Double Door
As my old friend Regina could tell you, I’m usually able to appreciate a good pun. But there’s one pun-based riddle that has always annoyed me: “When is a door not a door?” The answer is, “When it’s a jar (i.e., ajar).” When I was a child, the riddle was incomprehensible and hence not funny, simply because I was unfamiliar with the word “ajar.” Even when the word eventually entered my vocabulary — in a house shared with cats and kittens, a door that’s ajar can be a bad thing — the riddle still irritated me, because its premise is clearly untrue. When a door is ajar, it doesn’t stop being a door. It’s a door and it’s a jar.
As unintuitive as it seems, two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. The difference lies in the context. For example, in the context of ethnicity, I’m Jewish. In the context of religion, I’m not. A Nazi would say that I’m Jewish, a Hassid would say that I’m not, and both would be correct.
I belong to a chorus whose music, with few exceptions, is arranged for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. My voice would normally be classified as baritone, but that’s not one of the options, so I found my home in the tenor section. In the context of the chorus, I’m a tenor; in the context of solo singing, I’m a baritone. Both can be true at the same time.
These examples — to me at least — feel uncontroversial. So I wonder why cases involving gender can’t be equally straightforward. My chorus (if I may use it in another example) used to include, in each season’s repertoire, one song performed just by the men and another performed just by the women. There’s a long tradition of this in choral music: Men’s voices and women’s voices have such distinctively different qualities that songs are often arranged for one or the other. (Think of the contrasting sounds of the Mills Brothers and the Andrews Sisters.) But a few years ago, we permanently dropped the men’s and women’s songs in order to avoid discomfort for gender-nonconforming people.
I’m all for sparing people unnecessary discomfort. But is it really necessary to eliminate entire categories of music? Just about every person I’ve ever met, regardless of their gender identity, has what is traditionally considered a man’s voice or a woman’s voice. Can’t we say to someone, “In the context of society, you’re a trans woman/nonbinary person/gender-fluid individual, but in the context of choral music, you’re a man”? (In cases of people whose voices are not neatly categorizable, they can choose the group that they fit into more comfortably, just as I, a baritone, chose tenor over bass.)
I hesitate to wander into politically disputed territory, but can’t we say the same thing about restrooms? I’m a great fan of urinals. They use less water, take up less space, and require fewer surrounding walls than toilets. Practically speaking, it makes sense for anyone who can physically use a urinal to use one. Perhaps one day there will be one big room where everyone can urinate into the fixture of their choice, but for now, urinals are almost universally found behind the door marked “Men.” So can’t we say, if only for environmental reasons, that — strictly in the context of elimination — anyone who can make use of a urinal is considered a man?
I understand that there is more at stake here than practicality. I can see how for someone who has been has been maligned, demeaned, threatened, or attacked for not conforming to traditional notions of gender, the idea of being asked to accept a label that they have so long fought against would be abhorrent. But if we could break from the habit of assigning a single label to each person, to recognizing that everyone can have multiple labels in multiple contexts, the meaning and force of any individual label would be reduced. If a door can simultaneously be a door and ajar, can’t a person simultaneously be a man and a woman, depending on the context? And wouldn’t that then be true of most of us?
I love what you say about multiple identities. We all have them! And we also have things we aren’t; my ancestors were Russian, but I’m not, and though in Europe everyone thinks I’m Italian, I’m not that either. lt’s fine, because those don’t challenge the core of who I am. But I have a non-binary child, and gendering them is denying who they are. They aren’t sometimes a woman and sometimes non-binary, and when others try to make them that, it isn’t acknowledging the complexity of human nature; it’s a rejection of their core identity. I don’t think you’d insist that someone was white if they told you they were Black, even if they had one parent of each race. There’s nothing wrong with being a woman, or white, or Italian. There is something wrong with forcing an identity on someone that they reject – we don’t get to tell others who and what they are, especially when it hurts them. We all give up things to honor other people’s integrity. Giving up women’s songs and men’s songs is a small price to pay for supporting folks who are literally fighting for their identities and their lives. Happy Pride Month to everyone; what can we all do to protect and support?
I don’t know what to make of your hypothetical example of my insisting that someone was white when they are Black. Why would I (or anyone) do that? But I would say that a person with a parent of each race is white and Black, and I certainly have known biracial people who consider themselves such.
I think part of the confusion lies in your phrase “forcing an identity on someone.” I have a problem with the word “identity” being used in this way, because it implies that each person is one thing only, and it is something that they share with other people who have the same “identity.” In fact, each person’s identity is unique, and the words we use to describe people are labels, not identities. People might accept some labels and reject others, but the label identifies just a small part of who a person is. What I’m suggesting here is that all of us can be described by multiple labels, and if we all perceived ourselves and others that way, the world could be a place where “fighting for an identity” isn’t necessary.
I see another strategy for the addressing the issue in your chorus. Why not simply change the label to something that is noncontroversial? You could do songs that are arranged for people with voices that are higher and other song for people that are lower and the people simply choose which group they belong in based on where their voice naturally falls? I don’t know the technical musical term that defines this but I’m sure one exists.
As usual, I’m late in reading your column. But to put it in perspective, I’m nearly a year behind with my New Yorker magazines…
Of course, I loved seeing my name in print 😉 And, folks, do send your puns to Mark. He is a critical but appreciative audience.
I agree with Lisa that using noncontroversial labels seems the preferred way to go. I would also argue that you could keep the SATB labels in music. These don’t actually define the sex of a person, but rather their vocal range. Our mixed choir has persons identifying as female in the tenor and base sections. As for “men’s” and “ladies'” rooms, you could remove the words altogether and put a picture or pictures of what was provided: a urinal, a urinal and a toilet bowl, a toilet bowl. I think people would figure out where they wanted to relieve themselves.
Mark, in your answer to Ann, you differentiate between labels and identities, which I find unrealistic, even if technically correct. We all remember “sticks and stones …”, but the fact is, names, or in this case, labels, can hurt you. Before we were even aware of it, we were being labeled, and it was those labels that helped form our identities.
Regina, as a singer yourself, I’m sure you’ve experienced that what differentiates a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass is not just the vocal range, but the quality of the voice. (“Quality” in this case referring to character, not merit.) Due to a shortage of men, the tenor section of my chorus is mostly women, but that doesn’t mean that a woman singing in the tenor range sounds the same as a male tenor. If you want a demonstration that vocal quality makes a difference, listen to a chorus of boys and a trio of women singing the same song. Granted, the arrangements are very different, but the vocal range is the same. And yet, there’s a huge difference in the character of the boys’ voices and the women’s voices — you’d never mistake one for the other. I can’t find any examples online, but I’m sure you can imagine that if you heard a song in the tenor range sung by a woman’s voice and then by a man’s voice, you’d easily be able to tell the difference.
I like your point that labels help to form identities. But once an identity is formed, then the labels imposed on it shouldn’t matter. People can call me whatever they want; it doesn’t change who I am. If words are used to hurt me, it doesn’t matter what the words are — what matters is that they were wielded with the intent to hurt. If we declare certain words to be off-limits, then people will find other words with which to express their hate equally effectively. I don’t understand the need to sacrifice perfectly good and useful aspects of language just because some people will use them as weapons.