70 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
70 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
# Those scary pronouns
|
||
|
||
<small>2021-08-22 | [@andrea](/@andrea)</small>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
So I stumbled upon an article on Medium called [“Demanding Pronouns”](https://medium.com/the-venting-machine/demanding-pronouns-b819ab23f5df).
|
||
And while I normally wouldn't even bother to dignify such blatantly enbyphobic bullshit with a reply,
|
||
this one is just so over the top asinine that I just have to pick my “favourite” parts and share them with a comment, even a brief one.
|
||
|
||
And the first awful fragment is literally the first paragraph:
|
||
|
||
> It seems everywhere I turn; I’m being asked about my pronouns. My answer?
|
||
> Just refer to me in any way that makes you feel comfortable,
|
||
> but don’t make me go through the torture of giving you my ‘she, her, hers’ during every interaction.
|
||
> I’m a girl; I look like a girl — I’m a biological female. What else do you want from me?
|
||
|
||
I could rant on and on about how important for trans people it is to normalise sharing pronouns,
|
||
how it's just basic empathy to listen to their needs, how not everyone who “looks like a girl”
|
||
is necessarily “a biological female”, or how pronouns are grammar, not biology,
|
||
so her genitals are none of my business when I'm simply wondering how to refer to her.
|
||
But that would just take the attention away from the most important word of this paragraph:
|
||
|
||
> torture
|
||
|
||
Yup, she calls it “torture” when someone… asks her a question. And not a deeply personal one, nor a complicated one.
|
||
She's not being asked what her genitals are. She's not being asked her gender identity.
|
||
Someone's literally just trying to establish the basis for the conversation by knowing how to talk to / about her.
|
||
And the answer is literally two syllables!
|
||
Yes, that question _might_ be tricky _sometimes_,
|
||
but she's not a closeted trans person who could feel anxious trying to decide if the situation is safe enough
|
||
to give someone their real pronouns. No. She's just a brat. A snowflake.
|
||
|
||
And she's not even trying to keep her bigotry mild. She's starting her article off
|
||
with probably the strongest possible word one could use to describe the situation: “torture”.
|
||
You know, that thing that's forbidden by multiple international conventions and deemed a human rights abuse.
|
||
|
||
And as for my other “favourite” part, it's this one:
|
||
|
||
> Now that I’ve had my rant, I want to talk about the bigger picture here. I’m not just angry.
|
||
> I’m writing this to fight for simplicity. This world is complicated enough.
|
||
> Why are you trying to introduce even more confusion? One person wants to be
|
||
> they/his, another they/them, another he/they, another xir/them— should I go on?
|
||
>
|
||
> There is no way in hell I’m going to remember all that for every single person I meet.
|
||
> You can forget it. Call me old school, tell me that I’m stuck in my ways. I don’t care!
|
||
> Just stop demanding something that I don’t want to do, or otherwise face your wrath.
|
||
> Fine, be angry with me, but just leave me be!
|
||
|
||
Oh no! That image of the world sounds horrible indeed! How are we supposed to survive any social interaction,
|
||
if we're being forced to remember tiny bits of information about the people we talk to?!
|
||
|
||
Well, other than names, of course. Asking someone their name (and trying not to forget it) is just basic politeness.
|
||
And it's very handy, it lets you know how to call a person.
|
||
But names are very different from pronouns!
|
||
For example, you need to know someone's _name_ to form a sentence like “_Sylvia_ wrote a transphobic rant…”,
|
||
but you need to know someone's _pronouns_ to form a sentence like “…and I absolutely hated _her_ transphobic rant”.
|
||
See? Completely different.
|
||
|
||
Can you imagine such a horrible world, a world where you meet people, and they _torture_ you with questions like
|
||
“What's your name?”, and they even tell you theirs, and they even expect you to remember it?
|
||
I know! Totally unbearable!
|
||
|
||
Well, Sylvia is living in a world like that. One where people have the _audacity_ to ask her what she wants to be called.
|
||
|
||
And when I see her _terrible struggle_, I can only say one thing:
|
||
|
||
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/J8FZIm9VoBU6Q" width="480" height="332" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen style="max-width: 100%"></iframe>
|
||
<p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-community-good-J8FZIm9VoBU6Q">via GIPHY</a></p>
|