Polygender. XXY. Genderqueer. Why is all this stuff suddenly so complicated? Early in this illuminating reality experiment in which a group of millennials are installed in a house in rural Sussex, a diverse range of gender identities comes face-to-face with a more implacably binary Britain. In a country pub, Saffron is explaining gender dysphoria to a couple of florid, scowling locals. One looks up from his pint of Bombardier and offers his considered verdict on this unfamiliar new world. “It’s all become quite fashionable. It’s nothing more than that, really.”
I hope this man took the time to watch Genderquake. If so, perhaps he found himself wondering whether his brand of suspicious hostility might be running out of road. Faced with the sheer diversity of lived experience featured in Genderquake, you’d imagine it would be hard to simply dismiss these differences out of hand. Saffron, who identifies as non-binary, later voices a question that might give the man in the pub pause for thought: “Why would I put myself through this to look edgy and cool?” Then there’s Cambell, a trans woman who has been undergoing hormone treatment since the age of 16. And Brooke, whose Klinefelter syndrome led to her body “outing itself”, morphing from one gender to another before her teenage eyes.
At the house, things are getting interesting. Every experiment needs a control. Enter cisgendered Tom, whose view is: “You’ve got a penis or a vagina. There’s no in-between, is there?” Tom likes ladies and it’s easy to imagine ladies liking him back. He begins his first sentence with the words “Where I’m from in Barnsley …”
And Tom, it turns out, is completely charming. When he’s not bouncing around like Tigger – building barbecues, fetching drinks, and offering well-muscled shoulders to cry on – he’s having his mind boggled by an impromptu crash-course in gender studies. “I’ve learned more in the last six hours than I’ve learned in my whole life,” he gasps. “It’s fucking crazy.”
Much of Genderquake is funny. There are lairy parties. Cartoonish visits to Brighton sex shops. Struggles with nearby cows (clearly non-binary integration into the farming industry still has some way to go). And yet there’s an underpinning of emotional brittleness; a sense that these young people still don’t feel the world has allowed them to find their own place in it. Saffron, describing what sounds like an agonising struggle with self-loathing and alienation, eventually weeps and slumps into the arms of Tom (who else?). There’s discussion of “passing” – and why trans people might want to defer awkward conversations until trust has been established. Subsequent events prove that trust is extremely important.
One of the group, Romario, has been coy about his history. However, when he takes a dip on Brighton beach, other members of the group put two and two together and begin to gossip. This leads to a combustible standoff in which the group’s desire to be open with each other collides with Romario’s right to decide how much he shares. “I’m not proud to be trans,” he says. “At what point can I just be ‘that guy’?” There’s a valuable lesson here: not all trans people are comfortable with their gender reality being policed or politicised, and no one has the right to impose a position on them.
Genderquake isn’t perfect. With rawness like this on display, it’s hard not to wonder about the element of engineered confrontation that’s inherent to this kind of format. On the first night, for example, cisgender Filomena blunders into the arena with a series of remarks about female identity that feel almost gratuitously provocative, given the company. As she states “I have a womb. Women can bring life into the world,” and the dinner table winces and splutters, it’s hard not to wonder whether her tactlessness has been poked into being by a producer with a sharp stick.
Still, Genderquake mostly hits exactly the right notes. There’s nothing about the group that more traditionally minded people should find threatening. Indeed, they might be surprised that at least one of the trans participants seems intent on having a conventional nuclear family-style modes of living one day. A programme debating the issues raised follows tonight’s second episode. But watching the show itself renders the debate pretty superfluous. Basically: listen to other people, respect their autonomy, try to keep an open mind and we’re golden. Perhaps this stuff isn’t so complicated after all?
