As British feminist, Jane Clare Jones puts it, “The only pronouns one can prescribe to oneself, ethically, are 'I' and 'me.' Third-person pronouns are granted to you by another person.”
When I heard the news the other night about the terrible shooting in Canada, and they announced it was a female shooter, my first thought was bullshit! For various reasons, including the fact I am a therapist, I have been very interested in what leads a person to engage in a school shooting. But even if you don't have my curiosity or professional interest and experience, you are probably aware that these horrible events are typically perpetrated by young males. The last few years have added a new characteristic to the profile - transgender. What makes me furious about the mainstream media's and law enforcement's insistence of sidestepping the trans angle with their pronoun (she/her) and other semantic acrobatics ("gunperson") is that they are perpetuating the illusion that their trans identity had nothing to do with their violent act. The reality is that these young people have been troubled for a while, and there have been opportunities to intervene, but they have been missed by parents, teachers, peers, etc who affirmed them out of a belief it's a human rights thing, rather than see the trans identity as a symptom of a deeper issue and comorbid issues - depression, trauma, social ostracism, troubled family life, autism, participation in extremist online groups, built-up rage against a school system where they felt imprisoned & bored, substance use, ADHD meds, anti-anxiety meds, cross-sex hormones, screen addiction... I often tell teens that they are the first ones to know when a peer is "off" - but if we don't talk about this stuff as adults, out of a fear of being politically incorrect, how the heck are kids going to understand? And if police and journalists are not going to accurately describe profiles of these shooters, and help the general public understand them better, but instead focus on gun control, we will keep having these tragic events.
you are a religious practitioner masquerading as a secular professional
>I often tell teens that they are the first ones to know when a peer is "off"
holy fuck, teens do not need to be told that! that hyper-trained acute sense of "he's off" is exactly what causes the social ostracism, which is exactly what drives people to extremist online groups.
if you actually talk to people like the ones you "other" here -- not in your bullshit office, but online, where they're honest -- it is extremely common for them to say that their peers would make fun of them by saying "he's probably gonna shoot us all one day."
you are actively participating in the acutely cruel social dynamics that create the type of person you describe. quite frankly, fuck you. fuck you for the bullshit you practice, fuck you for the cruel ostracising behavior you support and endorse, and double fuck you for propagating the utterly othering idea of labeling weird kids "autistic" like they aren't a perfectly normal kind of human being in the grand scheme of things.
this'll probably be deleted in short order, because ms davis is polite to a fault, but seriously -- fuck you.
I'm not going to remove this or ban (despite requests) but can you please not treat people you disagree with this way here? Try rewriting it with good faith engagement.
FWIW, as a 🇨🇦, my heart sank so far when I heard the news of the “female” shooter: the victims, but also the unbidden thought that the odds of this having been perpetrated by a female were astronomically low.
(Hear hooves, think horses …)
And that if my suspicions were true, that this was another tragedy likely caused *at least* in part by this fantastically dangerous ideology.
My POV, but *especially* in an active pursuit of a dangerous (or at risk) person is that police and media should make clear both the sex and gender as part of helping community identification.
If/when a situation is resolved (or reported after the fact), whether the sex is shared should depend on context:
Was it a missing person or a person of interest? Gender away!
Was it a crime? Both report the sex (and gender, whatever) to the public AND record for various legitimate government reasons the sex & gender.
Finally, I’ll use “they/them” when directly addressing trans-identifying males, but “she/her” is off limits as long as there is a pitched battle over the words woman/women/girl(s). And if we’re talk about violent or sexual criminals, he/him is necessary imho to reinforce the sexed realities of sexual violence.
The problem with singular "they" used for known people is that it creates cognitive dissonance.
"They" is the only third person plural pronoun we have in English. We use it for every plural noun: dogs, cats, horses, stars, planets and people.
Referring to a singular person as "they" makes it appear as if there's more than one of them, which immediately slows down comprehension of the speaker's meaning.
It’s very confusing and grammatically incorrect. If you were mugged by a solo perpetrator for example you would never refer to them as they. If you didn’t know you would say someone. Language is meant to convey information correctly.
