You read it correctly, I remember when the LGB folks told us that trans rights would hold back their movement.
Nice to see that spirit within the community itself now!
In a dilemma about Natalie Wynn's tweet about pronouns
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You read it correctly, I remember when the LGB folks told us that trans rights would hold back their movement.
Nice to see that spirit within the community itself now!
Yeah she's a public figure with a ton of influence.
She doesn't get to explore her irrational fears in public and avoid the criticism.
That's patently not true at all though. Nonbinary people have existed for just as long as trans people have, and just one example that proves that this is the case is Native American Two Spirit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-spirit
Like, this idea that nonbinary people are somehow doing damage to trans acceptance is incredibly insulting to nonbinary people because it not only questions the validity of their identities but also blames them for transphobia that every trans person faces.
i mean, sure, no one is above criticism, but her discussing and exploring her irrational fears is a pretty common theme of her entire brand and video series
Hi folks Terrell makes an interesting point with Terrell's post here. Terrel wants us to only use Terrell's name instead of Terrell's gender pronoun. Terrel thinks it won't be awkward and Terrel thinks that it solves the problem. Terrell also wants everyone to come to Terrell's birthday party where Terrel will be serving Terrell's favorite drinks and will be introducing everyone to Terrell's favourite games. Terrell hopes you can make it. Terrel is very excited, Terrel is counting down the days, Terrell's party is going to be a blast, Terrel promises
If she started talking about how she clutches her purse when she's in a less white neighborhood because she's afraid I don't think we'd be talking about this in such framing as just an issue of irrational fear.
I've alluded to as much earlier, but you're right, she doesn't.
People openly idenfiying non-binary is definitely a new development, it wasn't something most people ever heard about until a few years ago.
You could make the same argument about binary trans people though. Trans people are real and have existed throughout history, but it wasn't until recently that more and more people felt comfortable openly transitioning as society has progressed. I don't really see this perspective as one that has to be negative or anything like that, as long as we acknowledge that trans people and nonbinary people aren't completely new, but the other tweets make me feel a bit grosser. Especially that last one.
Again, genderqueer, meaning essentially the same thing as nonbinary, has been used for 25 years. The concept of being outside the gender binary is even older. And people who we would now consider nonbinary have existed for as long as humans.
I definitely agree w/ the "this is a conversation that probably shouldn't be on twitter" take- it's her sounding out thoughts/feelings and this is a messy place to do it, quadruply+so as a public figure.
I really appreciate Belgephor's post laying out her POV here as it helped to outline some of the fault lines that were emerging in the discussion as well as a lot of others in this thread sharing their perspective.
It's not really a deliberate active conflict- it's that for the two subgroups, their ideal version of societal norms and protocols isn't going to line up exactly 1:1, and it'll put you into situations where small marginal battles will occur where a win-win solution isn't really possible. Here specifically, going off the initial stuff with her discomfort over the sharing circle (and not the more can of worms stuff later) , is an example of one of those situation.
Natalie identifies as a woman, and dresses in a conventionally feminine manner. She wants her gender presentation to be able to passively speak for her, so when people go for a pronoun, they go right to "she" without hesitation. When asked to proactively tell people her pronouns rather than passively display them via nametags/email alongside everyone else this triggers dysphoric feelings for her because it feels to her (regardless of if it's rational based on context) as though people are actively questioning her gender identify or aren't sure what to use despite her gender presentation.
For NB people, they can't use gender presentation to passively communicate their preferred pronouns because they're not aligned with the traditional gender binary. In addition to normalizing passive approaches, NB people would like to normalize proactively telling people their pronouns with personal interactions is something they desire so that everyone's doing it so that they aren't outliers sticking out in that regard and so others aren't blindly guessing, leading to NB people having to correct others over and over again.
The issue with trying to solve this problem is that it's a (no pun intended) binary all/none problem. Unlike passive approaches, w/ active in-person norms it's not really possible to address both sets of concerns in a way where both sides of the opinion on this will be happy. The two perspectives fundamentally differ in a way where one group is going to be shouldered with unwanted negative consequences. This is why I mention marginal concerns - these perspectives likely agree on 95-98% of other stuff, but there's a divergence here and no real "correct" answer for solving it. Neither group is in the wrong for voicing their concerns about the side effects of and advocating their position- both concerns have merit and there's no "correct" answer. It's ultimately a subjective judgment call about which option does the least harm/most good.
