On words

[adrienmundi]

Specifically, pronouns:

This has almost always been a rough part for me, for reasons I'm sure a regular reader will know (probably to the point of tedium). In a nutshell, here's the breakdown:

I know "he" isn't right. It's also darned uncomfortable, at times painful and unpleaseant. It bugs me that this is the default to which others will resort, seemingly without question. Plus, I've logged way too much time exclusively under this label that doesn't fit.

I suspect "she" isn't right, either, but I've very little experiential data with which to make a more certain claim. It's certainly not the default. And, while it may be wrong, it doesn't have the accumulation of years of experienced wrongness attached to it.

I don't like "he", but knowing that "she" likely isn't right either, it feels unfair to request a change on the part of others, particularly since I suspect that it indicates a polar shift in the minds of many.

I've said before, "Use whichever seems appropriate" to people, but I think most go for the default out of socialization, and because I don't always overtly resist that. (Never mind that I know plenty of presumed 'innies' who dress more relaxed/androgynously than I do. I suspect it's the presumption of 'natural order' at work).

So, that's what I don't know, and how I don't know it.

Comments

[fairyhead.livejournal.com]

More with you, than anyone else, because you are the one that I feel closest to, so have less boxes-for-ease/ways-of-keeping-a-distance and more ... human-ness.

Hmmm ... so I guess what I'm really saying is that I like and trust you more than anyone, so you seem more human to me, so I tend to think of you more in term of just the good stuff and not of ways of keeping you away/neutralized/safe.

People that I like and trust tend to, in my mind, be more the proper nouns than the pronouns in my mind.

People that I don't like and trust tend to be, in my mind, just the pronouns (or something less neutral), rather than the person.

Geez, it sound really dehumanizing, when put in that way ... but, that's about the only way I can describe it. You are Most Special, so there are fewer markers-for-convenience, you've been defined beyond mere pronouns for me. Other people come close, but not quite to that state, but it's not a matter of me making special dispensations for you, just that you occupy a different place in my world, from other people.

Does that make any sense, at all?

[adrienmundi]

Yeah, I think it makes sense, but here's the test; if I understand properly what you're saying, the assignment of any gendered pronoun is artificial for you in regards to me, right?