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…
Category: Essays
Pronouns
I don’t want pronouns that tell you I’m nonbinary. I want pronouns that tell you I’m a person. I want pronouns that don’t remind me of my culture’s need to bucket everyone into “man” and “woman” the moment we look at someone. Gender is important, but only because we’ve made it so. We’re obsessed with…
On “transgendered” (offensive word)
I was watching a Jammidodger video this morning and had a realization that another* problem with the term “transgendered men” (and “… women”) is that it allows for two interpretations. If you believe that transgender men are men, then what does it mean to have been “transgendered”? It would presumably mean that, while you have…
Off-Key Karaoke
One of comedian Al Franken’s more enduring characters is Stuart Smalley, an awkward man who wears pastel and stares into a mirror saying, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” Superficially, the character is a parody of self-help “fake it ’til you make it” psychotherapy strategies, where it feels like…
On Friendships and a Broken Childhood
I am the child of a minister. We moved every few years, as my father was assigned to a new church. My father told me this was because the United Methodist church didn’t want any parish to be built around a single minister; it was about the church, not the personality. When I was a…
For Teachers: “How Should I Ask For Students’ Pronouns?”
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…
The Clothes That Make the Man
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…
On “You might change your mind!”
Less than one in ten people who being transitioning step backward (“detransition”) at some point. Not all of them detransition completely. About two out of five first marriages end through divorce rather than death. (This number is higher for second and third marriages.) And yet… it is far more common for people to try to…
Should People Who Aren’t Nonbinary Use Mx.?
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”….
Trans-Friendly Pronouns: An infographic
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.)