Way to write an intentionally awkward word salad with unnecessary usage of my name, I guess? Replace my name with a pronoun and it's still an incredibly awkward string of sentences full of a lot of unnecessary pronouns. The subject of the sentence doesn't need that much reaffirmation.
Oh, look at that, a whole damn paragraph without having to use a gendered pronoun. I must be a wizard or something.
Dude using someone's name in place of pronouns is utterly wack.
Of course I over did it for effect but it would be about 60% less weird if you replaced with pronouns
Wow, three whole sentences where you didn't mention anyone but yourself, and you avoided using pronouns referring to other people, what a feat!
Nah, would still be plenty damn weird, despite your entirely subjective claim to the contrary.
I could use the gender neutral "you" as warranted, which is a pronoun preferred by all for inter-personal discussions. Otherwise, it wasn't much of a feat.
Says a lot when the post that people persist in wrapping themselves around is from the frequently-banned self-hating trans individual that answered the question of "I don't understand why non-binary people are upset" with "trans is an umbrella term, here's why I hate being trans".
How the hell would you say talk about someone in the third person using you.
Unagi the eel said nonbinary rights
The most insane thing about this has been seeing what people euphemistically call "gender skeptical" reporter Jesse Singal go up to bat for her on this one.
Like, dude's got a personal vendetta about people working to help transgender teenagers perform transition and is obsessed with puberty blockers and is one of the most dangerous supposedly-respectable voices speaking out about the trendy transgender menace, and here he is coming to the defense of ContraPoints.
What the FUCK
The most insane thing about this has been seeing what people euphemistically call "gender skeptical" reporter Jesse Singal go up to bat for her on this one.
Like, dude's got a personal vendetta about people working to help transgender teenagers perform transition and is obsessed with puberty blockers and is one of the most dangerous supposedly-respectable voices speaking out about the trendy transgender menace, and here he is coming to the defense of ContraPoints.
What the FUCK
who should we listen to, close friends to Natalie who say she left of her own accord, or transphobes crying about cancel culture?
it's hard to tell
it's hard to tell
You wouldn't. But gendered pronouns are not a requirement for a simple communication.
Here's your paragraph rewritten without the word salad:
Hi folks, Terrell makes an interesting point by suggesting we use names instead of gender pronouns. (forced sentence removed)
also, everyone to has been invited to Terrell's birthday party where drinks and games will be provided (Forced statements removed). Your attendance will be appreciated and Terrell hopes you find it fun and is exited to see you there.
Not that fucking hard, is it?
Yeah. I had my suspicions before now but I can only say "yes obviously" at this point.
That's still too many usages of your name and it will only be worse in speech form
Not sure I understand. English has a gender neutral pronoun that's commonly in use when unsure of gender. Why are we running rings around it?
Was meant as "there are NB people who" not "all NB people" in the context just as Natalie doesn't speak for all other non-NB trans people- opinions will obviously not be unanimous among either subgroup.
Yeah, I do understand this and I can honestly sympathize with her initial tweets that she made surrounding the pronoun circles. I'm in a similar position where I am a binary transwoman, and I want people to be able to recognize that I am a woman and not really question me on it. There are people out there who will use the correct pronouns to our face, but when they're not around us or when we do something that they don't like, they'll stop using the pronouns that we want. When people have pronouns circles that ONLY ask pronouns when a trans person enters the room, it reminds me of those situations where people are putting on this polite face out of respect but that they don't really see us for who we are. This idea that people are only humoring my identity and don't truly see me as a woman can be dysphoric at times, but that is one that is based on a lot of assumptions about how people are acting when we can't see them.
