Category: Bein’ Enby (Medium)

This morning I saw a tweet that implied that cis people who use “(he/they)” or “(she/they)” in their email signatures but who present in a way that matches their gender are being opportunistic. One reply referred to it as virtue signaling, and another mocked someone who said their pronoun is “she” but that neutral pronouns…

A recent conversation about Jeff Garvin’s “Symptoms of Being Human” reminded me of the literary concept of mirrors and windows. Two of my favorite TikTokers are @finngerhardt and @mx.deran, and these two illustrate the concept well. The bulk of @finngerhardt’s TikToks are deliberate windows: The purpose is to educate cis folks about being allies to nonbinary people; these videos…

I have come to dislike pronouns. That’s not quite true. I like the concept of pronouns. I was well inducted into the School of Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla. I see that it’s important to be able to refer to a person without having to use, or even know, their name. But English, like its Indo-European siblings, messed it…

As another school year begins, here comes that question again: “As a teacher, how should I ask students for their pronouns?” To be clear: What follows is my own personal opinion. Nonbinary people are not a monolith. Read multiple opinions, as many as you can find. Also, I laud the effort of any cisgender, heterosexual teacher…

Once upon a time, Eddie Izzard (who was at the time presenting as a man) said, “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.” This is how easy the logic should be: People can wear whatever they want to wear. Clothing has no inherent gender. Our modern definitions of “what men wear” and…

Like most Indo-European languages, English has a lot of gendered words. Most have standard gender neutral alternatives (boy/girl/child, brother/sister/sibling, etc.), and a few do not (Sir/Ma’am, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, etc.). This article is specifically about Mr./Ms./Mx., but I’ll start with niece/nephew. The nonbinary/genderqueer community has suggested a few gender neutral forms, the most prevalent being “nibling”….

I designed this for teachers who prefer a visual summary of the key ideas on pronoun use for transgender and nonbinary students. I also have longer text-based pieces for those who want more details: Non-Binary Students; Non-Binary “They” and Style Guides; Non-Binary Students and Pronouns (Infographic last revised 5/23/21.)

I designed this for teachers who prefer a visual summary of the key ideas on degendering language. I also have longer text-based pieces for those who want more details:  Non-Binary Students; Non-Binary “They” and Style Guides; Non-Binary Students and Pronouns. A separate issue: “Parents” can be problematic because not all of your students will have or live…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my name. My legal name is “Paul”. It’s the name I’ve worn most of my life. When I was too young to remember, I was Timmy. That was based on my middle name, which is Timothy. My older brother went by Mark, his middle name, and I went…

A Guide for Public School Educators In an earlier article, I discussed binarist language and provided some ideas for avoiding it with your students. In this article, I’m focusing specifically on pronouns. First of all, though: Thank you for taking the time to read what follows. For many people, the increasing visibility of non-binary persons and the accompanying…