Please either use their sex or refer to them by their last name. Awkward but avoids the confusion.
Otherwise you end up taking sides and (if you use a pronoun that is inaccurate as far as sex) confusing/misleading at least some readers. It is not appropriate to assume that everyone uses language the same way regarding this topic right now. Or to assume that everyone should change their language to match one's personal beliefs.
For crimes, it seems their sex and preferred pronouns are both information.
In social situations, it's possible to avoid pronouns. It can make for awkward speech, sounding a bit like an over-eager salesperson (constantly using a name versus pronoun).
In my blue zone, I see the media reporting on female bank robbers, female shooters, and female computer hackers. Sure, it's possible that a handful of these crime stats are actually committed by females. I will often go down the rabbit hole searching for the actual sex of the perp. Unfortunately, society has created--through laws and ideological pressure, a means to mask biological reality.
From Gerald Posner on journalism integrity:
"Yet much of the mainstream coverage has described the killer simply as “female,” without explanation or context.
This is not a minor semantic dispute. In high-profile crimes, accurate reporting matters. Biological sex is a data category used in criminology, public policy, and statistical analysis. Erasing it — or substituting identity categories without clarity — distorts public understanding and, over time, the historical record.
When language becomes an ideological reflex instead of a factual description, journalism stops informing and starts shaping.
In cases this serious, the public deserves accuracy — not ambiguity."
I checked the German news on the horrible tragedy in Canada, and it's "she/her" all the way. Some of the liberal media don't even point out that the shooter was "trans", not even buried deep in the article. The papers do report on "her" history of mental health issues, without ever allowing the thought that mental health issues tend to cluster in people who identify as "trans", and that therefore "her" transness is relevant to the reporting, as is of course "her" maleness. I was glad to see though that some of the commenters did point out these facts.
Germany and its media are so deeply captured, and I think people who only consume mainstream media and live in woke bubbles like my sister (who got mad at me for referring to her daughter's trans-identified boyfriend as "he" in a phone conversation) won't even hear about the true story.
Adoption of Activist language distorts public understanding when clarity and accuracy is vital . What if he was still at large would it be a manhunt ? Would telling lies keep public safe ? There is no “ be kind “ way through this. You can adopt their way to move conversations on OR you can save lives in circumstances like this and I believe save kids in general from this dangerous cult.
When a position paper has to turn words upside down and sideways to accommodate every possible situation, combination, iteration, feeling, political position and for all I know sexual position, it is failing. No one can learn all those rules and preferences, and no "guidelines" will be acceptable to all. In contrast, consider how and why the generic "man," which supposedly included woman, became outdated, with policeMAN becoming police OFFICER, etc. It was a bottom-up change of language, abetted, I am proud to say, by my colleagues in social psychology who demonstrated that when people say "policeman" or "congressman" they literally do not mentally envision women in those jobs. It was a natural linguistic shift, accepted eventually by all. In contrast, "mur" and "sfh" and "ziz" and "floop" will never become universally accepted pronouns--no logic to them. I appreciate Lisa's tolerance of "they" for the reasons she explained. BUT what about this compromise? Refer to a trans person as "he/she" or "she/he." Natal sex first, trans identity next. The mentally ill shooter in Canada? he/she ...
Respectfully, why is a compromise necessary in this case? The murderer is dead and even if he were alive, is not being addressed to his face in any case. Why elevate the feelings of a dead person over those of his still living victims, and those of their families, as well of the families of those this man killed? Surely the feelings of the living victims and the accuracy necessary to ensure the public is informed and safe have more importance than whatever presumed insult the dead perpetrator may have felt.
(Also, non-relatedly, I have really enjoyed and learned much from your books and articles, especially the HRT one, so thank you for writing them.)
Thank you, EF, for your compliment, and also I don't disagree with you here. I was just suggesting a way that trans people might be identified by journalists, etc., going forward, even as an interim compromise. As Lisa wrote, even Rachel Levine is "she" to her. As for the Canadian killer, we have a lot to learn about ... him.
