Their proper pronouns
More pronoun gibberish from the BC human rights tribunal:
A former server at a Gibsons, B.C. restaurant has been awarded $30,000 after a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision found they were unfairly terminated for asking managers and co-workers to call them by their proper pronouns.
That’s the lede and already we’re in the woods. Who were unfairly terminated? The tribunal? The restaurant? One of the advantages of non-customized pronouns is that they convey information – that’s what they’re for. They don’t always convey all the necessary information, for instance when there is more than one she or he involved, but they’re better than a vague “they” that could refer to anything, including a group of objects.
The whole article is like that – you keep having to stop to correct what you thought you’d just read. No you don’t get used to it, because it’s inherently confusing and clumsy.
The decision says bar manager Brian Gobelle was particularly hostile, repeatedly and persistently referring to Nelson with she/her pronouns and with gendered nicknames like “sweetheart,” “honey,” and “pinky” — a reference to their pink hair.
The situation eventually escalated into a verbal altercation between Nelson and Gobelle, during which Nelson touched Gobelle’s shoulder and called him “sweetheart” in return — though Cousineau determined this did not amount to a physical assault.
Touched? Or slapped? From another account I read it appears Nelson slapped his shoulder.
Nelson was fired.
“Eventually [Kingsberry] told Jessie Nelson that they had just come off ‘too strong too fast’ and were too ‘militant’ — a word that reminded Jessie Nelson of what Mr. Gobelle had said about them,” Cousineau wrote.
“They challenged Mr. Kingsberry that they were being fired because of their pronouns. Ms. Coplin recalls Mr. Kingsberry telling Jessie Nelson that ‘part of the problem is making sure you vibe with the team,’ and that they had made people uncomfortable.”
They who had made people uncomfortable? It’s unclear, it’s confusing, it’s ambiguous – just what you don’t want in a legal ruling.
Following their termination, Nelson alleged that Gobelle’s conduct towards them, and the employer’s response, amounted to discrimination in employment based on their gender identity and expression.
But when “gender expression” becomes a matter of ordering everyone to use scrambled pronouns to refer to you then you’re making the job more difficult than it has to be. That’s not a plus.
In her decision, Cousineau wrote that “like a name, pronouns are a fundamental part of a person’s identity. They are a primary way that people identify each other.”
That’s nonsense. Pronouns are not like a name, that’s the whole point of them. And we don’t get to make ordinary parts of speech personal and special to us and our precious IdenTitty, because language has to be shared to work. All these stupid narcissistic tedious road blocks are not The New Utopia, they’re a giant pain in the ass.
“Using correct pronouns communicates that we see and respect a person for who they are. Especially for trans, non‐binary, or other non‐cisgender people, using the correct pronouns validates and affirms they are a person equally deserving of respect and dignity.”
Fuck that. Life isn’t nursery school. It’s not anyone’s job to pamper and cuddle and soothe all these wounded Victims of Gender. We’re not required to use the incorrect pronouns in order to “validate” every whiny narcissist we encounter.
How is it not obvious how stupid and childish all this is? On the one hand you have the real injustice of the residential schools, for example, and on the other hand you have this ludicrous privileged spoiled-brat tantrum. How can anyone think they’re on an equal footing?
No one does, really. We think the pronoun wars are silly, narcissistic children trying to command everyone what to believe and not worth crying over (I had a phone call a couple of days ago during which the individual consistently referred to me as though believing I was male, though he obviously had my file in front of him which would have stated I was a female. I did not melt down, I did not commit suicide. I have a somewhat deep voice, especially right now while I am a little hoarse from sinus problems).
The TAs, on the other hand, believe that the misuse of a pronoun is MORE serious than the residential schools, more serious than rape, more serious than the Holocaust, more serious than hundreds of years of slavery, more serious than domestic violence, more serious than global warming…for them, nothing is on an equal footing because their silly pronouns are more important than all other things. They are the MOST OPPRESSED EVER.
Which just goes to show you how privileged their lives have been that they think a simple little she or her, he or him is abuse and oppression. If they ever experienced real abuse or real oppression, they would know better.
Now I get that nicknames that appear neutral on paper can be hostile just by the way they are delivered. And everyone has the right to reject being called something that isn’t actually their name, far more than they have the right to demand unusual pronouns. But the nonbinary individual makes a conscious choice to have pink hair, yet a nickname referencing the pink hair is “gendered”? Come on now.
If I had just come into this subject cold, with little to no background in transgender doctrine, and had been asked “some people don’t consider themselves to be a woman or a man: what pronouns do you think they want to be referred to by?” I might have answered “Oh, anything. They don’t seem hung up on distinctions, or concerned about stereotypes or how others see them. “She” or “he,” either one. Sex isn’t part of their identity, so my guess is they won’t care.”
Mistaken, of course — but it’s a plausible inference. And it’s interesting to consider how and why it’s gone into the opposite direction, with pronouns being “right” or “wrong” and apparently equated with being human or not. The non-binary realize they must fight twice as hard as mtf and ftm transgender, because they can’t even present themselves in a clear way.