I’m seeing it more and more. On LinkedIn. In email footers. On discussion boards. People are listing “their” pronouns.
Count me out.
If someone I know asks me to speak to and/or about them a certain way, and to use some non-standard pronoun when referring to them, I will try to do that, out of basic courtesy. But there are several aspects of this “my pronouns” business that I think are wrong-headed.
First, I reject the idea that you can simply adopt an identity on your own, based on how you feel about yourself. It seems too much like a kid insisting that you call him Batman.
Identity is more than what you feel about yourself. It’s related to what you do, and how you live, and it’s something that involves some negotiation with your peers. It’s not something you decide on your own and insist everyone else has to believe.
Second, language is not any one person’s property. It’s something we collectively agree on.
When I was a kid, it was accepted that “he” was the neutral pronoun, meaning a man, or a person without specifying sex. Somehow (and I completely don’t get this) that was considered sexist, and we’ve been through a few decades of wrestling with various awful ways of not saying “he.” It seems as if we’re moving towards “they,” which I don’t like, but … again, I don’t own the language. It’s a collective endeavor, and if that’s where we end up, so be it.
If the culture decides “they” is the correct pronoun for a person of non-specified gender, am I allowed to say “no, in my version of the English language, it’s ‘he'”?
That sounds like something Calvin (the cartoon character) would do.
There is no “my version of the English language,” and it’s narcissistic to think that.
Third, think about what it would take to go along with this pronoun thing. For every person I know, or might possibly refer to, I would have to remember “their” pronouns. I would have to create a new map in my brain, and this new map would basically be telling me, constantly, that gender identity is one of the most important things to know about a person.
I don’t believe that, and I think it’s a mistake to go in that direction.
A few decades ago, the “liberal” position was that work was work, and what (or who) you did on your own time was your own business. We weren’t even supposed to judge Bill Clinton for having an affair, so long as he was doing a good job as president. We were supposed to be “mature” like the French, and not worry about such things.
The liberal position has done a complete flip. Now we’re supposed to keep everyone’s sexual business top of mind.
No. I don’t want to know what you do behind closed doors, and I’m not going to reorganize the way I think and speak to accommodate that.
If you’re my friend and you ask me to speak about you a certain way, I will accommodate you. If you’re going to be a Stalinist and demand that I speak a certain way, I have two words for you, the first of which I don’t use.
The idea that a person can insist that everyone else has to change their understanding of identity and language, just to satisfy some sort of political / social agenda, is absurd, and I won’t play that game.
While I agree about pronouns, some of your arguments are BS.
First … where I agree… I think usage of pronouns in my case is stupid. I was born a man, look like a man, have an unambiguous man’s name (not like Dale or Leslie or Sean), I wear men’s clothing, and I have a freaking beard. Of course I am a man and what other pronoun would I need besides he/him?
On my Twitter, I do list my pronouns as a joke: thee/thou/mfer
LinkedIn has a place to list pronouns which I will never use.
Where I disagree … You bring up Clinton and “sexual business”. If a person is a man, who are they scr*wing ? You don’t know. Could be a man, woman, dog… IDK… When people are speaking of pronouns they aren’t talking about their “sexual business.” They are talking about identity which is a different thing altogether.
Say a “trans woman” is passable (meaning, at first glance you can’t tell they were born male or are male depending on your perspective). Probably they don’t need to even say their pronouns. It’s the “woman” who looks like Dick Butkus in a dress that needs the pronouns.
My pet peeve… There is no such thing as a “CIS woman.” Just use “woman.”
Exchange “sexual business” for “gender identity” so you can get the point and not get hung up on the fact that I mentioned Bill Clinton.