No small or trivial feat
The ACLU’s fascination with customized pronouns goes back several years. It’s a deeply peculiar cause for a civil liberties organization to focus on, because it has nothing to do with civil liberties – on the contrary, it’s a campaign to coerce people’s language for no good reason.
A blog post from ACLU Northern California in July 2015:
“Hello, my name is Anna and my pronouns are she, her, and hers.” That has now become my standard greeting at meetings and events. It wasn’t something that happened naturally, but with a little practice and intention, it became a habit.
Sure, anything can become a habit. “Hello, my name is Anna and I’m a wombat” could just as easily become a habit, but that doesn’t make it a sensible thing to say unless you’re joking.
And where’s the civil liberty? Whose civil liberty is being fostered here? Is it a civil liberty to be called by a customized (i.e. inaccurate) pronoun? It is not.
As an Organizer with the ACLU of Northern California, I spend much of my time advocating for schools that are welcoming and inclusive to transgender students. Part of that advocacy includes talking to people about gender, and educating people about transgender issues.
That’s not much about civil liberties either. Maybe a little bit, in that people can’t exercise their civil liberties if they’re being bullied or abused, but the ever-expanding claims about what it takes to make schools and everywhere else “welcoming and inclusive to transgender students” are more in conflict with civil liberties than they are protective of them. Women, in particular, are being ordered to give up a lot of civil liberties in order to be “welcoming and inclusive” to our trans sisters, i.e. men.
All people are impacted by gender and have identities that need to be affirmed and respected, but many cisgender people do not need to worry about having our gender identities recognized. We have the privilege of not having to think much about our gender or about people respecting our names and pronouns.
We also have the “privilege” of not having to think much about our species or about people thinking we’re tigers or naked mole rats or fruit flies. It’s a novel idea that there’s such a thing as “gender identity” and that everyone has it and that some tragic people have an opposite one and we have to rearrange all of life to make them feel more cozy – a novel idea and a batshit crazy one.
That is not the case for many gender nonconforming and transgender folks. Many transgender people fight on a daily basis to have their names and pronouns respected, which is no small or trivial feat. Names and pronouns shape how we are viewed in the world and are important pieces of our identities.
Where are the civil liberties? All this explaining and still not a word about them. It’s not a civil liberty to force the world to “validate” personal fantasies. If you’re trying to force people to “validate” personal fantasies you’re coming perilously close to trying to impose a theocracy. We don’t have to “validate” fantasy genders any more than we have to “validate” the father the son and the holy ghost.
The ACLU appears to have completely lost the plot.
Waiting for the day when law enforcement asks not only for identification, but is legally required to ask for identity. They will probably try to make it a Miranda right. ‘If you cannot choose a pronoun, one will be appointed to you…’ :P
A friendly reminder that my tenses are ⚡and Shazam! Not using them is literal violence against me, and a violation of my civil rights.
Maybe yes, maybe no. First of all, define “gender”. If by that word you’re referring to the sexist stereotypes used to enforce patriarchy, then yes, that’s true. If you’re claiming I “have” a gender in the “identity” sense, and that it somehow controls, inflences, or determines who I am, then no. But if you’re going to start forcing everyone to obey the Pronoun People, then yes this is true. I shall be “impacted.”
Nope, nope, and nope.(see above).
You get to label yourself that, but you don’t get to label me. I’m not “cis”.
Or how about most people don’t give a shit about them because they don’t exist, and we shouldn’t be compelled to indulge in the neurotic delusions of crybaby narcissists who believe they do.
“Could you expand on that?”
“Sure. Whether you’re a man or a woman is the most important, basic thing about you. That’s why people treat women very differently than they treat men, and vice versa. It’s hurtful then if someone else ignores your right to have their view of you shaped by their awareness of your womanhood, for example. We all want to be treated according to our true gender.”
“Isn’t this bordering on sexism?”
“Not at all. It eliminates sexism because being recognized as your true gender now allows you to express nonconformity with your gender, and be appreciated for that.”
“Thank you. That was very clear and enlightening.”
Slightly off-topic, but been bugging me: why do people who list pronouns, list 2-3 pronouns? I mean, shouldn’t it be either one (sufficient) or four (thorough*)?
*as I understand things: subject, object, possessive, reflexive. But I’m a scientist, not an English major, Jim!
ibbica, it annoys me too. It should be the least pressing issue about all of this, really, but it actually makes me want to scream. I am always on the lookout for someone who lists their pronouns as “she, him, their, xirself” but so far, the first one in the list always indicates how the rest of them go. Maybe it’s because they are already so fundamentally confused about how language works, they think the rest of us need that level of help?
You occasionally see “she/they” or, veeeery rarely, “he/they” or equivalent repetitions where it is clear the person is listing options for the nominative case rather than casing-out a single pronoun structure. Which I suppose is understandable, since it’s kids on Tumblr who started this nonsense, and though they think they know everything, they’re adolescents…or at least they were when they started this nonsense. Now I guess they’ve mostly gone on to revolutionise universities and start jobs at the institutions which their ideology has captured.
I suspect listing multiple pronouns came about because of the use of nonstandard pronouns where the various cases are not obvious. What’s the possessive of xim?