I was responding on Facebook to an article about non-binary entertainer Indya Moore. The article, correctly identifying that Moore uses “they” pronouns, referred to them as an “actress”. My comment was that a gendered term ought not to be used with a non-binary entertainer (unless they specifically request it), and suggested “actor” instead. This led…
Author: Clio
Gender Neutral: Aunt/Uncle
For the most part, English can be spoken and written without references gender, although there are cases where it sounds stiff. “Spouse” can replace “husband” and “wife”; “sibling” can replace “brother” and “sister”. There are a few problematic pairings, though. Among the most common of these are niece/nephew, aunt/uncle, and sir/ma’am. For niece/nephew, “nibling” is…
Coming Out for Christmas
Twice in my life, I had a conversation with my father that I worried might end in my ostracism. In one case, I spent an entire meal beating around the bush, but ultimately lost my nerve. The meal ended without the big reveal. Hours after I’d gotten home, my spouse convinced me to just call…
The Day I Lost My Best Friends
When I was a child, I had a bed full of stuffed animals. I did not have a happy childhood. I lost my left eye when I was a toddler. According to my father, that delayed my talking for months; I would communicate with grunts and pointing, and refuse to talk. It was only when…
Proper Representation Matters
I have a prosthetic eye; I lost my left eye when I was a toddler. I was recently given a copy of a new Young Adult book, “The Speed of Objects Falling,” by Nancy Richardson Fischer. The protagonist lost one of her eyes as a child, and the person who gave me the book wanted…
The Problem with Mathematical Notation
Mathematics is beautiful. Mathematical notation, meanwhile, is a horrid mess second only to English itself for its arbitrariness. For instance, basic arithmetic operators have three levels: Addition, Multiplication, and Exponentiation. Addition notation is tidy: We add forward (a + b) or backward (a – b). We call these “addition” and “subtraction” for historical reasons, but…
Remembering the Victims of Anti-Transgender Hatred
November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the original TDOR, established in the memory of Rita Hester, who was killed in 1998. The week before TDOR is Transgender Awareness Week. And while awareness of transgender issues has improved dramatically since 1999, several recent events demonstrate that…
like an old pair of jeans
i slip depression on like an old pair of jeans softened and pliable with the familiarity of time this tear on the knee is where i scraped it when i fell down on the concrete that was harder than it looked that patch covers the place where the fabric was worn through by time and…
Leviathan
leviathan is a tapeworm inside my skull devouring the me that it finds it rises, roils, recoils, and leaves me hollow and alone as i stand against it, it warns me: boy, don’t make me destroy you and i ask: what if i’ve never been a boy? what would you have to destroy? — ptkh…
Reflecting on School Lockdown Drills
I am a public school teacher. As a result, I have experienced what is becoming a frequent event in public schools: The Active Shooter Lockdown Drill. I will begin by pointing out that there is not a single drill; it is a spectrum event, from the relatively boring to the downright terrifying. On the boring…