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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/14/non-gendered-pronouns-trans-people-he-she-ze
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| Non-gendered pronouns are progress for trans and non-trans people alike | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Sometimes it isn’t just about the transgender. Sometimes, the real issue – the plain-as-a-pikestaff, nose-on-your-face big issue – sits elsewhere, in the column headed “gender”. Because many of the largest, most persistent issues facing the trans community also affect the non-trans – mostly women, and mostly not in a good way. | Sometimes it isn’t just about the transgender. Sometimes, the real issue – the plain-as-a-pikestaff, nose-on-your-face big issue – sits elsewhere, in the column headed “gender”. Because many of the largest, most persistent issues facing the trans community also affect the non-trans – mostly women, and mostly not in a good way. |
| In fake news yesterday, it was reported that “Oxford University Student Union is advising students to use “ze” as a generic pronoun in order to reduce discrimination against trans people”. That would be interesting, if true, and a start. But, even as fake news, there is more than a whiff of rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic to such an idea. It’s odd that in the 21st century we consider it radical proposal. Odder still that anyone would think a little juggling with personal pronouns is the key to moving gender forward. | In fake news yesterday, it was reported that “Oxford University Student Union is advising students to use “ze” as a generic pronoun in order to reduce discrimination against trans people”. That would be interesting, if true, and a start. But, even as fake news, there is more than a whiff of rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic to such an idea. It’s odd that in the 21st century we consider it radical proposal. Odder still that anyone would think a little juggling with personal pronouns is the key to moving gender forward. |
| Let’s start with what it is not. It is not an erasure of gender. If individuals wish to be known as “he” or “she”, or even, if they prefer “xe” or “zie” or “they” or “ze”, then so they shall. That is no more than basic courtesy: if you know me, know how I like to be addressed, address me that way. Please. | Let’s start with what it is not. It is not an erasure of gender. If individuals wish to be known as “he” or “she”, or even, if they prefer “xe” or “zie” or “they” or “ze”, then so they shall. That is no more than basic courtesy: if you know me, know how I like to be addressed, address me that way. Please. |
| If you don’t know, then ask. I happen to prefer “she” and “her”, but then, I’m old-fashioned that way. I also prefer not to capitalise personal pronouns mid-sentence. But that’s just me: I dislike the not-so-subtle egotism that insists we capitalise one single word and no other (proper nouns apart). | If you don’t know, then ask. I happen to prefer “she” and “her”, but then, I’m old-fashioned that way. I also prefer not to capitalise personal pronouns mid-sentence. But that’s just me: I dislike the not-so-subtle egotism that insists we capitalise one single word and no other (proper nouns apart). |
| On the other hand, if you are sending out technical instructions or, alternatively, a brochure on accessing student health facilities, you have a problem. If personalised, you may not have had the opportunity to speak with the individual, to elicit their preferences, and pretty much any gendering in communication is going to be dodgy. Doubly so if it’s a mass-produced leaflet. | On the other hand, if you are sending out technical instructions or, alternatively, a brochure on accessing student health facilities, you have a problem. If personalised, you may not have had the opportunity to speak with the individual, to elicit their preferences, and pretty much any gendering in communication is going to be dodgy. Doubly so if it’s a mass-produced leaflet. |
| Historically, we have worked around this by deciding that male is the default. As many a legal contract has it, in the section headed “interpretation”: “words importing the masculine gender include the feminine”. Or as still happens, when I buy goods and services, or when – joyous day! – a publisher signs off on a commission, the contract arrives, clearly made out to Jane Francesca Fae, with masculine pronouns throughout. This sort of thing is a minor irritant, but an irritant nonetheless. Not only to me but, I suspect, to millions of other women, daily erased this way. | Historically, we have worked around this by deciding that male is the default. As many a legal contract has it, in the section headed “interpretation”: “words importing the masculine gender include the feminine”. Or as still happens, when I buy goods and services, or when – joyous day! – a publisher signs off on a commission, the contract arrives, clearly made out to Jane Francesca Fae, with masculine pronouns throughout. This sort of thing is a minor irritant, but an irritant nonetheless. Not only to me but, I suspect, to millions of other women, daily erased this way. |
