Pronouns, again.

[EverylittleAlps]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/13/pronouns-gender-he-she-they-natalie-wynn-contrapoints

The gist, if you can't be bothered to read it, is that even trans and non-binary people are finding pronoun-cements a drag, if you will.

Contrapoints tweet of evil here.

What’s the best way of dealing with pronoun introductions as a GC feminist? (I belong to a social group where “preferred pronouns” are mandated in the group agreement, but we’ve never actually been asked to state them… yet).

Faux-naivety - “what’s a pronoun?”

Grey-rock - “whatever, I don’t mind, say what you see”

Angry-confrontational - “Pronouns are like rohypnol and are coercive control gaslighting bullshit”

Out-ridiculousness the ridiculousness - “I identify as a gender neutral Icelander, so therefore my pronouns are það, því and þess. Please pronounce them correctly and use them in their rightful declensions.”

Titania McGrath:

twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1172640549494546432

"Please do NOT deadpronoun Sam Smith.

They has always been they/them, no matter what the haters say.

And if they call them him they will have them arrested."

say what you see

Pleeease can we call this the Roy Walker Catchphrase Approach? Because then you can answer with “it’s good but it’s not right”. I’m determined to make this catch on.

"say what you see

It’s like Roy Walker on Catchphrase. You can follow it with

It’s good, but it’s not right"

Loving that, NotBadConsidering .

It’s the totalitarianism of it that gets me. That person going on and on and on in a Facebook(?) post because someone said something they disagree with. As if one person sharing their discomfort with pronoun checks is a hate crime.

How many people are non-binary? So few that a pronoun check could only serve to highlight their non-binariness and make them the focus of the entire round of pronoun checks. Of course if you’re an attention-seeing narcissist then that’s what you want but it’s a lie to say that pronoun checks cause no harm. They do cause harm because they center gender and connect it immediately with a person’s name and self.

All it does is reinforce gender norms. It concentrates the mind on who is male and who is female in a room - because, yes, wokerati, the vast majority of people, 98% at least, are still just boring old men and women - and since being female puts us in a subordinated class of people, that’s harmful. I couldn’t think of a better way than a pronoun check to ensure that all listeners are primed to ignore and marginalise all the self-declared she/ her voices.

Actively announcing myself as a she/her makes it seem like I’m making my entire identity about my gender, which feels regressive.

Jesus fucking wept will someone tell me what ID politics is all about if it’s not about making entire identities about fucking gender?

To the Writer of that article: this has been the whole fucking point we’ve been trying to drill into your skull since this crap started - it ‘feels regressive’ because it fucking is regressive. Gimme strength.

As for ‘passing privilege’ don’t get me fucking started on eating your own. I’d feel sorry for the doxxed and chased off sm transperson by the more woke than thou if it weren’t for the fact that person helped fucking make this.

say what you see

can we call this the Roy Walker Catchphrase Approach? Because then you can answer with “it’s good but it’s not right”. I’m determined to make this catch on.

I’m totally down with this. Will implement the RWCA at first available opportunity. [thumbsup]

When I get handed a badge I will write "guess!" On it.

In most south African languages there is only one pronoun for humans as distinct from animals and things. So not gendered in any way. And you will be given a name depending on how people find you whether you like it or not. This idea that we are in control of our own identities and that they do not have to be negotiated with the society we live in is not global by any means. Knowing the difference between a male person and female person is a global phenomenon however. Funny that!

I’m totally down with this. Will implement the RWCA at first available opportunity.

"What are your pronouns?"

"I refer m'learned friend to the Walker ruling, 14919."

That's the case in Indonesian and Timorese languages SonEtLumiere. Dunno about Viet.

In Indonesian, you have familiar pronouns for yourself and others, whereas in Timorese you add the word "greatness" to the end of the "you" pronoun. Sort of like "your lordship".
Interestingly though, neither language has tiered third person pronouns, nor are they gendered. In both languages everyone is dia or nia.

Could my pronouns be Just/Fuck/Off ?

"This idea that we are in control of our own identities and that they do not have to be negotiated with the society we live in is not global by any means."
TBH, I don't believe anyone has control of their own identity anywhere anyway.

I find the idea of 'I identify as ...' absolutely ludicrous. I have never regarded my 'identity' as something I can choose. I am identifiED by those who are outside me looking in. Me looking out, I can't see my identity.

As Robert Burns said: (I'd better Anglicise it )

Oh would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:

Oooh I like the idea of demanding honorific pronouns from other languages I'd love to read up on how the sociolinguistics of honorifics is negotiated in languages such as Japanese. Indeed, I've read social media posts asserting that female pronouns should be regarded as honorifics... we earn them by being female bodied and surviving male abuse/oppression.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go with the "say what you see" approach... it's low key, but fully in the spirit of standing against the compelled speech aspect of gender based pronoun stipulations.

To the Writer of that article: this has been the whole fucking point we’ve been trying to drill into your skull since this crap started - it ‘feels regressive’ because it fucking is regressive. Gimme strength.

Yes!

Or,
"My pronouns are: Ontologically / Sex / Based"

Bit of a tangent but what’s happening in other countries such as France where it’s not just pronouns but adjectives and other word ending that would have to change? Is this being adopted over there too?

At the risk of broadly stereotyping, I just can't imagine the French being quite as spineless about this as the British wokery and good for them if so. I prepare for someone to disappoint me but that's my guess.

I rather like "say what you see" now. Otherwise my favoured reply in a meeting would be that my pronouns are "Me, you."

I was taught that 'she is the cat's mother' anyway i.e. it's rude to refer to someone in your presence as he or she (and presumably any other made up horseshit pronoun). You should use the proper noun, their name." Hence: "I agree with Henry's point that..."

what about the French speaking areas of Canada - are they having a meltdown between correct grammar and wokeness?

My (Limited) understanding of Vietnamese is that there is a “Older/Wiser/your superior” pronoun

I might go for the Indian/Asian system in use for older women.

Therefore my pronouns are Aunty, Aunty and Aunty.

What’s the best way of dealing with pronoun introductions as a GC feminist?

I, me, my, mine.

(They are the only pronouns that belong to me, as pronouns 'belong' to the person using them.)

This idea that we are in control of our own identities and that they do not have to be negotiated with the society we live in is not global by any means.

That’s because the idea of “the self” and “identity” is not global by any means.

For all that the Woke bleat on about “colonialist” imposition of gender identity, the primacy of self over community as well as the notion of a self-identity, whether fixed or fragmentary and changeable, is Western to the core.

It’s something people steeped in individualism find very hard to conceptualise, that other peoples have a wholly other understanding of how personhood relates to community, and vice-versa.

Self-identity in the West has become the ultimate expression of the market-supremacy in neoliberalism: it’s corporate branding applied to the individual who must now sell himself or herself as a product or service in the global marketplace.

Which is exactly what Sam Smith has done: a re-branding in the wake of falling market share in preparation for a new product launch.