Until all this came up, I never gave a thought to the English language convention of sex-based pronouns. How I wish it were not so, how I wish our pronouns were sex neutral, but who knew? Still, we are stuck and in several dimensions.
I recall so well that “bottom-up” change of language, abetted by so many of us in the dark ages of the ‘70s. For me, it was the “big fight” to get our law professors, back when women were a tiny minority of students, to replace the “reasonable man” standard with “reasonable person.” Ah, those were the days . . .
But, as I noted, we are stuck. In the public square, my own view is clarity is primary. In that regard, I don’t think “he/she” would be understood, but would rather continue the confusion. “She” in our language is unfortunately sex-linked, and I don’t think it’s possible, in the public’s mind, to delink it. For that reason, in press reports and discussions of law, public policy, statistical analyses, and in terms of what is taught in schools, we have no choice but to assure that pronouns, if they must be used, accurately reflect the sex of the person to whom we refer.
One-on-one and other private conversations are another matter. There, if refusal to use preferred pronouns is a barrier to understanding, I’d be inclined to set them aside. The beauty part of that is, in such cases, third person pronouns may not be needed at all and can in any case generally be avoided, even if a bit cumbersome speechwise.
But I do think there is another, very important, point at which you may be driving. That is, people who identify as the opposite sex exist among us, and that is not going to change for some time to come. Like anyone else, people who identify as the opposite sex have a right to be treated with compassion and respect. We have undergone a profound cultural shift, and a new equilibrium will need to be found. While, in my view, it cannot be based on any compromise on biological reality (we are not gods; it is not in our power), we do need to think through together what accommodations can be made to allow all of us to live in peace and harmony.
I don’t see this happening in my lifetime, but I hope the day will come. Meanwhile, I will not use pronouns that do not accord with biological sex, but I will also do my level best to avoid needless confrontation over this in personal interactions with friends and neighbors.
Leslie Feinberg, the 1950s lesbian pressured hard to transition, noted that "He-she" was a slur to her ears. It had a scornful quality. She didn't like "she" either and simply avoided pronouns applied to herself whenever possible. Crimes tended to happen to her, rather than the other way around.
Someone who has committed a newsworthy crime, I'm sorry, does not deserve to be granted a falsified identity. If some bloke is in the papers we deserve to know that it was a bloke rather than be forced to imagine a woman committing those crimes and shape the follow-up questions accordingly when that simply isn't what happened at all.
The most unbiased approach I can think of is that media write their articles without using pronouns at all. Instead, use the person's name, if available, or, if not, simply a label (e.g. "the perpetrator). However, articles must also include information of the person's actual biological gender and mention how the person wished/wishes to use pronouns different from the ones normally associated with that gender.
While awkward to read, this leaves it up to the reader to come to their own conclusions, on full information, rather than being confused or having the journalist tell the reader what to be thinking.
There was once a time when newspapers reported (some of) the things that happened. "Leave readers to guess"—about a basic fact that turns out to be pretty darn salient to grasping what happened—is hideously dystopian, on the level with "she" for him.
A few years ago, one of my kids had a math teacher who was a transwoman. This fact was never disclosed to the kids or parents at the beginning of the school year, although I'm sure many parents (and some kids) knew, as this teacher had "transitioned" while at the school. Since this happened before our time there, I didn't know who this was, I just knew the school had a trans-identified teacher. Believe it or not, when this person became my kid's math teacher, I initially wasn't sure if it was "her". To my (back then) untrained eye, "she" passed pretty well as a slightly chunky woman with a punky hairstyle and tattoos. I thought she might be a somewhat butchy lesbian. I also liked her, and even after I was certain that this was actually a male, I didn't have any issue using the pronouns. She was a good teacher and very well liked among the kids, both prior to and after "transitioning". (She also didn't wear a mask, with which I would have had a much bigger problem, given the impact on communication.)
