Another supererogatory announcement
Headlines – another person comes out as self-obsessed and expecting us to be interested in xir self-obsession.
Demi Lovato has announced they have a non-binary gender identity.
This is of no interest. There is no need for people to make “announcements” about themselves this way. It doesn’t matter. It’s not significant. People’s custom-built Selves are of no interest.
Says it all, doesn’t it – “I’m so happy to share more of my life with you all.” No, don’t be happy to do that – recoil from it with scorn and loathing. Don’t look ever more into the self, look away from the self, at everything there is out there to explore and think about. Also don’t be “proud” to identify as something meaningless. Say you’re gender-nonconforming if you must say something, but say it briskly and then step away from the microphone and do something useful.
The pop singer will use the pronouns they and them to describe themselves, to “best represent the fluidity I feel in my gender expression”.
Or rather to draw extra attention and flattery and exclamations of stunning and brave.
The Guardian goes on to knock itself out using “they” and “their” for paragraph after paragraph, and then everybody takes 47 curtain calls in an empty theater.
“The pop singer will use the pronouns they and them to describe themselves”: Um, no. The pop singer will demand that others use these pronouns to refer to her. She will continue to use “I” and “me” to refer to herself. And, of course, pronouns do not describe; she’s thinking of adjectives. But grammar is definitely not a strong point in this whole gender identity movement.
How many times a day, a week, a lifetime should one regenderise?
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” –reportedly Socrates
“Examine my life!” –Demi Lovato
@Sackbut,
Don’t be too sure that they won’t be referring to themselves (oh, sorry, themself) in the third person going forward.
She might be moving, but the direction she’s taking is not “forward.” As for the actual direction of travel, from here, all this unprompted oversharing and navel gazing it looks more like the imploding house at the end of “Poltergeist” than anywhere else.
Frequency of regenderization depends on the “best before” date of the one currently in use, as determined by one’s publicist (cf. “Elliot Page).
Iknklast is proud to declare that I am what I am and that’s all that I am.
Enough about me; when will too much be enough? They want more than their 15 minutes of fame, they want all the attention, all the time, in every movement. LGB? Center trans. Feminism? Center trans. Anti-racism? Center trans. Olympics? Center trans. Harley Riders? Center trans. Greenpeace? Center trans. UFOlogists? Center trans.
And on and on until they are the center of everything, and everything revolves around them, and everything is about them, all the time.
I suspect they would desist eventually if people quit giving a damn about them and agreeing how marginalized they were and patting them on the head and calling them brave. The correct response of the BBC, and everyone else, should be “Another trans/NB/whateverthehell? Yawn. Just like everyone else. Go home, we’ve got important things to cover.”
But do you posses the tattooed, hypertrophied forearms to support that claim? This ideninny takes more than just a gold lame purse to proclaim its validity. Let’s see you pop open a nice big can o’ spinach!
While Ptolemy’s geocentrism, Galileo’s old foe, has fallen on hard times, Tee-ocentrism seems to be chugging along quite nicely. And it even has its own Junior Inquisition, too.
Or to update our metaphor a bit, trans has become the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, around which everything orbits, and from which nothing can escape.
Lovato, due to drug use, had a stroke and suffered hearing loss, vision loss, and brain damage. So her next big move after that is to declare she’s “California sober” (sober, but not really — wink) and then to monetize it by creating a song of that name.
So, yeah, this is a person with serious problems. Maybe casting about for a fix, or maybe just looking for attention.
“Officially” changing the pronouns other people use to refer to her? Is there an application form? I’ve never heard of her before and doubt I’ll have reason to refer to her after I finish typing this comment, but I’ll look forward to receiving the Official Letter of Future Pronoun Usage, or whatever happens.
This is “literally” her “officially” changing her pronouns… words are magic and have no actual meaning content.
It’s official because… she tweeted it?