Pronouns are hard

[neveralarch]

It looks like livejournal is running at a reasonable speed now, so I figured I'd write this up real quick. I was feeling kind of awkward about it, but I hear that the new year is a good time for sharing things/making announcements, so here is this:

I've been in queer spaces a lot more this fall than previously - in Boston many, if not most, of my friends were LGBTQ, but out in Minnesota is the first time I've hung out in several structured and more formal LGBTQ spaces. Some of my research focuses on LGBTQ issues, and I've made friends with a couple people who do a lot of the formal LGBTQ groups and gatherings. And one of the things that all of this means is that people keep asking me for pronouns, which is good and very polite. I just don't have a good answer.

My gender identity has always been best labeled as "????" I am chill with being perceived as female, because I definitely present as female, but I would be chill with most other perceived presentations too. I really dislike being called upon to speak for or act as an example for my gender, but... idk, that's more of a basic resistance to gender essentialism. But when I'm asked specifically about my pronouns, I suddenly have a very strong opinion, probably the only time I've ever had a strong opinion about my gender.

Unfortunately, the opinion is that I don't like pronouns :| I mean, I like them fine, they're very useful, but I'm not comfortable with using any one set of pronouns. When people ask in real life, I'm currently saying "I don't have a pronoun preference." So, this is just to say that I am fine with any of these pronouns: she/her, he/him, or they/them, use whichever you like however often you like. You don't need to change! I will be fine if you continue on as you have done, if you ever refer to me in the third-person anyway. I'm just not out in many places, either as asexual or with regards to my current gender identity thing, and I've been feeling that especially strongly since I've left Boston (where I was out as ace to basically anyone who cared), moved to Minneapolis (where I'm out as ambiguously LGBTQ), and now that I'm with my family (where I'm not out at all). It's just good to have all my cards on the table somewhere, and apparently the internet is that place.

Anyway, upshot: she/her, he/him, and they/them are all good pronouns to use for me; you don't need to change whatever pronouns you were already using. Thanks!

Comments

[aralias]

<3

[neveralarch]

:)

[evilawyer]

It's posts like yours that make me realize that I was actually lucky to be born into a time and place filled with people who made assumptions about me (well, my intellectual capacity, mostly) based primarily on my ethnicity. Gender was in there some times, but it was a distant, distant second. I was able to grow up and move into adulthood with the view and mindset that my gender and the gender of those around me weren't particularly important. Society emphasizes gender and gender identification, but I believe that it's possible to leave gender out of considerations of a person's make-up on an individual level. If a person is so inclined, anyway.

[neveralarch]

Hm, hm. I see what you're saying - I'm definitely aware that my racial/ethnic privilege has kept me from seeing race as much of a negative factor in my life, so I haven't had to grapple with that as much. Gender often seems like a bigger deal in that context, since it is where I primarily see marginalization directed at me personally. Coming from a household where being feminist was a given and assumptions about my abilities based on gender were very very rare, I do think that gender and gender identification shouldn't matter when you're considering a person's character or abilities. Definitely! Probably if that was actually the norm in my daily life I wouldn't be thinking about my gender at all. But that's me - I don't have many strong feelings about my gender and don't think of it as particularly important. I do know lots of people who see their gender as an important part of their life, and I'm not sure how that would change if more people deemphasized gender or promoted gender-neutral attitudes.

I'm not very good at untangling this kind of thing, but I am in favor of less assumptions being made about me generally, haha. Hopefully that's something we're moving toward.

[narwhale_callin]

It's times like this where I wish Old English hadn't decided to get rid of its singular gender neutral pronoun. :-/ We really could've used that pronoun nowadays.

[neveralarch]

I am a proponent of singular they, but it's not very widely used to refer to a specific person, which is a shame. German has a neutral pronoun (Es) which can refer to young women and children - but because of that, I would feel kind of infantilized if someone were to refer to me using 'es.' (Though I'm not a native speaker, so that might not be true in German culture generally).

My friend who speaks potawatomi says its singular third-person pronoun is inherently gender-neutral, which is what I really want, haha. For people not to have to think about gender when they're talking about me to others. But English!