I don't know how I would feel about "her" today, knowing so much more about transgenderism. This teacher had a wife, so was clearly not gay. In hindsight, I find it much more problematic to impose this deception on the kids, and I do remember that my son's best friend (a girl) found "her" creepy because of the deep voice. The teacher's voice didn't strike me as clearly male back then (I have a pretty deep voice, too), but kids may be even more attuned to this, and clearly this girl (who knew this was a male) was feeling the "wolf in sheep's clothing" aspect, despite the teacher's genuinely friendly personality.
Maybe it was just my lack of experience with "trans" people at the time, or maybe it was the fact that I liked the teacher and didn't know about his history at the outset (thus thinking of him as female from the start), but back then it didn't bother me. Even as I started learning more about the issue, I still thought back of that teacher and would say that despite my emerging gender critical views, I wasn't bothered at all by my kids' teacher being a transwoman. I don't know how I would feel now if this happened again, given my much deeper knowledge about transgenderism and its implications.
I am genuinely confused. When you say, "This teacher had a wife, so was clearly not gay," I don't follow what you're saying. The teacher was a biological man who transitioned to a woman and is now married to a woman. So, two women, and they're married. That's in my view a lesbian couple. Can you explain why you don't think that's the case, Kate? I really want to understand. I mean, if it were the opposite and the teacher had been a woman and transitioned to a man, and married a woman, then you'd be right, the teacher wouldn't be gay. Please help me straighten this out. Thanks.
I am not sure if you are genuinely confused or just trolling, given that it is very commonly known that people critical of the "trans" concept don't believe that males can be lesbians. Nobody truly "transitions" to the other sex. Therefore, I view this as a heterosexual relationship. Sexual orientation is and always will be about sex, not gender identity, no matter how much those in the thrall of the gender identity cult claim otherwise. Men, including transwomen (who are a subcategory of men), cannot be lesbians.
I think this was a trans woman married to a cis woman, that is a male person married to a female person. We would describe that relationship as heterosexual. Gay is usually shorthand for homosexual.
I'm not sure what the relevance is in the story though. I think some people find non-homosexual trans people odd.
I don't find non-homosexual trans-identified people odd, as they are probably the more common variety among males. But I think that trans-identified males are often driven to transition by autogynephilia, and if that is the case, one may view the male's presentation as a woman as the realization of an erotic fantasy, which in turn may be seen as problematic around children. That's what makes it potentially relevant to the school environment. I didn't feel this way around this particular teacher, as back then I didn't know about the phenomenon, and I also don't believe this erotic element, even if initially a driver of transition, is constantly present, but it depends on the person. For the record, I do NOT think that all autogynephilic men are perverts.
language should clarify, not confuse us. I really hope sanity prevails and we as a society can just agree on the obvious- Biological sex is real, it matters (especially in crime reporting) and doesn't make you hateful for standing for truth. Thank you Lisa for digging into the details of these issues.
Imagine family members submit a missing person report on their adolescent or young adult child. Would it be better for police and the public to be told to look for a "girl", if the child is male?
Would it be better for police and the public to be told to look for a "boy", if the child is female?
Of course not!
Evolution has given all of us an almost unerring ability to discern whether a pubescent or post pubescent person is male or female, no matter how they are dressed. One still photo can be misleading, but seeing an individual in person, moving and speaking, enables us to spot who is male and who is female 99+% of the time.
In my opinion, while anyone can and should do what they are comfortable with in a social situation - potentially using inaccurate words to describe someone in order to avoid conflict, for example - I think it is vital that we use accurate words to describe people involved in a crime in journalism - especially perpetrators. I don't see any need to use inaccurate pronouns if we know the sex of an individual.
If and when we as a society decide that reporting the sex of someone in a news story is irrelevant, we can use "they" (or a new singular sex-neutral pronoun) to describe everyone involved. Until then, we must use accurate pronouns in reporting.
While pronouns could evolve to have a different meaning rather than describing the sex of the individual, any such change should be natural, not top-down, and, more importantly, the change should make sense. Since "gender identity" is a nonsensical notion, where some people supposedly think they are a different sex than the sex of their bodies (males who think they are female, vice versa, or males or females who think they are neither or both sexes), I can't see using this nonsensical notion as the indicator for a pronoun. Think what you want in your fantasy world, but that should not be the basis for references to you by other people - especially not in journalism. (I also don't find it kind or polite to treat someone's fantasy world as if it were real.)
