Good point, dfbdfb. People make assumptions about their (and other people’s) chromosomal configurations, and they’re probably correct most of the time, but having children isn’t conclusive proof. People who aren’t XY have become biological fathers, and people who aren’t XX have given birth. Not that it really matters in the kind of context being discussed here, because chromosomes are not the be-all and end-all of what “biological sex” someone is. There are other factors involved, in both law and fact. See this very interesting law review article, published earlier this year: http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/files/2015/05/39-4-06_Levasseur.pdf
If you were XX you wouldn’t father anybody. There is a rare variant of XX (where some Y chromosome material is carried on the X chromosome), which presents as anatomically male but is sterile.
If you were XX you wouldn’t father anybody. There is a rare variant of XX (where some Y chromosome material is carried on the X chromosome), which presents as anatomically male but is sterile.
@apprenticeprof, @pizzagirl, I can’t tell you how immensely grateful I am that you deem one of my 2 children legitimate in their identity. I guess I will just have to tell the other one to buck up and go back to their physical gender identity since it’s obviously so easy and straightforward to do so…
Oh, and all the nonbinary people who speak English throughout the world should obviously have an immediate meeting to come up with a single pronoun, and should invite you folks to make sure it doesn’t sound “silly”…
Luckily most of the folks my kids deal with are more open and flexible than some of the posters on this thread.
Amen, 2eMom.
I never said I wouldn’t respect someone’s request to use one of these pronouns. What I think is a bit much is going through a class roll and asking everybody. “Mike, what do you prefer? Susie, what do you prefer? Mary, what do you prefer?” Versus having those affected by this issue simply bring it up as needed.
My D, at a women’s college, did get asked what gender pronoun she preferred. She simply ignored the question because after all she was at a women’s college and it’s just a little too look-at-me-special-snowflake to apply to a women’s college while rejecting female identity.
If you are looking for “widely recognized cues like name” then why object to a syllabus note that people are welcome to let the instructor know if they have a preferred name other than their original given name?
However . . . what is the goal anyway? It seems to me that the endgame here isn’t “you are what I say you are” but “how would you like to be addressed”. It should make no difference to interactions outside of intimate ones if a person identifies as (or “is”) male, female or intermediate/non gender. I don’t understand why people are so firm on the need to classify people according to their own perception. Yes, in casual interaction you might think someone is male and they turn out to be female. As I noted up-thread this can happen despite all those seemingly obvious clues about gender like hairstyle and physique. How is it any skin off your nose if they politely correct you or if in a more sustained group like a class or freshman orientation group people are made comfortable presenting their preferred name and/or pronoun (gender based or not) up front to prevent any of that awkwardness before it can even happen. If what they “are” or prefer is different that what you would have guessed are you in any way harmed or inconvenienced by that? It seems to me that getting it out of the way up front or making it know that it’s OK if warranted would eliminate a lot of awkwardness later.
@Pizzagirl my agender kid was uninterested in single gender colleges–but I can see why folks on the gender spectrum would be (at least women’s colleges) since they seem to be places with greater respect for differences and open dialog.
But the implication that the REASON that folks are on the gender spectrum is to be a look-at-me-special-snowflake and call attention to themselves is frankly offensive.
I have a nephew who seems to be somewhere on the gender spectrum other than firmly in the male camp. When he was little he just “read” as gay to me because the gender thing never occurred to me and wasn’t in my lexicon. Now I realize that it’s not about sexual preference but gender. He is VERY shy about it and social self conscious. I don’t know yet that he knows exactly where he falls or if he can classify but I think he would say at this point that he is “queer”. This isn’t a new affectation, a political statement of some kind or an attempt to stand out or be special. The teen years are hard enough to navigate without adding this layer of complexity intentionally. Most people just want to fit in.
I actually think it’s fine/appropriate/kind to ask what anyone would like to be called, but the person choosing something less traditional needs to be flexible enough to understand that most people think and speak pretty quickly in the language they are fluent in, and in a flowing conversation, it could take a while for even the most sensitive person to stop making mistakes. One would hope that the person making the request would be understanding and flexible about that.
Women’s colleges still have an identity - that of places to support women. Not people as a whole, not all people who are marginalized, but women specifically. No one says you have to be girly-girl but you have to at least have some identification with womanhood.
