2. Considering trans perspectives would reveal a range of concerns with these
proposals, mostly centered around their practicality and tmaterial
consequences. Suppose we were to take their suggestion seriously, and begin
insisting on gender-neutral pronouns everywhere. What would happen then?
What would it mean for those of us who have fought to have our gender
recognized as women, who have fought seemingly endless amounts of
administrative red tape—what transgender legal scholar Dean Spade
calls administrative violence—to have that erased? And how does this
proposal factor in the history of misogynistic and trans-erasing narratives in
this world of scholarship—a history that has often consisted of punishing and
shaming trans women for asserting femininity, with the precise argument
that this is somehow reinforcing the patriarchy?
3. It's not just in US universities that gender-neutral language is advancing.
Last year, Facebook gave users the option to customise gender beyond
male and female, and pick a pronoun from "he", "she", and "they". This
summer the Oxford Dictionaries website added the honorific "Mx", defining it
as "a title used before a person's surname or full name by those who wish to
avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify
themselves as male or female". Meanwhile, Caitlyn Jenner and the
controversy over Benedict Cumberbatch playing a non-binary character in
the film Zoolander 2 have kept the subject of gender identity topical.
4. Universities, however, remain the most fertile ground for new pronouns.
kat baus, a non-binary student who graduated from Harvard this year - and who also
writes their name without capital letters - regrets that the university's computer
system was not introduced earlier. "It would have been a lot easier and less
awkward," baus says.
baus sent emails or visited professors during office hours to explain their gender
identity and pronouns. In smaller classes they (baus) brought it up when introducing
themself.
"I don't know a single trans person who likes having that conversation," baus says.
Being able to do it with the click of a mouse would have allowed them to get straight
down to their work in class, baus says - and would have allowed their classmates to
get straight down to theirs.
5. It is sometimes difficult to determine somebody's gender by sight but what if
you're blind? Mike Lambert recently experienced this problem when he
attended a course on equality and diversity.
"I listen hard to Nina's voice. There's something soft and tentative about it -
but the pitch is unmistakeably male... I tell myself that any concerns I have
about Nina's gender are a thing of little consequence. The whole point of the
day is equality and diversity, and I shouldn't get so hung-up trying to slot
people into neat pigeon-holes. And then, I'm struck by a horrifying thought.
How am I going to get through more than a couple of sentences without
committing myself to 'he' or 'she', 'his' or 'hers'?"
6. Taking away gendered pronouns is premised on the idea that simplification
will lead to a flattening of gender disparity, but this work must consider the
real-world conditions of the people who are the subject of multiple
intersecting oppressions—of sexism, racism, transmisogyny and poverty—
and begin with their concerns, rather than moving away from nuance of their
lived experience.
7.
8. ЗАГОЛОВОК LOREM IPSUM DOLOR
LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET,
CONSECTETUER ADIPISCING ELIT.
NUNC VIVERRA IMPERDIET ENIM.
FUSCE EST. VIVAMUS A TELLUS.
PELLENTESQUE HABITANT MORBI
TRISTIQUE SENECTUS ET NETUS.
