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(no subject)
I am a supporter of trans rights and refer to trans or nonbinary persons by their preferred pronouns. Recently, however, a family member stated that everyone must use the pronoun ‘‘they’’ with her even though she does not identify as trans or nonbinary. When I asked her why, she said she chooses to use ‘‘they’’ in solidarity with trans and nonbinary persons.
I am having trouble with this because it seems to require that I, and everyone else, join her in her particular form of activism, rather than a request that I respect her identity. If I hung a poster saying ‘‘Black Lives Matter’’ in my window, I would not be within my rights to demand that everyone else do so as well. But I am torn, because I have a general policy of calling people what they ask to be called, whether that is using particular pronouns, nicknames or titles. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
When we respect the pronouns used by trans or nonbinary people, we’re doing something they reasonably ask us to do as an acknowledgment of their gender identity. Using pronouns properly is a matter of not misgendering people. It isn’t part of a general policy of calling people whatever they want to be called; someone’s wish to be referred to as ‘‘your holiness’’ does not require others to comply.
In fact, I worry that your family member’s idea of solidarity could prove self-undermining. In the account you’ve given, your relative is not trying to critique or withdraw from the sex-gender system or challenge the practice of having gendered designations, all intelligible reasons for rejecting female pronouns. Rather, your relative evidently identifies as cisgender and is motivated simply by allyship, which means treating these pronouns as a choice, detached from identity. This kind of stance could be taken as disrespectful of those who have fought to have their gender identities acknowledged and accommodated. By deploying nonbinary pronouns merely as a political badge, your relative, however well intentioned, seems misaligned with the very people she is in solidarity with — those who have asked to be recognized for who they are. As the N.A.A.C.P. activist Rachel Dolezal notoriously failed to grasp, solidarity with a group does not grant you membership within it. Many will find the notion that you support people by appropriating their markers of identity to be passing strange.
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I am having trouble with this because it seems to require that I, and everyone else, join her in her particular form of activism, rather than a request that I respect her identity. If I hung a poster saying ‘‘Black Lives Matter’’ in my window, I would not be within my rights to demand that everyone else do so as well. But I am torn, because I have a general policy of calling people what they ask to be called, whether that is using particular pronouns, nicknames or titles. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
When we respect the pronouns used by trans or nonbinary people, we’re doing something they reasonably ask us to do as an acknowledgment of their gender identity. Using pronouns properly is a matter of not misgendering people. It isn’t part of a general policy of calling people whatever they want to be called; someone’s wish to be referred to as ‘‘your holiness’’ does not require others to comply.
In fact, I worry that your family member’s idea of solidarity could prove self-undermining. In the account you’ve given, your relative is not trying to critique or withdraw from the sex-gender system or challenge the practice of having gendered designations, all intelligible reasons for rejecting female pronouns. Rather, your relative evidently identifies as cisgender and is motivated simply by allyship, which means treating these pronouns as a choice, detached from identity. This kind of stance could be taken as disrespectful of those who have fought to have their gender identities acknowledged and accommodated. By deploying nonbinary pronouns merely as a political badge, your relative, however well intentioned, seems misaligned with the very people she is in solidarity with — those who have asked to be recognized for who they are. As the N.A.A.C.P. activist Rachel Dolezal notoriously failed to grasp, solidarity with a group does not grant you membership within it. Many will find the notion that you support people by appropriating their markers of identity to be passing strange.
Link
no subject
Use they/them for your family member, LW, or walk around waving an "I'm a disrespectful and presumptuous jerk" flag every time you open your mouth.
Also, more people using they/them is in no way doing harm to me, a nonbinary they/them user. Normalizing it is useful. Drawing out jerks like LW is actually kind of useful, too - any OTHER members of the family who might have been considering coming out or exploring their gender performance options are now on notice that LW thinks they're the Authority about who gets to use what pronouns.
no subject
Yeah, this is the right answer. "These are my pronouns" is not an invitation to debate whether the person has a good enough reason for using them. We don't accept people's name and pronouns because we have sat in judgement of them and found them worthy, we accept them because their name and pronouns are for them to decide and no one else.
no subject
Well said. takes notes