You can be struthious all you want, but this will be at your or your kid's school soon enough:
Columbia University released a video stating that "intentionally misgendering someone" is against the Ivy League university's nondiscrimination policy, which could lead to an employee being dismissed.The video, titled "Why Pronouns Matter," was uploaded to Columbia University's official YouTube account and explained how "using correct pronouns is a way to respect those around you."
"Intentionally misgendering someone by refusing to use the correct pronouns or name is a violation of the Columbia University nondiscrimination policy," the video stated. "Words matter. Even unintentional errors can create challenges."
It's a good thing I don't use gendered language, I used biological-sexxed language.
Here's the thing about pronouns--except for "you", which is non-gendered/unisex, pronouns are used in the 3rd person: HE did a good job. (You) give that to HER. In other words, the person being referred to with the pronoun is not part of the conversation, and you don't get to dictate how I refer to you to other people.
As Bill Maher said in a video I posted a few days ago: "You can try to change reality by changing the words, but you can't. It just stops you from dealing with it." Pretty much nailed it, Bill.
This attempt to control your thought and speech won't stop at Columbia. It's coming to your kid's school, you watch.
5 comments:
So every time you use 3.SG pronouns, you know what genitalia is between their thighs? Or are you inferring that the person is sexxed male or female? It's fine if you are inferring that that is the case, but I assume that you actually base your gendering of someone based on social cues (voice range, the way the person stands or carries themselves, the clothes they wear, etc.).
Additionally, the article says "intentionally misgendering someone". If you make the wrong assumption is okay, but when someone then says "Hey, please don't call me [PRN], please in stead use [PRN]" and you choose not to after that point you are being rude. No one is trying to thought police you, they are trying to get you to stop being so rude to people. In the same vein, as a teacher, or a representative of an institution, you aren't allowed to say a whole slew of slurs; you would get fired.
Additionally, if you have taken a linguistics class (just an intro one), you would know that using "they" in the singular, is a very common occurrence in modern English. Which means that there is a gender neutral 3.SG pronoun in English already. Just use that.
I agree with your point but I also would like to thank you for adding "struthious" to my vocabulary!
Sadly, I overheard my middle-school aged granddaughter telling someone that she has chosen "they/them" as her pronouns. I told her that arbitrarily changing words can only cause confusion and chaos; there's a reason why we have grammar rules. I'm not sure if this "language" is being taught in schools here (Maryland), or if she heard this on social media.
Duncan:
If you can't tell if someone has a Y chromosome or not, that's on you.
If you look at what I quoted you'll see the article also mentions *un*intentionally "misgendering". This is why I don't "misgender", I use sex-appropriate pronouns.
YOU may think no one is trying to be the thought police, but *I* think people who want to play around with pronouns are narcissistic. "Oooh, look at me!"
Bill Maher nailed it. I refer you back to his quote in my post.
Darren:
Bill Maher says that "[y]ou can try to change reality" as if the specific designation of gendered pronouns is some universal axiom of reality. There are some languages that lack a distinction between 3.SG pronouns (Mandarin, Cantonese, as well as other Sinitic languages), and there are some that have a three way distinction between pronouns (a variety of German comes to mind, although I lack a source on this one, but I could get it if requested). I understand that English has a 2 way distinction in 3.SG pronouns, but that doesn't make it some universal truth.
When you say that you use sexxed pronouns, I find that quite interesting, because that would put English in a unique position of being basically the only language on the planet to use sexxed pronouns rather than gendered ones. This sounds like you would like to change the meaning behind the language, because, as it is generally accepted, and has been accepted among the linguistics community, English pronouns are gendered not sexxed. When marking "he" linguists say "3rd person, singular, masculine, nominative" not "3rd person, singular, male, nominative". This is because pronoun usage, and grammatical gender in general, has a long history of being stretched and changed. Additionally, the reason that we call it grammatical gender is because in languages that have grammatical gender the word for "man" and "woman" tend to be put into separate noun classes. English used to have one of these grammatical gender distinctions (in fact we used to have a 3 way distinction). Now though, only are pronouns are left in the state of marking gender for people, and we still have that very handy 3rd singular "they" that Shakespeare loved to use.
From what it sounds like to me, you are also saying "look at me!" to specifically choose to analyze the gendered pronouns as sexxed pronouns. You have every right to do that, and maybe that will be where English is moving, but to me it sounds like you're "changing the meaning of words" "to change [the] reality" that people would like you to use specific pronouns when referring to them.
But I dunno, do and believe whatever you want. It just sounds rude and petty to me.
Peace and good vibes as always.
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