Boy, those pronoun "guidelines" are some dictatorial brainwashing. "there is never a reason" to write this or that. Bullshit, just look at those cowards falling back on language prescriptivism because nothing else gets them their way.
“Preferred pronouns” are self-centered, counter factual nonsense. In reporting the news, journalists should focus on factual accuracy, not ideological bullshit.
As British feminist, Jane Clare Jones puts it, “The only pronouns one can prescribe to oneself, ethically, are 'I' and 'me.' Third-person pronouns are granted to you by another person.”
"ut videor, fortasse sim."
When I heard the news the other night about the terrible shooting in Canada, and they announced it was a female shooter, my first thought was bullshit! For various reasons, including the fact I am a therapist, I have been very interested in what leads a person to engage in a school shooting. But even if you don't have my curiosity or professional interest and experience, you are probably aware that these horrible events are typically perpetrated by young males. The last few years have added a new characteristic to the profile - transgender. What makes me furious about the mainstream media's and law enforcement's insistence of sidestepping the trans angle with their pronoun (she/her) and other semantic acrobatics ("gunperson") is that they are perpetuating the illusion that their trans identity had nothing to do with their violent act. The reality is that these young people have been troubled for a while, and there have been opportunities to intervene, but they have been missed by parents, teachers, peers, etc who affirmed them out of a belief it's a human rights thing, rather than see the trans identity as a symptom of a deeper issue and comorbid issues - depression, trauma, social ostracism, troubled family life, autism, participation in extremist online groups, built-up rage against a school system where they felt imprisoned & bored, substance use, ADHD meds, anti-anxiety meds, cross-sex hormones, screen addiction... I often tell teens that they are the first ones to know when a peer is "off" - but if we don't talk about this stuff as adults, out of a fear of being politically incorrect, how the heck are kids going to understand? And if police and journalists are not going to accurately describe profiles of these shooters, and help the general public understand them better, but instead focus on gun control, we will keep having these tragic events.
>I am a therapist
you are a religious practitioner masquerading as a secular professional
>I often tell teens that they are the first ones to know when a peer is "off"
holy fuck, teens do not need to be told that! that hyper-trained acute sense of "he's off" is exactly what causes the social ostracism, which is exactly what drives people to extremist online groups.
if you actually talk to people like the ones you "other" here -- not in your bullshit office, but online, where they're honest -- it is extremely common for them to say that their peers would make fun of them by saying "he's probably gonna shoot us all one day."
you are actively participating in the acutely cruel social dynamics that create the type of person you describe. quite frankly, fuck you. fuck you for the bullshit you practice, fuck you for the cruel ostracising behavior you support and endorse, and double fuck you for propagating the utterly othering idea of labeling weird kids "autistic" like they aren't a perfectly normal kind of human being in the grand scheme of things.
this'll probably be deleted in short order, because ms davis is polite to a fault, but seriously -- fuck you.
I'm not going to remove this or ban (despite requests) but can you please not treat people you disagree with this way here? Try rewriting it with good faith engagement.
Not sure what point you're making, can you clarify? Thanks
She’s mad about her son being the “off” teen, 100%.
Important topic, Lisa — thank you.
FWIW, as a 🇨🇦, my heart sank so far when I heard the news of the “female” shooter: the victims, but also the unbidden thought that the odds of this having been perpetrated by a female were astronomically low.
(Hear hooves, think horses …)
And that if my suspicions were true, that this was another tragedy likely caused *at least* in part by this fantastically dangerous ideology.
My POV, but *especially* in an active pursuit of a dangerous (or at risk) person is that police and media should make clear both the sex and gender as part of helping community identification.
If/when a situation is resolved (or reported after the fact), whether the sex is shared should depend on context:
Was it a missing person or a person of interest? Gender away!
Was it a crime? Both report the sex (and gender, whatever) to the public AND record for various legitimate government reasons the sex & gender.
