#it goes into the details of the five layers and john money's influence and ways of creating gender

[vero-niche]

i've found this very interesting MIT article from 2022 that i wanted to share, especially in light of the current discourses happenning:

some highlights (bolding by me):

Anne Fausto-Sterling, the renowned biology and sex/gender expert, succinctly states: “By birth, the baby has five layers of sex.” That’s right: There are fetal layers to the baby’s sex, to put the matter oddly. Even more strikingly, “these layers do not always agree with each other.” Here’s the beginning, one is tempted to say, of our not agreeing with ourselves biologically. Parts of our body disagree with other parts.

To state the obvious, adults who name the baby with a word, “girl” or “boy,” see only one of the five sex-layers.

The others are invisible to the naked eye. Who knows how many discrepancies between and among the layers of sex go undetected.

In the past, should a “problem” — disagreement (!) — arise, steps might well be taken to force the baby to agree with itself. The history of intersex people, with all its profound implications, sits right here. And given the incidence of intersex, which might be as high as one in 60 people, it’s a bigger history and bigger population than is often recognized. Also, a bigger struggle to be accorded human rights, instead of deemed a problem.

All of which takes us to a sixth layer. What is named “gender.” (...) Welcome to the gender fort. The “social response” to a baby is “intense.” So intense, we learn, that our reading of its genitals, to which we pin a word, causes our building of a fort around this reading. It’s no joke. Fausto-Sterling calls this socialization “gender fortification.” The word “boy” or “girl,” however cone-like, however body-sheath-like, is evidently not enough for us. We act as if we have to fortify it at every turn.

Intersex children and transgender children (not yet named as such) held something that would prove quite dear to U.S. science in the 20th century: the capacity to be transformed by medicine. Indeed, these children became “living laboratories,” writes Gill-Peterson. They were deemed “plastic” enough to be changed — first through surgeries, later by hormones — often in the name of “correction.” Their “peculiar” suffering could be studied, treated, and corrected. If they disagreed with their bodies, agreement could be fashioned. Medically, surgically.

If they were white. The children not selected, rarely presented, never sought out for medical treatment (however highly torturous) were children of color.

This is where gender takes center stage. A crisis was brewing. Due to this cadre of certain white children who didn’t fit the measures of binary sex, biology and medicine were facing a cataclysm. Those most knowledgeable understood the plastic nature of the body — along with the possibility of its not matching itself at all levels. (...)

Gender to the rescue. In the most circular but interesting of ways, gender is invented to shore up sex.

There’s your circle. Society, ignorant of medical research, makes a stigma out of something our bodies do quite naturally: not conform to a sexual binary. Thus, society’s enforced binary corrects a problem of its own making. And medicine complies, against its own research.

Biology and medicine, after all, came to realize in their way that the binary of sex was imposed upon a range of human bodies and their lived desires. Fascinating, fraught, and intimate to everyone, gender increasingly has our attention as something newly morphing. Prepare to enter a story that is yours.

[ber-bonfamille-lyons]

album review-- “Divide” 

This is a slick album – I can’t argue against that. It’s got the kinda algorithmic songcraft built to lob number one singles to the top of the charts without Ed even trying. So even among the real moments of genuine cleverness-- mentions of bleached assholes, flamenco guitar, Irish fiddle-- it reeks of the sharp stench of a salesman’s cheap cologne and it’ll get rewarded for it by going platinum and giving Ed Sheeran another world tour. Hopefully, the best songs here will find its fans and we can see more of that kind of experimentation on future albums, since that’s where the real talent shines. In the meantime, I guess this album, while at times redundant, is not that bad. ⅗ stars

Track-by-track review under the cut

Eraser: Ed tries to rap again with his folk-hero version of the classic “I’m famous and it’s complicated” confessional that pop punk bands perfected before him in the early-2000s. It’s not bad, but it’s not exactly original or memorable, which is a suitable way to start this album, which is not exactly original or memorable. Also, it has lyrics like “I think that money is the root of all evil” like he’s some uni fuck-off who stumbled into a voluntourism cult.

Castle On A Hill Euphoric and nostalgic, this song’s switch between hyper-specific to generic detail makes me think Taylor Swift had a hand in tweaking the lyrics. A Radio 2 darling.

Dive This one has vibes of John Mayer and Ed sounds gorgeous, admittedly, as he channels the blues. It’s another song that will dominate airwaves or be on the last five minutes of any TV show on BBC3. It has the polish of Thinking Of You and will be just as popular. Really, the best parts of the song are in its pauses-- those build the climax. 

