Gender pronouns and where I stand with it all.

in lgbtq •  3 years ago 

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I've taken flack from every direction on the issue of pronouns and it's come to the point that I should clarify my thinking.

I don't accept that trans women are women and that trans men are men. The distinction is important. There are plenty of trans people who are on my side on this issue.

So, why do I refer to Blair white with she/her pronouns and a lifelong friend who is a trans male with he/him pronouns? Well, it's easier. There's also an intellectual element. I know that if I met Blaire White entirely cold and didn't know about the equipment that she was born with, I would find it odd if she was using the men's restroom. I know that I wouldn't think twice about it if she were using the same restroom as my sisters or my niece. When I see photos of my friend who is a trans man, he looks like a man. If I didn't know him since kindergarten, I never would have thought that he was born a she. If somebody puts the effort in to present a certain way, there isn't much reason for me to force my brain to work against how I refer to that person.

That said, again, I won't refer to an individual with they/them/their pronouns. Even educated people keep trying to say that the singular "they" has been a thing for a long time. Yeah, it has been in the context of, "Everyone needs to turn in their homework." "Everyone" is technically a singular antecedent; so, the sentence should be, "Everyone needs to turn in his or her homework." That said, the technically grammatically correct sentence is clunky. When referring to a specific individual, they/them/their pronouns have never been accepted. If John and Kate got into John's car and John goes by they/them/their pronouns, the sentence "John and Kate got into their car." falsely implies that the car belongs to both John and Kate.

I'll treat people with the utmost respect and dignity when they just want to live their lives. When people go out of their way to burden other people, I stop caring. When somebody like Layshia Clarendon comes along and tells us that she may be a she/her, a he/him, or a they/them at any given moment, I just check out. At that point, you're a solipsistic dictator who is burdening everybody in your life to walk on eggshells and alter his or her language to service you. There are people who list pronouns of she/them or he/them. No, you don't get to do that. That's grammatically nonsensical.

There's a fundamental difference between people like Blaire White who has placed everything on herself, hasn't required or demanded that anybody do anything for her, and has the fortitude and the intellect to understand who she is and people who will call me a "transphobe" because I don't want to suck their dick.

I may be wrong. I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. I'm open to the possibility that I'm giving activists too much slack and that I'm being a coward by even being willing to refer to certain trans people by their preferred pronouns. I'm also open to the possibility that I'm wrong in the other direction.

If I were to try to make my position concise, it would be that I see no need to go out of my way to hurt people who believe in freedom and I see no reason to coddle people who believe in totalitarianism.

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