Finally, I’ll use “they/them” when directly addressing trans-identifying males, but “she/her” is off limits as long as there is a pitched battle over the words woman/women/girl(s). And if we’re talk about violent or sexual criminals, he/him is necessary imho to reinforce the sexed realities of sexual violence.
The problem with singular "they" used for known people is that it creates cognitive dissonance.
"They" is the only third person plural pronoun we have in English. We use it for every plural noun: dogs, cats, horses, stars, planets and people.
Referring to a singular person as "they" makes it appear as if there's more than one of them, which immediately slows down comprehension of the speaker's meaning.
The worst is trying to speak about a person using they/them in contrast to some group of people.
It’s very confusing and grammatically incorrect. If you were mugged by a solo perpetrator for example you would never refer to them as they. If you didn’t know you would say someone. Language is meant to convey information correctly.
Please either use their sex or refer to them by their last name. Awkward but avoids the confusion.
Otherwise you end up taking sides and (if you use a pronoun that is inaccurate as far as sex) confusing/misleading at least some readers. It is not appropriate to assume that everyone uses language the same way regarding this topic right now. Or to assume that everyone should change their language to match one's personal beliefs.
For crimes, it seems their sex and preferred pronouns are both information.
I think that sex matters--always.
Statistics matter. Statistics should be accurate.
In social situations, it's possible to avoid pronouns. It can make for awkward speech, sounding a bit like an over-eager salesperson (constantly using a name versus pronoun).
In my blue zone, I see the media reporting on female bank robbers, female shooters, and female computer hackers. Sure, it's possible that a handful of these crime stats are actually committed by females. I will often go down the rabbit hole searching for the actual sex of the perp. Unfortunately, society has created--through laws and ideological pressure, a means to mask biological reality.
From Gerald Posner on journalism integrity:
"Yet much of the mainstream coverage has described the killer simply as “female,” without explanation or context.
This is not a minor semantic dispute. In high-profile crimes, accurate reporting matters. Biological sex is a data category used in criminology, public policy, and statistical analysis. Erasing it — or substituting identity categories without clarity — distorts public understanding and, over time, the historical record.
When language becomes an ideological reflex instead of a factual description, journalism stops informing and starts shaping.
In cases this serious, the public deserves accuracy — not ambiguity."
💯
I checked the German news on the horrible tragedy in Canada, and it's "she/her" all the way. Some of the liberal media don't even point out that the shooter was "trans", not even buried deep in the article. The papers do report on "her" history of mental health issues, without ever allowing the thought that mental health issues tend to cluster in people who identify as "trans", and that therefore "her" transness is relevant to the reporting, as is of course "her" maleness. I was glad to see though that some of the commenters did point out these facts.
Germany and its media are so deeply captured, and I think people who only consume mainstream media and live in woke bubbles like my sister (who got mad at me for referring to her daughter's trans-identified boyfriend as "he" in a phone conversation) won't even hear about the true story.
Adoption of Activist language distorts public understanding when clarity and accuracy is vital . What if he was still at large would it be a manhunt ? Would telling lies keep public safe ? There is no “ be kind “ way through this. You can adopt their way to move conversations on OR you can save lives in circumstances like this and I believe save kids in general from this dangerous cult.
When a position paper has to turn words upside down and sideways to accommodate every possible situation, combination, iteration, feeling, political position and for all I know sexual position, it is failing. No one can learn all those rules and preferences, and no "guidelines" will be acceptable to all. In contrast, consider how and why the generic "man," which supposedly included woman, became outdated, with policeMAN becoming police OFFICER, etc. It was a bottom-up change of language, abetted, I am proud to say, by my colleagues in social psychology who demonstrated that when people say "policeman" or "congressman" they literally do not mentally envision women in those jobs. It was a natural linguistic shift, accepted eventually by all. In contrast, "mur" and "sfh" and "ziz" and "floop" will never become universally accepted pronouns--no logic to them. I appreciate Lisa's tolerance of "they" for the reasons she explained. BUT what about this compromise? Refer to a trans person as "he/she" or "she/he." Natal sex first, trans identity next. The mentally ill shooter in Canada? he/she ...
