Why should nonbinary folx have to adapt to your comfort when describing themselves?
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Sam Smith comes out as non-binary (see staff post for discussion guidelines)
- Thread starter Khaos Prime
- Start date
Why should nonbinary folx have to adapt to your comfort when describing themselves?
I genuinely apologize for how I phrased that. My intention was to say as an accepted dedicated, cannot-be-used-as-a-plural option. I fucked that up and didn't convey it properly. I'll amend that post and be more careful in the future.
I just want an optional singular-only gender neutral for the language. People can say they all they want. It's used all the time.
I'm not asking for that at all. And I apologize if it comes off that way. I just think the language would benefit from having options like ze/zem. Not just for non-binary people, but for any time that an unknown individual is being referred to in the singular. I would never, not in a million years, want you or anyone else to identify with any pronoun you don't want. And I'm sorry if I came off as an asshole.
I'm not enby, but my life partner is. I appreciate your willingness to apologize and learn.
Yes, some people do use they for that purpose. But let's not pretend it is universally used like that. Most people use it as a placeholder because there isn't a well-recognizes unique word for it. And the way it is overloaded can be meaningful. I agree that it often is clear to use it that way, but it feels disingenuous to act like the overloaded use of the word is not sometimes confusing.
One thing I've learned from this discussion is that it's never worth it to try to discuss something like this on a linguistic level. It's too easy to end up shitting on someone even if it isn't the intention at all. I'd rather anything than hurt people.
And most importantly, fuck anyone who doesn't want to refer to someone in the way they identify.
The idea that your body is what determines what you identify as is a bit weird to keep bringing up in this thread if I'm being honest. We have countless trans people and nonbinary people throughout history who that does not apply to, and has repeatedly shown that gender identity extends beyond gender roles, gender expression, or even your body.
We can even see this through some studies that have been conducted in the past that show that there is a biological component to this as well :
"A twin study published in the International Journal of Transgenderism found that 33% of identical twin pairs were both trans, compared to only 2.6% of non-identical twins who were raised in the same family at the same time, but were not genetically identical."
(Source: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-transsexuality.html)
"Several studies have found a correlation between gender identity and brain structure.[7] A first-of-its-kind study by Zhou et al. (1995) found that in a region of the brain called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), a region which is known for sex and anxiety responses (and which is affected by prenatal androgens),[8] male-to-female trans women had a female-normal BSTc size (like cisgender women) and female-to-male trans men had a male-normal size. While the transsexuals studied had taken hormones, this was accounted for by including non-transsexual male and female controls who, for a variety of medical reasons, had experienced hormone reversal. The controls still had sizes typical for their gender. No relationship to sexual orientation was found"
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexuality#Brain_structure)
"David Peter Reimer was a Canadian man born physically male but reassigned as a girl and raised female following medical advice and intervention after his penis was accidentally destroyed during a botched circumcision in infancy.
Psychologist John Money oversaw the case and reported the reassignment as successful and as evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. Academic sexologist Milton Diamond later reported that Reimer's realization he was not a girl crystallized between the ages of 9 and 11, and he transitioned to living as a male at age 15. Well known in medical circles for years anonymously as the "John/Joan" case, Reimer later went public with his story to help discourage similar medical practices. He later committed suicide after suffering years of severe depression, financial instability, and a troubled marriage"
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer)
If that's how you personally feel about your identity, that's fine. But, you asked why people are nonbinary or have a gender identity that does not match their body, and you're kind of fighting against the explanation as it's something that you're not used to thinking about.
That's ok.
One thing though. You went from not specifying any pronouns and calling me a stick in the mud for wanting to use they/them as it's currently in use, instead of this completely ambiguous pronoun that you're suggesting but haven't defined. Then you take that and start throwing around that I'm shitting on people for their use of pronouns and that actually I'm the one hating on people's gender identities? That wasn't cool. That was a fucking mile-long leap from nothing to something.
The only thing that's disingenuous here is pretending people don't use singular They every day. It only becomes "confusing" when discussed in the context of nonbinary people. A coincidence, I'm sure.
Isn't that on this page numerous times if you'd have read almost any single post on it?
For me, the confusing thing -- particularly in writing -- is the use of "they/them/their" when referring to a single person. I'd much rather learn a specific new non-binary gender pronoun (such as "zhe") that removes some of the confusion, although of course I will manage over time.
Take this wikipedia entry, for example:
I legitimately initially understood that as saying "The Thrill of It All" is a Smith and Napes duo album (or heavily involving Napes as a songwriter, say, now that I know Napes is not a singer). Having said that, in this example, Napes is involved in that album, but the expression connotes a meaning that I now have to proactively determine whether intentional or not.