The issue for me is not that people ask for pronouns or that people want to be polite, but the idea of how people perceive trans people in an inherently transphobic society. I can't speak for Contrapoints' views on why she feels the way that she does, but I don't see it as some large sacrifice or one that I'm unwilling to make if it makes nonbinary people feel more comfortable. We honestly just need to keep striving towards the normalization of asking for pronouns so that it will feel less othering when it happens to people who aren't used to it and so that we can remain as inclusive as possible. As people get used to it, it will stand out less and less when people ask for them, and the end result remains that people are still addressing me as a woman. And until they show me otherwise, I choose to believe them. I vehemently disagree with the idea that nonbinary people are hurting trans struggles in any way as well.
And I don't think Belphegor's posts should be used for anything substantial as that is someone who routinely makes alt accounts in a way to talk about how trans people should not transition, and how people who can't pass harm the trans movement. Their ideals are inherently wrong and come from a place of pain.
Naturally, but the way it read was like a primer and the NB part as a distinct or overall majority.
Which I have no idea to what that split is but when you're out there heralding the person that hates themselves for being trans as being the POV that cleared things over posts from non-binary individuals in the thread going into the issue it does grate a little.
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My first thought whenever someone famous that I like deletes their Twitter isn't "are they ok?", it's "I'm happy for them, getting out of that hellhole will be good for their mental health". Her videos do a great job of looking at an issue from multiple angles, and representing different opinions on an issue fairly. While Twitter sells itself as this place of great open dialogue that you can engage in with anyone, but in reality is just this mess of sniping and dragging people down.
I feel like the pronoun circle discussion distracts from her follow-up tweets where the actual problematic shit was said.
One of my first introductions to queer theory was from a genderqueer artist who's been out for about two decades now (afaik)
I had written part of that last night and didn't even see that yet another alt got banned. Thanks for the heads up there.
Yeah, I didn't realize that was an alt when I wrote that part last night (I'm pretty sure I know who that is and yeah not a good source.) I had thought the banned poster references on the last page or two were regarding the OTHER alt account from yesterday. Wasn't meaning to endorse their personal perspective w/ that.
If you're referring to "they/them/their", its use as a pronoun for a singular person is a more recent phenomenon (by language standards, anyways) and it was created and defined as a pronoun for discussing people in plural. I'm all for establishing it or something else in place of gendered pronouns wholesale, but we as a society are not completely there yet, so in my mind, it is currently still gendered, in that it refers to genders outside the institutionalized binary in its common modern use. Saying "they/them/their" is "gender-neutral" when used in the singular sense is uncomfortable for me, like I'm saying that their gender expressions/identities aren't legitimate because they're outside the binary and therefore have to fall into some genderless grab-bag term. So when used in the singular sense, "they/them/their" feels like a gendered pronoun, albeit a more diverse one than others.
It's literally used in the singular frequently in everyday speech outside of gender identity concerns.
Why are you obsessed with eliminating gendered pronouns for everyone that's nonsense.
Yeah this is, as they say, a Big Mood. Cis people have "pronouns", trans people have "preferred pronouns". I kind of loathe any time ContraPoints attempts to discuss issues facing nonbinary folks because she doesn't have any more personal insight into the issue than a cis person, but this is absolutely a real concern borne out in the way that these issues get discussed even in the more sympathetic mainstream.
I will say, I'm reminded of the brief period of MBMBAM live shows where asking for pronouns was part of their audience question introduction set. It was an interesting idea but never really felt necessary, especially since it was something that wasn't very useful in the moment, and given that the hosts of the show are all cis it felt like hamfisted allyship -- though it did, in a way, serve a purpose, demonstrating it's actually pretty easy to bring up the issue in a way that doesn't derail or inherently inhibit conversation.
Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting herUnagi the eel said nonbinary rights
The most insane thing about this has been seeing what people euphemistically call "gender skeptical" reporter Jesse Singal go up to bat for her on this one.
Like, dude's got a personal vendetta about people working to help transgender teenagers perform transition and is obsessed with puberty blockers and is one of the most dangerous supposedly-respectable voices speaking out about the trendy transgender menace, and here he is coming to the defense of ContraPoints.
