child might be gay or doesn’t comply with gender norms, may decide it’s because their child is really transgender?

 

How many of those little boys will end up getting ‘fixed’ like Max?

 

Posted in Children & Young People, Investigative | 8 Comments

Gender is harmful. My views are not hateful.

Yesterday I was told my writing could be seen as hateful. The accusation stems from my belief that men cannot ‘become’ women, & that ‘woman’ is a biological descriptor. Nor do I believe a child can be born in the ‘wrong’ body.

So I’ve written something short, to lay out my views and try to explain them in a piece that should only take a few minutes to read. Hopefully you’ll make it to the end and hopefully you’ll see that there is nothing hateful about my beliefs.

If you see hatred here, please pin point it. Call it out. Let me know where; let me know what and why. Be specific.

A girl who likes mud and short hair, and hates pink, is still a girl. She is strong and fierce, not broken; she does not need fixing or to change herself. If you love her, tell her that. Always.

If you feel uncomfortable that your boy child likes pink and tutus & you’ve agreed with him that that means he’s a girl, know that I will never comply with this.  A boy who wants to sing and dance, to feel the breeze in long hair and a skirt flow around his knees is precious and wild. He can never be a girl, and that is fine because he is perfect as he is. Why would you ever tell him otherwise?

Your child does not need to be lied to. They need help to try to accept themselves as they are. They will find it much harder to do that if the adults that they love and trust tell them that they might be in a body that is ‘wrong’.

I have seen the effects of gender dysphoria first hand. I watched my own daughter wrestle with it, feeling that she was wrong, that to be herself she would need to make painful, unnatural changes to the unique creature that she is. It was terrible to see her so torn.

I understand that many people with gender dysphoria suffer terribly and I feel for them. Having that empathy doesn’t mean that I should be willing to lie about facts, change the meaning of the words that describe my sex, or stay silent when I see children being misled and harmed.

The same set of values that say the Munroes and Shons of this world ‘do woman’ properly,  are the same values that say short-haired, make-up free lesbians don’t ‘do woman’ properly. This is not ‘inclusive’. It is crushing. It is untrue.

Sisters, if you remove your breasts it will not make you a man. You will always be one of us and not just because you understand the pain of womanhood better than most.

Woman is not a feeling or a costume that can be tossed away or picked up. A man in a dress is still a man. Plastic surgery does not make him a woman.  Nothing can ever make him a woman. This may be a harsh reality, but it is still a reality.

The restrictive gender norms and values that our society has established for men and women are based on stereotypes. Like characters in a child’s cartoon, these stereotypes are two dimensional. We are so much more complex than that.

Stereotypes harm everyone. They are a web that traps and confines us, a mask forced on us that we never chose to wear.

We should strive to break them down, to leave the next generation a world where every personality is valid and every body is beautiful.

Let’s toss out the absurd rules that say there’s a right & wrong way to be a man or a woman. Women’s biology is unique to females and men’s to males. It shouldn’t define our personalities. Let’s celebrate that.

Bending the meanings of words does not change reality. Woman; man – these words are biological descriptors. The rest is a huge and vast expanse of diverse forms of expression, some of which we label as masculine or feminine.

Turn your back on sexist stereotypes. They help no-one. Women shouldn’t have to perform femininity; men shouldn’t have to perform masculinity.  We are perfect as we are. We need to speak out and say this.

It is not hateful.

Don’t be afraid.

Break out of the boxes, don’t build new ones.

Posted in Opinion Pieces | 26 Comments