Shape Of You I prefer Walk Off The Earth’s creative twists on this X wannabe. I think Ed thought he was more clever than he is when he penned “I’m in love / with the shape of you” as though that kinda twist has never been done before. It also feels the most hollow of all the songs-- its a well-oiled heartless robot meant to stake claim on Radio One and so far, it reigns supreme.

Perfect Like Dive or How Would You Feel, it’s very romantic and pretty and utterly forgettable to me. Very generic lyricism, polished arrangement-- the kind of thing I can’t nitpick about which pisses me off, but also has no identity of its own. It could be sung by the One Direction boys and no one would know the difference.

Galway Girl The highlight of this album, which kinda feels like three songs in one-- ridiculously flirtatious, self-aware and all its elements-- rap, fiddle, guitar, dance beats-- are expertly weaved together. The sort of thing that Ed Sheeran has perfected since he rolled off whatever couch he was surfing to become everyone’s favourite ging.

Happier It’s a break-up song. There are several on this album. That means Ed Sheeran has done his duty by providing both sickly sweet gushy love songs and heartbreaking etudes to lovers lost. This one gets the full orchestra treatment, which heightens the heartbreak and regret on the pre-chorus and chorus, where Ed wails and emotes. It’s not bad. None of these songs are that bad. It’s also, really, not that good.

New Man For me, the best part of the song is the witty, detailed lyricism attacking bro-culture. It got a second listen from me so I could take in all the delicious, bitter insults and #relevant social callouts (instagram, double tap etc.). It’s a fun track with actual personality though I’m not sure how much radio play a song mentioning a bleached asshole will get. Not enough.

Hearts Don’t Break Around Here This one feels the closest to earlier Ed Sheeran at first until it devolves into the typical weepy love song thing we’ve already done on this album. Honestly, at this point they really feel the same. I like the guitar line on this one better than the others. My boyfriend will probably like it. Otherwise, I don’t think it deserves much mention.

What Do I Know It’s another entry in Ed Sheeran’s diary, highlighting his existential crisis as a multi-billionaire top 40 musician. That being said, the minimal guitar here does establish a real groove-- the subtle layering of Ed’s own voice making the most outta his god-given instrument. It makes the unbearable grudgingly impressive.

(It also officially makes Eraser feel redundant. Insert pun here about how eraser should be, yeah, erased from this album).

How Would You Feel Please see my review here.  I’m pretty bored, by the way. We have how many more songs? Jfc.  

Supermarket Flowers This song was written about Ed Sheeran’s grandmother who passed, so it feels mean to be too hard on it. It’s fine. (It’s also kinda forgettable. I’m not that sad).

Barcelona This track opens with Ed Sheeran’s frantic breathing, probably because he’s outta shape from all the backpacking he did after Multiply, which is what this song is about. The Spanish influences here are y’know pretty appropriate and sort of expected though I wanna know how actual Spanish speakers feel about Ed Sheeran attempting to speak spanish/appropriating the slick magazine appeal of Barcelona like any pasty English tourist on holiday. I kinda feel like this will be played over a travel medley in any film adaption of the latest big YA novel. All that being said, it’s an uptick from the last two downers-- this one’s genuinely fun-- and much more interesting musically speaking than the majority of the album.

Bibia Be Ye Ya I much prefer these ambitious, weird upbeat pop songs to the droopy love songs. This one flows gorgeously from Barcelona. I got no idea what he’s saying (apparently its Twi-- a language spoken in Ghana) but the music’s playful and sunny and optimistic, while the lyrics are the opposite-- “My heart is breaking at the seams / and I'm coming apart now.” Which makes me think this song is about not giving a fuck. It also sounds like it was a blast to mix.

Nancy Mulligan Ed Sheeran goes back to Ireland here. This song’s modeled after the successful Irish story-song and basically steals all its tricks from that toolbox, down to the “di-de-dis.” It feels both modern and classic, more like a cover than an original, though Ed name-drops himself to remind us that this is his entry into the Irish pub song oeuvre. This is another entry into the “It’s not bad” category of songs. I think it’d be better if Ed were actually Irish.

Save Myself We end on a more poignant, safe, somber note, which means I’m pretty bored again. I dunno why he picked this song to end on either because there’s nothing amazing about it lyrically or musically or thematically or even vocally. It’s about as cliche as it gets. But I guess it’s-- yeah-- not bad.