Rummaging around in this idea of Gender Studies with my mother

Cornwall, my mother’s house – and I’ve just woken up. I need to arise gently this morning; I’ve just returned from a whistle–stop visit to my brother and his family in Geneva and would like to find my bearings quietly on the sofa for a while. 

I wander into the sitting room to find my mother on the sofa, looking crossly at her iPad.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Ten–thirty,” she says, putting down her iPad, “blasted Sudoku.

Terrible addiction.”

She disappears into the kitchen.

“Easy does it,” I think, dropping onto the sofa.

I listen to my mother in the kitchen; if her movements could talk, they might say, “Well I found my earrings three hours ago, when I woke up: seize the day.”

She returns with two cups of coffee.

And great vigour, which she puts to lively inquiry.

Well how was Geneva?

And how are her grandchildren Ottavia and Gessy? And how is their oldest brother Matteo holding up in his final year of the Baccalaureate?

“He asked me to edit an essay,” I say, “five thousand words on an ancient philosopher.”

“Which one?” she says. “Cicero.” “Well?” she says, “what does old Cicero have to say for himself?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” I say, “all I can remember is that he was born in 106 B.C. I wasn’t sure if it was Cicero’s political theory that was very dense, or me.”

“There’s absolutely nothing those children aren’t taught in that international school. Absolutely nothing.”

“Well they’re certainly taught an awful lot about gender identity,” I say. “Asexual Hetero-Romanticism, Pansexuality, Skoliosexuality, Transgender... Matteo, Otty and Gessy all told me about Gender Studies.”

“I told you,” she says, “they’re taught everything.”

“One of Matteo’s classmates,” I say, “used to be an Isobel, by the way, but is now a James.”

“Nothing surprises me these days,” my mother says, though nothing has surprised her ever, “I’m sure James is a lovely boy.”

I lie back on the sofa. I know by my mother’s expression that she is rummaging around in this idea of Gender Studies rather as you might rummage around in a drawer.

Any minute now, she is going to tidy this drawer All. Up. But not without a thorough inspection first.

“Well I think Gender is a hobby nowadays,” she begins, “I mean in my day, children had hobbies like knitting or pressing flowers or learning a musical instrument. Now, they learn all about what they’ve got in their pants and all the different things they can do with it – and there are so many options now...”

“Maybe all those options were there in your day but ...”

“Well, there was lovely old George,” she says, “my piano teacher, who spent his whole life trying not to be queer, poor thing – such a nice man – but that was about it. And your grandmother’s boyfriend Brian who – well who knows what he was – one minute he was straight, the next minute he was gay...”

“Gender fluid,” I say.

“Whatever,” she says, “the thing is, it was private. Nothing’s private anymore.”

A brief pause ensues.

“I don’t know,” she says, “I think nowadays, simply being gay is far too dull, don’t you? I mean no one bats an eyelid now,” she continues, “at your sister being a lesbian. Much too boring these days, just being a lesbian. There are far more exciting things you can be– all listed on the internet in alphabetical order.  All you have to do is Google “Gender Identity,” and take your pick.

“I think any Gender list on the internet would be more a collation of things that already exist, not new inventions,” I say.

“Rubbish,” she says, “I think the person who compiles these lists dreams up everything they can possibly think of just so nobody feels left out.”

“Like what?” I say. She pauses again; it’s time to finish tidying up and shut the drawer.

“Like wanting to have it off with a giraffe,” she says, “I mean, imagine the torment of thinking you’re the only person in the world who wants to have it off with a giraffe.”

A small silence falls, while I imagine the torment.

“Nowadays all you have to do is look it up on a list, and there it will be, right under “G.”