Front and Back Covers, Volume 39, Number 6. December 2023

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 6

CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS POWER

The jolly figure of Santa Claus, tankard in hand as he rests his feet atop a sack of toys, invites us to ponder the mystery behind this iconic Christmas emblem. Who is the real Santa, and what is his relationship to adults and children during the holiday season? This image of Santa on the cover of Puck magazine's 1896 Christmas edition alludes to the complex web of secrecy and revelation that enables Santa to materialize each year.

As Martí Torra Merín explores in the accompanying article, Santa Claus and other Christmas figures occupy a unique position in contemporary Western cultures. Their ‘existence’ relies upon the innocence projected onto children, who serve as conduits to the magical realm. Yet children's agency in navigating this process has been overlooked. Through an ethnographic study in Catalonia, the article reveals that even young children detect inconsistencies in Santa's portrayal, and older children may feign ignorance of the ‘secret’ to prolong the magic.

Far from fragile, children's awareness empowers their agency. Their liminal position, privy to the ‘public secret’ that adults both disbelieve in Santa and expect children's innocence, allows for clever navigation of cultural expectations. Like Puck's impish character, children toe the line between innocence and cunning. Ultimately, the article argues, recognizing children's agency is key to understanding how Santa materializes each Christmas through intricate social performances between adults and youth. This image encapsulates that interplay, with Santa as the symbolic connector between magical worlds and everyday realities.

SEX AND GENDER ARE INSEPARABLE

This back cover image* visually embodies the guest editorial's exploration of how the complex interplay between sex and gender defies conventional binary perceptions.

The left circle, ‘sex’, includes the biological aspects of our being, encompassing our evolved physical attributes, biomaterial processes and bodily characteristics that are often, albeit incorrectly, assumed to be fixed and immutable. It acknowledges biomateriality as a dynamic process more than a static ‘thing’.

The right circle, ‘gender’, encapsulates the roles, behaviours and identities shaped through socialization within various social groups and cultural constructs. It signifies the fluid and dynamic nature of how we express and identify ourselves in society, which is not necessarily aligned with biological sex.

At the intersection of these two spheres lies the ‘gender/sex’ overlap, a space that acknowledges the co-construction of hormones and behaviour. This area represents the ongoing interplay and feedback loops between our biological traits and the social roles we embody. It is a recognition that hormones can influence behaviours that society reads as gendered and, conversely, that our social experiences and behaviours can affect our biological functions, such as hormone levels.

This diagram illustrates how sex and gender are deeply intertwined, each influencing and shaping the other in a continuous dance. It is a powerful representation of the biosocial nature of human identity, where biological and social influences are inseparable and in constant interaction, creating a spectrum of diversity that defies the simplistic bimodal model.

This image underscores the message of the guest editorial, advocating for a nuanced understanding of human identity that respects and reflects the complex realities of our lives.

* From: S. van Anders 2022. Gender/sex/ual diversity and biobehavioural research. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. Advance online publication.