Again, I will probably get used to it, but it does open up a tiny can of worms with English expression.
I thought they already came out as non-binary. Good for them, though.
EDIT: I made edits since I got the pronouns wrong. I'm trying to work on that.
EDIT: I made edits since I got the pronouns wrong. I'm trying to work on that.
Whatever, you're clearly going to paint my perspective in a very negative way. I actually feel like "they" can be confusing in some contexts when it isn't about non-binary people. But you're clearly going to believe what you want. I never said it's not used every day. I said some people use it, but it isn't the staple answer in the same way he and she are understood. Its use came from there not existing an actual gender less singular pronoun and it was the simplest way to repurpose a word.
I'm not going to bother discussing with you anymore though if it's just going to be vague accusations of transphobia.
How do you refer to a member of the forum if not by their username but when you don't know their gender?
"What happened to the OP of that thread?"
"Oh, they got banned"
I guess it just feels like it's hard to believe you wouldn't already know that there are a variety of less commonly used neutral pronouns. I didn't think it was necessary to enumerate them, especially since some of them had already been used in this very thread. I strongly believe that people should have their pronouns respected, regardless of what anyone thinks about any specific pronoun. It just felt like you were dismissing those pronouns as "made up words" that were inherently inferior to "they/them." I guess that wasn't the case.
And as far as that OED excerpt goes: I've already said that I know they has been used in that fashion for centuries. I already know it's accepted and proper English. I'm just wanting something more than that. There's a reason why it has been a point of contention in the language for well over 100 years. Wanting more for the language isn't the same as not understanding it.
Yeah, I know "they" is also a placeholder for not knowing someone's gender, but that doesn't mean it doesn't add confusion.
That said, if you're answering a direct question, and furthermore, the context is clear that we don't know someone's gender, using "they" isn't that confusing.
In other cases, using "they" will become much more confusing.
Can one of you post some examples of singular they leading to confusion because I am straining myself trying to think of just one.
I'm more than aware of them but there was no way for me to know that you meant any of them. You didn't invoke them, just wished for an 'accepted gender neutral pronoun'. As we already have one it was obvious you meant outside of they but then there isn't another that is commonly accepted. So to that end you're making this pronoun up (one that would be adopted - as the others haven't). That's where the phrasing came from. I wasn't referencing any set of pronouns because I didn't know that's what you meant by an 'accepted' alternative. Just so you're clear. I get you on the other points and with your later context.
Understood. I shouldn't have been so combative. It's just that I've seen people dump on less common pronouns on many occasions and it always makes me really, really grind my teeth.
I'm the last person that would shit on someone for their pronoun choices. Trash behaviour.
The most obvious case is when you have a mixed bag of people who do or do not know either the people or their gender identities or how they preferred to be referred.
I honestly think some people here are living in a bubble where they live amongst people who use "they" exactly how they think it should be used and have acclimated their speech pattern to it.
If I say "They did it", it could mean a group or a specific person who identifies as they. It's not that crazy for somebody to hit that point of ambiguity and then ask "they?" To clarify. I've seen it often enough. And if the argument is to instead say "Chris did it." and not use the pronoun, then that just shows that it is an ambiguous pronoun.
I'm not acting like using "they" is some terrible experience that never works. It gets the point across a lot of the time. But it just seems weird to act like it doesn't ever run into issues of explanation depending on the context of speech or those who you are speaking to.
Unless that bubble is England then not really. It's used in the singular without thought persistently by the entire population. From that it's only a minor adjustment to relate it to someone you know formally, and even then there's cases of it being used in the non-binary sense since the 50's albeit something that's gained prominence in the past couple of decades.
I can see that. I hope you can accept my apology, and understand that I regret even saying anything at all about this. I didn't intend any harm or to attempt to limit how people identify, but it's easily possible to cause pain, offense or discomfort regardless. This thread should be about celebrating Sam Smith's identity, and while it wasn't either of us who first started having this debate, it was irresponsible for me to talk about it at all. Getting bogged down in this kind of conversation is exactly what dirtbag, backwards assholes would want. The topic of how good "they" is as a singular pronoun should never end up getting mentioned in a thread like this. It's what Sam Smith wants to be called and that's the end of it.
Shoutouts to Sam Smith.
