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This past Sunday, Melisa Harris-Perry talked first about marriage…
And then she followed up that video essay on marriage with an interview of Scout and Elizabeth — Scout being the one who proposed to his then girlfriend at the White House LGBT Pride Month Reception:
To me, the most interesting query from Melissa Harris-Perry in the interview video came after Elizabeth and Melisa discussed how the term “wife” isn’t considered a liberating term by second wave feminists, and Elizabeth mentioned that she and Scout had been gender outlaws. So here’s what Melissa asked (emphasis added):
Scout, you’re trans-male. So in the sense of like males being able to marry females in this country, it’s legal, but it’s outside of what we’d consider normative. Is that’s what some of the angst is here?
Normal. Normative. Those are interesting words to contemplate when one is talking about trans people and their relationships, don’t you think?
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Related:
* PHB vid exclusive: LGBT reception – student activist delivers letter to President: ‘sign the ENDA executive order’
* Dr. Scout Responds to Haters Re: White House Marriage Proposal
3 Comments
A lot depends upon context and intent. Clearly, Melissa Harris-Perry seems extremely supportive and the interview was very positive. “Normative,” or in this case, “not normative,” doesn’t have to automatically imply good-bad or right-wrong, it can just mean “different” or “out of the ordinary.” You have to admit, a transgender person getting engaged or married is not something that happens every day, and most people, even very supportive people, have had little exposure to it. None of this has to imply that there’s anything wrong with it or any reason not to celebrate it.
This is a new dialogue for most people, and which words are preferable vs. which words should be avoided is new terrain for most of us. I think it’s obvious that Melissa had no intention whatsoever to offend or judge – quite the opposite. Scout and Elizabeth didn’t seem to be offended.
August, I’m glad you pointed this out to us as a teaching moment for all of us to become more aware of the language we use. But I do think there’s very little reason to take offense here. There are many, many things in our world that are more offensive than this.
I took her comment to mean “not common”, which is true. There simply aren’t that many trans men, and on top of that not all of them are interested in marrying a woman.
Harris-Perry DID NOT use the word “normal”. It’s irresponsible of you to use it and try to attribute its meaning to what she said. The word normal has an entirely different meaning when used in American English than the word normative does.
Her use of normative here OBVIOUSLY means outside the norm. But, it certainly doesn’t mean abnormal as you are trying to imply.