pronouns

 I ran across this (fairly transphobic, content warning) tweet just now:

Did you know that folks have started putting their pronouns on their resumes? Been seeing an uptick in the ones I've reviewed at my job.

I've immediately trashed them.

Not because I care about how they identify, but because I just know they'd be a pain in the ass to work with.

— ResumesAndPandas (@PandasAndVidya) August 30, 2020

 

I don't know who this person is, but it's not a serious tweet - it's a troll. I spent a few minutes browsing the rest of their timeline and whoever it was spent that period of time convincing everyone they were employed by Bethesda, which prompted a bunch of people to blast Bethesda's twitter demanding that they be fired. This was supposed to "prove a point" about the behavior of pronoun people - that they'd be HR nightmares to work with, because apparently the behavior of a small handful of very online twitter people represents anyone that might consider putting pronouns on a resume to be a good idea.

Still, even if this is a troll, it got me thinking enough to make a blog post - and the topic is a good segue into something I've wanted to discuss anyway.

This next sentiment is coming from someone (myself) that will absolutely use and respect any pronouns for you that you tell me to use:

I absolutely despise every set of non-binary pronouns, except for they/them, which I merely strongly dislike.https://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlatonhttps://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlatonhttps://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlatonhttps://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlatonhttps://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlaton

At least there's some English language precedent for they/them - it's correct to use it to address groups of people, and it pops up occasionally to address a single person whose identity is not known. In my opinion, it's still clunky to have to address someone by "they" every time you speak with them. 

I'm sure this clunkiness will probably start to disappear in the next few generations. That's fine.

I say this because I'm not a language purist by any means. I like slang phrases, and I generally try to go with the flow when language evolves (even if some of it is cringey, like how the dictionary definition for "literally" now includes "not literally"). If the English language officially evolves someday to the point where using they/them to refer to people of unknown gender or without gender is a widely accepted practice, I think that would be awesome.

Things like xe/xim or ze/zir though? Forget about it. At least, for me. Those are so distinct and would require so much effort of the people in my life that the thought of drawing that much attention to myself gives me one of those feelings of dread in the pit of my stomach. 

One of the reasons I'm bringing this up is because the idea of me being non-binary, or genderless, or having some kind of identity that is decidedly not male (at least not exclusively) sounds awesome in theory. What does it do in practice though? What will it actually change?

 

I don't know what gender dysphoria feel like. I've never really talked to anybody that feels it, so I have nothing to compare it to. All I know so far is that I've been trying to take stock of my personality, my interests, my behaviors, pretty much anything about me and I've been trying to figure out if it's gendered or not and then figure out why. Aside from my biology (which is male - my genitalia, the size of my body, features like my excessive body hair, my male pattern baldness, etc.), I really can't think of anything I like or do that's coded as male for any reason other than that women tend to be unfairly excluded from it.

I'm obsessive about things like games and puzzles and math, but that's more of an autism thing than a male thing (and this isn't ableism, I'm claiming autism because I had lots of discussions with a licensed professional about 10 years ago about having what was then called Asperger's syndrome. I just don't like being loud about it, you probably could have guessed that, although if you know me irl you probably could have detected it).

I can be insensitive when communicating. I didn't grow up belonging to any marginalized groups - I've always identified as straight, white(-passing*), male, able-bodied Christian (Catholic) in America. My family wasn't poor. As a result, I grew up without a ton of empathy for different groups of people. That insensitivity is something that I've coded as male - the people I encounter that are insensitive like that are almost exclusively men. It shouldn't be coded as anything though, nobody should be shitty to any other group of people over something they can't control (fuck a Nazi though). Still, you could call this general trait a feature of toxic masculinity. I've coded it as male and I do not want it.

Beyond that, I love a lot of things that I've coded as female as well. I love pink and purple. I love women's fashion and style in general. I'm highly attracted to feminine things and presentation, and it hasn't been until fairly recently that I've been questioning if I just really like it from afar, or if I actually want to participate in it.

All this is to say, is any of this "dysphoria"? I don't feel any physical pain or intense emotional turmoil. I could probably live out the rest of my life as a cis man and find a way to be fairly content.

Bringing this back to the original point, if I decide that I'm (for example) non-binary, what is actually different? I can't think of anything! I'd still use he/him pronouns, because I wouldn't want to inconvenience anyone in my life over something that wouldn't even ease any dysphoria that I don't even feel like I have. I'd still look, sound, and act male. For all intents and purposes, I would be a man in society. I'd just have another layer of gender to talk about with people that I felt safe disclosing it with, and I'd have a cheat code into being a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The idea of holding on to virtually every element of male privilege I have while intruding on the space of LGBTQ people that have much harder battles than me does not sit right with me at all. 

So if it doesn't really change anything, then why do it?

Coming full circle to the tweet I linked at the beginning of this post (since I think it's related), I actually don't know where I stand on it. I've had my pronouns in my twitter bio, even as a cis man whose pronouns you could easily infer just by looking at me, because I want to make the practice of sharing your pronouns more widely accepted. I want the range of people that specify their pronouns to be so wide, that shitty opinions like the one in the tweet above have no room to be grounded in any kind of reality.

That said, if the idea of making my friends and family refer to me as they/them or whatever is repulsive to me, the idea of imposing it onto an employer that probably views me as disposable is a complete non-starter. Do I think the practice of throwing someone's resume out because I see pronouns on it is shitty and probably extremely discriminatory? Yes. But it it's still a system that I'd want to succeed under, so I have to play by the rules until the rules change.

Remember you can connect with me (anonymously if you like) here: https://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlaton

* My mom is a white American and my dad is a Palestinian Arab, so I'm half and half. Still, I grew up white. My lived experience is white. I didn't know my dad was Arab until I was a teenager. It feels disingenuous for me to claim POC when I just plain don't have the experiences of one. But it's still really important for me not to erase my Palestinian heritage. This topic is a whole other blog post. And this is a gender blog, not a race blog, so not any time soon, but always down to talk about it.:/:/,uriouscat.qa/AlexMajlatonuriouscat.qa/AlexMajlaton

https://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlaton https://curiouscat.qa/AlexMajlaton