diff --git a/locale/en/blog/not-a-they-them.md b/locale/en/blog/not-a-they-them.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0ce4e3d0c --- /dev/null +++ b/locale/en/blog/not-a-they-them.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +# I am not “a they/them” + +2022-07-29 | [@andrea](/@andrea) + +![A person (https://unsplash.com/photos/xX7sYu7iRZk) with a pronoun pin (https://unsplash.com/photos/NxB2c2hakYI) instead of their head](/img-local/blog/a-they-them.png) + +You know what really grinds my gears? Using pronoun sets as nouns and confusing pronouns with gender. +“Eli is a they/them”, “theydies and gentletheys!”, “Maxi came out as a they/them”, this kind of thing. + +My resentment is not about grammar. +Other parts of speech getting [nounised](https://www.websters1913.com/words/Nounize) is nothing new or inherently wrong. +Playing with language is cool, neologisms are awesome. + +The problem is elsewhere: using pronoun sets as a description of someone's gender perpetuates the misconception +that gender is mainly about one's pronouns. [Gender is more complex than that](/blog/not-just-pronouns)! +It's not just about pronouns, or language, or clothes, or makeup, or medical transition, or any single aspect of gender expression. + +I'm a _person_. A nonbinary person. An agender person. +What I'm _not_, is a set of characters that a grammar of a given language has to offer me as a way of expressing my gender. +Don't dehumanise me. + +And probably most importantly: I happen to use [they/them](/they), but not all nonbinary people go by those pronouns. +There's a reason this website is called “pronouns.page” and why it lists multiple options and allows adding custom ones +– instead of being called “just-use-they.com” and consisting of a single page that says +“if a person is nonbinary, just replace every ‘he’ or ‘she’ with ‘they’”. +Language is complicated. Gender is complicated. We aren't breaking out of the patriarchal gender binary +only to end up in a ternary he-she-they world where enbies get a new set of stereotypes to uphold. + +There's already a word for nonbinary people: it's “nonbinary”. And if you need a noun, there's “enby”. +We can just use it. But I fail to see a good reason to tightly tie pronouns to gender or to erase neopronouns users. diff --git a/locale/en/blog/not-just-pronouns.md b/locale/en/blog/not-just-pronouns.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4a08487ad --- /dev/null +++ b/locale/en/blog/not-just-pronouns.md @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +# It's not just about pronouns! + +2022-08-06 | [@andrea](/@andrea) + +![A closeup of a closed eye with eyeshadow in the colours of trans flag (https://unsplash.com/photos/a0KL1Um0wBA)](/img-local/blog/trans-eyeshadow.png) + +Have you seen all those stupid, easily debunked tweets about pronouns recently? +Hot takes like “Jesus never used pronouns!” or “there's no pronouns in the Declaration of Independence!”… +They're _technically wrong_, considering that pronouns are just a part of speech that everyone uses in almost every sentence +– but I suspect that the authors know perfectly well they're very wrong about the grammar or facts, and they don't care. +They want to go viral no matter how stupid it makes them look, because of the _underlying_ the message they want to spread. +It's not about somebody using some part of grammar or not. What they're actually saying is: +_Jesus wouldn't like all that trans shit, and neither would those white dudes who founded the US, therefore you shouldn't either_. + +Pronouns have basically become a [synecdoche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche) for trans and nonbinary people and our issues. +But we're more than our pronouns, and language is just one aspect of us expressing our identity. +This website happens to focus on that one aspect, but I think it's important to remind the world that gender is not just about pronouns. + +Who hasn't ever questioned their gender expression, huh? Cis people do it all the time and often don't even realise! +Am I feminine enough? Is my voice masculine enough? Is it _ladylike_ to dress like I do? +Would a _real man_ do what I just did? Is my Adam's apple too small? Is my nose too big? +Should I augment my boobs? How do I make my dick bigger? +What should I wear so that friends don't say _I look like a girl_ again? +How much makeup is too much? + +We all ask ourselves questions like that – the difference is the conclusion that we arrive at. +I, for example, realised that I'm agender. My conclusion was that… caring about those things is simply not in my nature. +It's all social concepts that I'm tired of upholding. +For me, it stopped being a question of _is this top masculine?_, _is it from the men's section?_ – +now it's simply a question of _do I like it?_, _do I feel good wearing it?_, etc. +Sure, there's of course tons of anxieties regarding potential harassment, if I go out wearing a skirt or a strong makeup, +but those anxieties, the discrimination and the choices I might make to avoid problems – they don't define my gender. + +My gender, or rather lack thereof, is deep inside me. Just like a cis guy _knows_ he's a man, +and probably only questions whether he appropriately expresses that masculinity in the world around him, +I also _know_ that I'm _not_ a man or a woman. It's not just some linguistic or æsthetic preference of pronouns, +it's not just what clothes I wear or how I feel about my body. It's a complex set of feelings and ways to express them. +It's my identity. + +Of course, everyone's journey is different, it's not like every person knows already what their gender is, +or like they won't ever realise they'd been wrong about it, or like it cannot be fluid. That's all perfectly fine! +My point isn't that every single person knows their gender or that gender is some static fact of life – +my point is simply that gender is complex. + +We like to assume things. When a person comes out, say, as a trans woman – we often assume that means +she's now starting to go by “[she/her](/she)”, picks a new name, starts taking hormones and plans a bottom surgery. +It might be a pretty common way, but neither of those steps is actually necessary to be trans. +With nonbinary identities we assume less because we generally know less about them. +Many people, seeing a news article about a celebrity coming out as nonbinary, +simply assume that all that has happened is a person changing their mind +about liking “[they/them](/they)” more than whatever they were using before. + +Not only is that a wrong assumption because [not every nonbinary person uses “they/them”](/blog/not-a-they-them), +but also because this mindset paints a picture of nonbinary identities as some kind of whim, +a call for attention, just some linguistic æsthetic choice. + +No. Trans people are more than our pronouns. + +When someone comes out as trans I feel so deeply happy for them. +What I should call them now or how I can expect them to change their looks is a secondary thing. +It's not about me updating my vocabulary (although it's a bare minimum of support and respect that I can give them), +but about them discovering something important about themselves. +§ diff --git a/locale/en/img/blog/a-they-them.png b/locale/en/img/blog/a-they-them.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c471cffd6 Binary files /dev/null and b/locale/en/img/blog/a-they-them.png differ diff --git a/locale/en/img/blog/trans-eyeshadow.png b/locale/en/img/blog/trans-eyeshadow.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e8b5a18e4 Binary files /dev/null and b/locale/en/img/blog/trans-eyeshadow.png differ diff --git a/locale/en/translations.suml b/locale/en/translations.suml index 75afaf670..c0efad2dc 100644 --- a/locale/en/translations.suml +++ b/locale/en/translations.suml @@ -459,8 +459,8 @@ faq: you're doing us a favour. It's not like we were making any money on you. Exclusionists and queerphobes aren't welcome here. links: - header: 'Links' - headerLong: 'Extra links' + header: 'References' + headerLong: 'Extra references' links: 'Extra links' recommended: 'We recommend' blog: 'Blog'