The word hir isn’t new either. It appears to be a Middle English word for “her.”
Spykid had a teacher last year who constantly berated him and anyone else who used the term, “you guys.” While "you guys, " is certainly inelegant and doesn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly as “you all,” it is common parlance here on the west coast. Much time was spent on gender specific words. And this was in an honors physics class, at a private Catholic prep school.
The problem with gender in gendered language is not the classification but the way the identification of gender flows through entire sentences. If a person is deemed him, then words in the sentence take a specific form that is different from the feminine form with reference to her. Substituting a gender-neutral pronoun or other identifier doesn’t address that problem: the words still need to take some gender, some classification as “male” or “female”, which means the problem is, to me, harder to solve in those languages than in English. As in, pick a friend in French and you need to decide whether the words are going to be male or female case and that requires a gender identification of the friend. And to call that friend “xem” isn’t a big help.
I’m trying to think of when an instructor in a college classroom would ever have to use a third person pronoun in the first place. If a student is called on or otherwise addressed, it’s “you”. If a student’s comment is being referred to in a discussion setting, it’s “John’s point” or “Carols’ argument”. (When I was in college, profs referred to us as Ms. or Mr., but I have a feeling that kind of formality doesn’t happen anymore anyway.) Honestly, I don’t normally have a lot of pity for college professors, but I feel for them having to deal with the latest and greatest political correctness manifesto each fall when all they want to do is teach.
This discussion has brought to mind the “It’s Pat!” series of skits from Saturday Night Live. I guess they could never air now.
Right, Pat—and that does a good job of building on what Chris just said, when she~he brought up the ways that…
“Is this not commonly done in the first day of a (smaller) class- roll call where people ask whether or not you have a preferred name?”
Seriously? Do you have to ask EVERYBODY if they have a preferred name, or can’t the Rebeccas just pipe up and say “yes, I’m Rebecca, but please call me Becky” or the Michaels pipe up and say “I go by Mike”? We have to stop and ask everyone, even with names like my own and my kids’, which aren’t nicknameable the way Rebecca/Becky and Michael/Mike are?
What a waste of time. People really need to get over themselves. Have a backbone and pipe up if you aren’t called what you want to be called, instead of this passive-aggressive you-have-to-ask-everybody-so-I’m-not-singled-out-and-I’ll-pout-if-everyone-isn’t-asked.
What if we just address everybody as ‘hey…yo’
And, I find it tremendously insulting neither Anglo’s, nor People of Color, nor people of non-color can not pronounce my Slavic name.
Everyone has insulted me.
Co-workers of mine are (jokingly) giving everyone a rap name. If I like it, I’m adopting it forever 
When my daughter was in first grade, the teacher dutifully took roll on the first day and asked each kid what they liked to be called. My daughter, on the spot, made up a crazy nickname and that’s what the teacher called her. As did the other kids. For all eight years of elementary school. Her elementary school friends still call her by that crazy nickname. I was shocked at the first patent teacher conference when the teacher referred to my dear sweet daughter with the beautiful name by that nickname. Apparently the school went by what the kid wanted to be called even over the parent objection!
@pizzagirl - in case it was unclear, my daughter is busty with an hourglass figure. Not chunky or paunchy or mannish but hourglass. She has feminine features and does wear earrings. Still, she is very often addressed as if male. When she was little with long hair in a braid and looking like a girl except for “non-traditional” attire people seemed to assume boy. I’m not sure why someone who think “boy” when they see 34DDs but they do.
“Is this not commonly done in the first day of a (smaller) class- roll call where people ask whether or not you have a preferred name? I can’t see how it would be too much of an inconvenience to say: “Romani is fine. She/her.””
I don’t think that there has ever been a time in my life where I have been asked whether I had a “preferred name.” In normal, everyday living, people who go by a variant of their legal name (Sue instead of Susan or Betsy instead of Elizabeth) simply speak up. What a snooze-fest waste of time to ask this of everybody instead of just expecting those who are exceptions to pleasantly make it known. Sometimes being liberal is tiresome.
Anyway, my sister and I were deliberately named names that are not nicknameable and I deliberately named my kids names that are not nicknameable. Life is difficult enough without having names that have lots of variants! I’m into simplification.
Well, considering that I once knew a Roger who consistently went by Seth (no, not his middle name, nor a variant of his last name), I don’t know that the emphasis-added part is actually possible, but I suppose it’s worth a try…
“Is this not commonly done in the first day of a (smaller) class- roll call where people ask whether or not you have a preferred name?”
I lead workshops for groups ranging from 25 - 40 people. I receive (from their administrator) a list of their names and I print them on nametags that have other information on them (what groups they are assigned to for various activities, etc.). It’s amazing how the Susans who prefer to go by Susie and the Davids who like to be called Dave have managed not to crumble and fall apart at the seams at the horror of having a “fuller” name on their nametag. Sorry, no, I’m not going to send emails to 40 people asking them if the name I received from their administrator is the preferred one and what gender pronoun I should use for them. Not happening. People need to grow up and get a life.
^^ Yep, there are always going to be Buddy and Chip and Sissy for those names that aren’t nicknameable.
The boy next door was called Lucky because he was born on Friday the 13th. A neighbor called his son Mike all the time even though his name was Todd. Where Mike came from no one knows.
^My close friend’s older brother goes by Skip because as a child he went through a period where he would only eat Skippy Peanut Butter. He’s 68 now and it’s still Skip.
My trans and agender kids send an email to the prof prior to class asking them to use preferred name and pronouns…
About transgender kids, as opposed to Caitlin Jenner who has ample money and freedom, many kids who are transgender may not have come out to their parents, may not have had gender reassignment surgery or started on hormones, and may still have their “old” legal name and gender that no longer matches their current identity. Many of them are not yet automatically “readible” as the correct gender. Many colleges do not have provisions for preferred names. For these kids, it’s really important that they can be called the name and gender that matches their identity.
@Lergnom re post 52,
“3. A new category. This is what bothers me. Sure, some people in the LBGT community may want a special word, but to be told, “Hey, from now on because you’re not like ‘us’, we’re going to impose on you this special word that sounds like Martian rather than let you choose to be her or him,” is awful. If you want to be a zir, go ahead though I doubt many people will use the word. But if you tell people that they can’t use “her” though they’ve worked hard for years to see themselves as female, then that’s repression and it’s a fundamental denial of the reality of how a person self-identifies.”
Once again, NO ONE is asking anyone to use these pronouns to describe themselves!! No one is telling anyone that they can’t use “her” to describe themselves. Nonbinary folks are just asking for the same courtesy back–to call them by their preferred pronouns. I don’t see why this is so hard to understand…
I think your children’s approach is a great one 2eMomof2.
Agender? Please enlighten me.