Yes
Good luck with that. 
Sadly for us old fogies, a standard set of non-gendered pronouns has been settled on, and it’s the singular “they”.
It probably will be, if we ever get there. (Including dropping the gendered ones as antique, as we eventually dropped ye and thee; everybody more or less knows what they mean, but nobody expects to use them outside of dealing with old literature.)
Getting there does not appear to be easy at all.
It does seem to be settling into singular “they”; which doesn’t bother this old fogey at all, except that while it simplifies some chunks of a story (probably non-publishable even if I ever finish it) which I’ve been writing bits of in my head for years, I’m going to have to re-do my sense of how some of these people talk, because they’ve been using “one”. Which is really awkward in some constructions, singular they/them works better; but it gives a different flavor to the speech.
But that isn’t really the whole issue, is it? I had the impression – please correct me if I’m wrong – that some trans people want gendered pronouns, because it’s important to them to have their gender affirmed.
There are a lot of people, both cis and trans, who prefer gendered pronouns when specifically talking about them. So yeah, if you want us to drop all uses of gendered pronouns it may take a while.
Simple question: if someone is described as a Trans or transgender man, am I to assume that person was a biological woman at birth and now presents as a man? (And, obviously the opposite for “Trans woman.”)
I saw that a couple of times lately - here and in my local paper - and thought it odd, thinking, “Shouldn’t they just be referred to as however they wish to identify?”
And, I guess, not quite so simple of a question - when ought someone be referred to as a trans man or woman? For example, why does it really matter what gender the Nashville school shooter was assigned at birth? If it was uncertain, I could imagine the reportage referring to the “person” or “shooter.” And if it became apparent they presented as a man, they could just say “man.” Or to trans persons prefer to have the term trans included?
Normally, it’s just “man”. In the case if the shooter, the shooter was initially described as a woman so it is somewhat relevant to say why you are changing the pronouns you use to describe him.
AIUI, that is generally true, although I would be inclined to use “identifies as” rather than, or in addition to, “presents as”. Cross-dressers, for example, often present as a different gender in their personal appearance without considering themselves transgender. And some people identify as transgender without changing their gender presentation much or at all.
I agree that both cisgender and transgender people are correctly and preferentially referred to as just “man” or “woman” (or “boy” or “girl” for minors) depending on how they identify, in most circumstances. Transgender or cisgender status should be specified only when directly relevant. Somebody who identifies as another gender type can correctly be referred to as a “person” (alternatively “child” for minors).
Thanks for the gentle correction. That’s the kinda thing that I KNEW, but use so infrequently that when I write/say it infrequently, I may unthinkingly use the wrong term.
One thing that trips me up is in my troglodytic brain, if someone presents as what I traditionally think of as a male or female, I defer to the pronouns I use for that apparent gender. Just have to do a few mental gymnastics to get the proper words out of my mouth for someone who - say - presents as a woman, but identifies as a man.
I’m trying.
I think we all do. English-language native speakers have it absolutely drilled into us from infancy that we select one of these two (well, three actually, counting inanimate objects and many non-human living things) sets of pronouns for use in specific circumstances based on specific cues from appearance and nomenclature. Sometimes the appearance cues just override the nomenclature ones in our brains.
It is additionally somewhat anxiety-producing for us native English speakers, because we’re also subconsciously taught that referring to somebody with the wrong gender designation is embarrassing and insulting. It has always sort of tickled me to occasionally hear a very fluent English speaker whose first language is, say, Hungarian or Estonian, where there is no gender distinction in personal pronouns, accidentally refer to a woman as “he” or a man as “she”. They will usually notice the error and correct it, but it clearly doesn’t bother them as a linguistic transgression on the same instinctive level as it does for native English speakers.
Well, some gender-variant people (who, under the “umbrella” definition of transgender, are covered by transgender) prefer to be in-your-face about not being cisgender. So for them (ermm, us actually) it is always directly relevant. Not all of us wish to be misidentified as cisgender people of our gender, and that does tend to be the default assumption.
Great! I certainly didn’t mean to be laying down the law on how people should refer to themselves, or request other people to refer to them. Just that the default should be not gratuitously specifying identity details without knowing that that’s what the person prefers.
The end state will hopefully be acceptance of people. If we reach that point, we can stop worrying about how we identify each other.
But until we reach that point, it’s necessary to identify individuals who are members of groups in order to keep an eye on discrimination directed against members of that group. Knowing who’s being systematically victimized is the first step to stopping that victimization.
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Troll posts April 12 2024