What the FUCK
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Just to note, we historically did complain that singular you is ungrammatical, there was a very large time period of "thou/thee/thine" as the singular, as you may recall, but the battle over the singular "you" was lost several centuries ago and became modern parlance.It's literally used in the singular frequently in everyday speech outside of gender identity concerns.
"They/them/their" as a singular has been linguistically proscripted and hotly debated until the 1980s when it began to gain acceptance as a means to conceal gender identity or refer to a singular person in an "either/or" way, replacing less elegant forms like the literary "she" in gender-neutral form.
Saying people used it commonly is absolutely the case, but it was and has been commonly used as a pronoun for indistinct/unknown gender of an unknown person associated with a context-specific group (which can be as small as a interpersonal group and as large as the whole world). "They/them/their" is gender-neutral in the common usage of it from the 1300s onward, but it was not entirely singular, either, as you are still referring to a plurality by vaguely defining a single person within a plurality, not knowing who in that plurality it may be or apply to.
To claim a genderqueer or non-binary person's gender identity is "indistinct" or "unknown" feels incorrect and dismissive, however, so when used for a distinct known individual, I don't believe it can maintain the benefit of its neutrality without essentially othering the individual you are using it for. I hope that better explains my position.
Because many cultures already did so to great success and it removes a micro-aggression against the non-binary/genderqueer? Yes, what utter nonsense to *checks notes* strive for removing the institutional binary from language, the primary way in which such binaries are enforced.
We need gender neutral options not total elimination of all gendered pronouns
Btw it's really funny that your proposed solution is the go to for transphobes who don't want to recognize trand women as women and trans men as men so they just say a trans person's name over and over again.
It's odd that people claim English is an incredibly gendered language - by the standards of most major languages it is incredibly gender neutral. Try learning french or something and you have to carefully remember to refer to chairs as "she" all the time because doing anything else is grammatically incorrect and people will smirk at you for it.
If They/their exists why is the existence and use of him/his and her/hers a microagression. Why is the benefit of their own preferred pronouns something we should exclusively afford those who prefer they/their?
Gender signifiers aren't the problem though. It's people disrespecting other people's identities, whose expression is tied up in those signifiers and other forms of expression.
Should we only sell gray uniform cloth at clothing stores to avoid gender differentiation there as well?
FFS, I'm not saying to do so indefinitely, that in and of itself is disrespectful, as well, especially when you know better.
I'm saying use the name until you're familiar enough with a person to know the pronoun, either because you asked instead of assumed, because it is common knowledge or you were told; once you are certain, pronoun away.
To loop back to the subject at hand, I could watch the most current Contrapoints video and know Natalie Wynn is a woman and can use the correct pronoun in discussions about her.
Gendered pronouns are part of the English-speaking world we live in, but would it be so terrible without them? I don't happen to think so. Gendered language is a relic of a less-enlightened era of human history. One could make the argument that gender pronouns were created as a means of othering women through language in the first place, but I won't be doing so.
Is misgendering not a thing in your world? "They/their/them" exists, but unless someone is told to use it, they're just as likely to misgender someone by accident, never mind the dipshits who do it on purpose. Take it out of the language and that's impossible.
Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting her
I empathize with your anger and pain but that's a hella dishonest way to construe Natalie's opinions. Feel free to collect receipts on the shit she's actually said let's refrain from listening to right wing fuckwits who like the infighting to get mad at stuff she didn't actually say.
Well she did say she thinks Non Binary trans people are going to cause public support of Trans folk to regress
IMC is an incredibly terrible person and he's taking it a lot further than Contra did, but how do you interpret that last tweet of hers as saying anything different than blaming nonbinary people for a lack of trans acceptance?
They love having a "Black Friend" for these situations
I would hope that the people who keep defending her would realize that if the alt-right is agreeing with her take, then maybe it was a bad take.Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting her
That's fair, but I think there's a clear difference in context in tone between a trans woman who's voicing her insecurities that come from a place of internalized transphobia...and Ian Miles Chong saying terrible shit.
Put another way, I think her words alone are worthy of their own critique, and adding baggage of Ian Miles Chong = Natalie Wynn is going to set a far more hostile tone for your critique than it needs to be.