I dare to come out of the closet. I am a man. There, it is said. Come what may. I am aware that my gender is not valued these days. Worse, the fact of being a man or a woman not declaring themselves of an orientation other than attracted by the opposite sex does not make recipe. The trend is fluid, non-binary, trans, genderless. (Yes, I’m going to talk about Gemini. Be patient, I’m warming up.)
Notice, I’m not saying I’m cis or cisgender. For the latecomers, these are the words we are offered to describe our condition as men and women whose gender identity corresponds to the gender assigned at birth. There is also “person with a vagina” and “person with a penis”. This makes it possible to include menstruating and pregnant men in this Newspeak, whose asserted existence would justify obliterating from our vocabulary the now archaic denominations of man and woman.
Having never been consulted about these changes, I do not support them. Am I resistant to change? You know I am a separatist, ecologist, social democrat, ferociously opposed to predatory capitalism and inequalities of social condition, sex or race. I have done the gay pride parade several times, pleaded and voted for the recognition of civil status for trans people, spent my life wanting to change reality. However, I do not agree per se with each change that is proposed to us. Just because it’s new (example: cryptos) doesn’t mean it’s progress.
So, we have just been told that there will no longer be a Gemini award for best actress and best actor. The awards for the best male and female singers have already disappeared in the United States. Contagion awaits the next ADISQ gala. Since this announcement, I have heard several voices say: “Why not? We do not distinguish by gender between directors, sound engineers and screenwriters. In this logic, the female and male prices would be a relic of the past that would now have to be filed.
The real reason is elsewhere. These categories are being removed because part of the population does not recognize themselves in them, it is argued. In Quebec, we learn from Statistics Canada, there is an overwhelming majority of the population who, in the secrecy of the census, still dare to declare themselves “man” or “woman”. Of the remaining 0.23%, 0.14% of respondents are trans who identify as either male or female. This is also the purpose of the trans exercise: to change category. Only 0.09% of the population remains to declare themselves non-binary. Are we also certain that a queer singer would refuse to be crowned best singer of the year?
In short, the male and female categories will disappear in the event that a person from this micropopulation is nominated. If inclusion is important, why not open a “best non-binary lead” category and wait until there are enough contestants to declare who wins?
I ask another question: why are we taking away the pleasure it gives us? And why do we reduce the chances of victory of the nominees by 50%? Why are we removing from the public domain one of the places where the equality of men and women was established, certain, celebrated at each award ceremony?
More space is given to actors and singers than to filmmakers and editors, because it is they and they that we watch and listen to, who embody the drama and the comedy, who carry the emotion. It is in front of them, and them, that we spend hours in dark rooms and in front of the small screen, that we gather in festivals and concert halls. It is their voices that accompany us in our living rooms and kitchens, in the car and while jogging.
We know they’re worn by huge teams and are willing to wait (let’s be honest) while prizes are given out to props and special effects magicians. But it is these men and women, companions in our daily lives, who really interest us, not their teams. (Apart from Dolan and Villeneuve, of course.)
But, you will retort, we have always put the animators in the same box. True, but they are few in number and all ultimately play the same role. They don’t sell dreams, don’t take us to other worlds.
So yes, it’s scandalous, that we cut our pleasure in two. On my way, I also dare to affirm that the celebration of singers and actresses, singers and actors, is also a tribute paid to the condition of woman and man, to talent, sensitivity, personality and to beauty. These nominations, this contest of presence on the boards, on the screen and in music, are bows made to the existence and to the difference of each of the sexes. To the most extraordinarily womanly woman and the most extraordinarily manly man that year, in that field of expression.
It is said of communism that it is a humanism that has gone wrong. A good intention, egalitarian, turned nightmarish. Should the good intention of inclusiveness that motivates some of the changes imposed on us lead us to adaptations that meet these new needs? The answer is yes.
But the will to “gender-neutral” the whole of society, even in artistic expression, where the differentiated sensuality of the sexes is embodied like nowhere else, the complementarity of angles and curves, the shock of virility and femininity in all its shades, is nothing but a negation of an essential aspect of the human condition. A one-way ticket to the denial of reality, to a terrible homogenization, a desire to smooth over the differences of one of the greatest expressions of diversity there is: the existence of men and women.