If someone says "He did it" it could mean any specific person who identifies with he/him. It's not that crazy for somebody to hit that point of ambiguity and then ask "He?" to clarify. And then people clarify to say "Yeah, John." because that's how literally all pronouns work. No pronoun is ever going to be perfect and let you know exactly who someone is at all times, and they/them is what a lot of people want you to use. It works just as well as any other pronoun, and it's really not hard to just ask for clarification like you would with other pronouns if you're confused.
I think the point that should be gotten across re:linguistic overload is not that it doesn't exist, but that it doesn't matter. Both because minor parsing trouble is an extremely small price to pay for gender expression (that is to say, fucking deal with it) and also because English is already a shitty, confusing, broken language and repurposing yet another word isn't going to make it any worse. "I passed the bar" means at least three different things already, for example
It's all good, don't regret anything. I just wanted to clarify that last point so you understood why I said it that way, as it evidently could be misconstrued.
I never said "he" is always perfect and unambiguous. But it's clear that people are set in their views and what I'm saying is mostly being talked around. Now it seems like "they" can only be ambiguous if "he" is not. I don't know how the idea that maybe both words can be ambiguous at times but one of the words is more often ambiguous can't be considered.
If you want to think there's never a unique issue with "they" when it comes to ambiguity, that's fine.
I mean the article talks about the first album and then the second so it would need to be deliberately obtuse to change gears between the two without mentioning it.
The point is, pronouns are never going to be perfect. Even if you use a brand new gender-neutral pronoun, there are still going to be times that it's ambiguous. This fight against they/them in particular is frustrating as there are a lot of people who use that as their pronoun and are happy with it, and trying to tell them that they're making things confusing or difficult for you is kind of lame in a thread specifically about someone saying "These are my pronouns"
This isn't a thread that's purely about grammar and syntax on it's own, this is all within the context of talking about nonbinary people and their pronouns. And I feel like a lot of you don't really consider the impact that has on people who use those as their pronouns, some of which have spoken up in this thread.
This is cool, and will hopefully do a lot for NB awareness.
Ironically, my first thought was 'good for him'. You need to give people a little grace to adjust. It's a bit sad to see people replying to otherwise positive and supportive posts with nothing other than correcting their pronoun use 5 minutes after this has dropped.
Ironically, my first thought was 'good for him'. You need to give people a little grace to adjust. It's a bit sad to see people replying to otherwise positive and supportive posts with nothing other than correcting their pronoun use 5 minutes after this has dropped.
Even though I disagree with your assessment of the paragraph's context, I should not have to read several other paragraphs to deduce the meaning of a single paragraph of interest.
It's okay. We can admit it's confusing and move on.
This post helped me a lot, as someone who could probably fall into the first category I was struggling to understand how being non-binary was different.
But I'm still a little unsure.. is it a similar thing to being trans? Like if Sam identified as a girl that would be trans, but they don't identify as either so they're 'just' non-binary? Is there potentially body dysphoria involved, or am I off base?
This all stems from me saying that it would be nice if English had a dedicated gender neutral pronoun. And all I got was people repeatedly telling me what I think would be nice wouldn't be nice at all and that "they" is all that's needed. So I'm not really going to own up to causing any collateral damage because I haven't been saying anything is wrong with they. The most I said about they is that it can be more confusing in some contexts and that it came about in overloaded use because the English language didn't have a dedicated word. And I only bothered to discuss that because people insisted at me that it isn't ever confusing on their own.
But I'm not going to discuss this anymore. It's just a distraction.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissive Commentary Surrounding Gender Identity Over Multiple Posts in this Thread; Prior Bans for Inflammatory Behavior
I was only sticking up for the dude you were rude to originally who asked a simple question in a discussion thread. The fact that you took it this far proves my point. Being courteous and just throwing up a quick explanation to help someone genuinely trying to join in on the conversation and learn would've gone a long way than being an ass and saying go google it. Saying that discourages people from even remotely wanting to learn or want to sympathize with people. Like I said though. I only responded to stick up for the person you were quick to dismiss who genuinely wanted an answer. People like you disappoint me and are their own worst enemy.
Body dysphoria isn't the cause of being non-binary. It's a symptom of being or trying to be binary.
...let's rewind a second..
There's absolutely zero wrong with what was said in Dixon or Koji's response.
Didn't mean to imply otherwise, sorry if it came across that way.
Short and sweet. Got it!
Fully on board now, thank you both :)
No sweat, I appreciate it. It's easy to step on some toes in these kinds of discussions so I just wanted to be extremely clear that I wasn't intentionally trying to mischaracterize anything.
No, no, I was just trying to explain and be concise and clear.