| One solution is to reverse the polarity. But apart from the temporary pleasure of hearing the squawks of indignation from those who never gave gendering the least thought when it worked in their favour, this solves nothing – though it might open a few minds. Another alternative is the use of “they” as a singular pronoun. Here, the main opposition seems to come from individuals quaintly referred to as “grammar traditionalists”. Since, however, it’s a usage that has been doing the rounds since at least the 16th century, one must wonder how much their objection is about tradition, how much about a continuing camouflaged sexism. | One solution is to reverse the polarity. But apart from the temporary pleasure of hearing the squawks of indignation from those who never gave gendering the least thought when it worked in their favour, this solves nothing – though it might open a few minds. Another alternative is the use of “they” as a singular pronoun. Here, the main opposition seems to come from individuals quaintly referred to as “grammar traditionalists”. Since, however, it’s a usage that has been doing the rounds since at least the 16th century, one must wonder how much their objection is about tradition, how much about a continuing camouflaged sexism. |
| Here I am going to declare an interest. Or rather a non-interest. I like “they”. I also like “ze”. I would not object to either although as long as English continues to inflect its verbs there is some advantage to “ze”, if only to preserve future children from having to learn the difference between “they go”, “they goes” and all the interminable debates that would go with it. | Here I am going to declare an interest. Or rather a non-interest. I like “they”. I also like “ze”. I would not object to either although as long as English continues to inflect its verbs there is some advantage to “ze”, if only to preserve future children from having to learn the difference between “they go”, “they goes” and all the interminable debates that would go with it. |
| It is tempting, but wrong, to defer this question to those who define as trans or non-binary. Wrong, because this is not about introducing a non-binary pronoun for those in the trans community who identify as non-binary; but, subtle difference, about introducing a non-gendered pronoun for all. | It is tempting, but wrong, to defer this question to those who define as trans or non-binary. Wrong, because this is not about introducing a non-binary pronoun for those in the trans community who identify as non-binary; but, subtle difference, about introducing a non-gendered pronoun for all. |
| In that sense, the debate mirrors the growing debate over the use of X on passports or “Mx” as a title. In both cases, a practice that began with the non-binary community as a means to assert a gender outside of the binary is being taken up by individuals who simply reject having a gender label attached. Again, it is an issue as much of interest to non-trans women as anyone else, just as women living alone frequently award themselves a doctorate or other non-gendered title as a means to evade harassment. | In that sense, the debate mirrors the growing debate over the use of X on passports or “Mx” as a title. In both cases, a practice that began with the non-binary community as a means to assert a gender outside of the binary is being taken up by individuals who simply reject having a gender label attached. Again, it is an issue as much of interest to non-trans women as anyone else, just as women living alone frequently award themselves a doctorate or other non-gendered title as a means to evade harassment. |
| Still, this debate continues to be about the deckchairs. There is no case in 21st-century Britain for default gender, let alone assuming that default is male. | Still, this debate continues to be about the deckchairs. There is no case in 21st-century Britain for default gender, let alone assuming that default is male. |
| Yet behind questions of address and title lies the far greater distortion, despite decades of anti-discrimination law, of enforced gender. Businesses, institutions and government, local and central, are still obsessed with demanding we disclose our gender to them, and worse, putting in place protracted and difficult procedures for changing it. | Yet behind questions of address and title lies the far greater distortion, despite decades of anti-discrimination law, of enforced gender. Businesses, institutions and government, local and central, are still obsessed with demanding we disclose our gender to them, and worse, putting in place protracted and difficult procedures for changing it. |
| Why? Can anyone explain to me what a female bank account is? Or a male history course? Yet all too often, asserting gender remains the only way to access goods and services (and before anyone mentions it, this is a separate and unnecessary layer beyond simply recording gender for monitoring purposes). And inevitably, this is where the seeds of sex discrimination are sown, as well as multiple difficulties for trans people, binary and non-binary alike, whose only demand is that they be allowed to access society on the same terms as everyone else. | Why? Can anyone explain to me what a female bank account is? Or a male history course? Yet all too often, asserting gender remains the only way to access goods and services (and before anyone mentions it, this is a separate and unnecessary layer beyond simply recording gender for monitoring purposes). And inevitably, this is where the seeds of sex discrimination are sown, as well as multiple difficulties for trans people, binary and non-binary alike, whose only demand is that they be allowed to access society on the same terms as everyone else. |