[en][blog] not a they/them, not just pronouns

locale/en/blog/not-a-they-them.md

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+# I am not “a they/them”
+
+<small>2022-07-29 | [@andrea](/@andrea)</small>
+
+![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.

locale/en/blog/not-just-pronouns.md

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+# It's not just about pronouns!
+
+<small>2022-08-06 | [@andrea](/@andrea)</small>
+
+![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.
+§

locale/en/translations.suml

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                     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'