It got galling when I saw women who were becoming men complaining that they were “marginalized” whenWellesley talked about a community of women. It’s very ironic that in finding their own identity, they specifically were asking a single gender institution to compromise its own identity - an issue they wouldn’t have had at a coed college. But it’s more fun to make a stink that you’re being marginalized by your institution when the pres says “welcome, women, to the class of 20xx.” You’d miss out on that opportunity to proclaim your oppression if you attended a coed college where the pres said “welcome, students, to the class of 20xx.”
Btw I’m fully supportive of W’s decision to consider trans women for application.
That’s different than what some people on this thread are (mildly) objecting to, which is to go through roll call and ask each student specifically what [insert here] preferred pronoun is. Myself, as a professor, I’m on the fence about that approach—I’m sympathetic to the idea, but the amount of time that would take away from instruction at the very beginning of the term, that bothers me. (Of course, in a gender studies or sociology or similar class, it could be a fascinating and pedagogically useful exercise, it occurs to me.)
And on a completely different topic from this thread, XX males can father children—it’s unusual, but it certainly is documented.
Got a link? I don’t believe it …
172: On further research, it appears that any reports of XX males who can father children are almost certainly actually genetic mosaics, with testicular tissue containing XY material.
Thus bringing us back to: This thread started out talking about (cultural) gender issues, which are more confusing than a lot of people expect—but maybe it shouldn’t be, given how complicated (biological) sex is.
Well, the howls of outrage at this alleged attack on tradition had their intended effect: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/08/u-tennessee-withdraws-guide-pronouns-preferred-some-transgender-people
Am I surprised? Not a bit, given the truculence even here.
No good deed …
I know that clicking on a link and watching a video is a total pain in the rear, but these ideas that @guineagirl96 and @Hunt have brought up relating to the very different concepts of Sex, Gender, and Sexual Preference (as well as the difference between Gender Identity and Gender Presentation) are very well explained (see post #18) in this recent video (you will recognize Dr. Olson from the Caitlin Jenner specials):
https://teenlineonline.org/videos/
As far as preferred pronouns, they are a way to make the other person feel comfortable. One of the canons of etiquette is to make “the other” comfortable. For someone who is seeking an identity- whether it be a foreign dignitary or a college student- addressing them the way that makes them comfortable is a basic tenet of establishing a positive relationship and removing barriers to getting “real work” done.
One can dispense with all of that, of course, but then it takes up space in the wariness and attention of the other party, and impedes progress.
I would never force attendees to a workshop to wear badges with a non-preferred, more formal name on them as @Pizzagirl says she does. It serves no functional purpose other than to make the leader’s job easier. Why not bring a portable printer or have student’s make their own nametag? The purpose of a meeting (whether a class or a conference) is to do useful work. Getting the “noise” out of the way first and making people comfortable is paramount. That is why most workshops start with laying out ground rules and orienting attendees to the support facilities (washroom locations, snack breaks, water, etc.). Personal pronouns and preferred names fit into this comfort/etiquette category. They are not a waste of time, they are an investment in cognitive efficiency.
I don’t see anything efficient about everybody having their own personal pronoun. If everyone gets to choose their own (and its variants), then a professor with 200 students has to learn 200 names plus up to 200 sets of personal pronouns. That doesn’t seem very efficient.
What people seem to miss about this rule is that it works both ways. When a gender neutral person is conversing with someone who is trying to meet the spirit of their request by using gender neutral words but doesn’t use their preferred ones, the gender neutral person also has to abide by the “making others comfortable” rule, which means respecting that some people are uncomfortable using made up words.
Part of my job is writing policies and HATE having to write “he or she” and “his or her” all the time. We absolutely need gender neutral singular pronoun. It is absolutely not grammatically correct to be changing plurality. “Each employee must keep his or her laptop secure when storing it in his or her unattended hotel room” For real? It’s insanity that we don’t have pronouns to use that make sense. We have to make everything plural for the entire policy and that doesn’t always make sense either.
There are many universities and LACs inquiring about a student’s preferred pro-noun.
I love the “Ms.” also, especially a divorced woman. I’ve used nothing but Ms. since 2000 and honestly, I don’t think I’d change to Mrs. if I got married again.
2016, I don’t go by Mrs. and quickly correct anyone who calls me that.
The prof for the class that I did the syllabus revamp for handled it like this the first day: “here is a note card. On it, please write your legal name, preferred name name(if applicable), preferred pronoun, and something you hope to learn and/or get out of this course. Please drop it off to me before you leave class.”
30 seconds of time. No need to call anyone out or give explanations. Simple.