Respectfully, why is a compromise necessary in this case? The murderer is dead and even if he were alive, is not being addressed to his face in any case. Why elevate the feelings of a dead person over those of his still living victims, and those of their families, as well of the families of those this man killed? Surely the feelings of the living victims and the accuracy necessary to ensure the public is informed and safe have more importance than whatever presumed insult the dead perpetrator may have felt.
(Also, non-relatedly, I have really enjoyed and learned much from your books and articles, especially the HRT one, so thank you for writing them.)
Thank you, EF, for your compliment, and also I don't disagree with you here. I was just suggesting a way that trans people might be identified by journalists, etc., going forward, even as an interim compromise. As Lisa wrote, even Rachel Levine is "she" to her. As for the Canadian killer, we have a lot to learn about ... him.
This is basically what I came here to say, but you’ve already said it well, so I'll just add my "Like".
Until all this came up, I never gave a thought to the English language convention of sex-based pronouns. How I wish it were not so, how I wish our pronouns were sex neutral, but who knew? Still, we are stuck and in several dimensions.
I recall so well that “bottom-up” change of language, abetted by so many of us in the dark ages of the ‘70s. For me, it was the “big fight” to get our law professors, back when women were a tiny minority of students, to replace the “reasonable man” standard with “reasonable person.” Ah, those were the days . . .
But, as I noted, we are stuck. In the public square, my own view is clarity is primary. In that regard, I don’t think “he/she” would be understood, but would rather continue the confusion. “She” in our language is unfortunately sex-linked, and I don’t think it’s possible, in the public’s mind, to delink it. For that reason, in press reports and discussions of law, public policy, statistical analyses, and in terms of what is taught in schools, we have no choice but to assure that pronouns, if they must be used, accurately reflect the sex of the person to whom we refer.
One-on-one and other private conversations are another matter. There, if refusal to use preferred pronouns is a barrier to understanding, I’d be inclined to set them aside. The beauty part of that is, in such cases, third person pronouns may not be needed at all and can in any case generally be avoided, even if a bit cumbersome speechwise.
But I do think there is another, very important, point at which you may be driving. That is, people who identify as the opposite sex exist among us, and that is not going to change for some time to come. Like anyone else, people who identify as the opposite sex have a right to be treated with compassion and respect. We have undergone a profound cultural shift, and a new equilibrium will need to be found. While, in my view, it cannot be based on any compromise on biological reality (we are not gods; it is not in our power), we do need to think through together what accommodations can be made to allow all of us to live in peace and harmony.
I don’t see this happening in my lifetime, but I hope the day will come. Meanwhile, I will not use pronouns that do not accord with biological sex, but I will also do my level best to avoid needless confrontation over this in personal interactions with friends and neighbors.
In loving kinship and with everlasting respect,
Sue
I nominate Susan for the role of Solomon in the forthcoming play, "How will this ever end?"
Leslie Feinberg, the 1950s lesbian pressured hard to transition, noted that "He-she" was a slur to her ears. It had a scornful quality. She didn't like "she" either and simply avoided pronouns applied to herself whenever possible. Crimes tended to happen to her, rather than the other way around.
Someone who has committed a newsworthy crime, I'm sorry, does not deserve to be granted a falsified identity. If some bloke is in the papers we deserve to know that it was a bloke rather than be forced to imagine a woman committing those crimes and shape the follow-up questions accordingly when that simply isn't what happened at all.
The most unbiased approach I can think of is that media write their articles without using pronouns at all. Instead, use the person's name, if available, or, if not, simply a label (e.g. "the perpetrator). However, articles must also include information of the person's actual biological gender and mention how the person wished/wishes to use pronouns different from the ones normally associated with that gender.
While awkward to read, this leaves it up to the reader to come to their own conclusions, on full information, rather than being confused or having the journalist tell the reader what to be thinking.
There was once a time when newspapers reported (some of) the things that happened. "Leave readers to guess"—about a basic fact that turns out to be pretty darn salient to grasping what happened—is hideously dystopian, on the level with "she" for him.
A few years ago, one of my kids had a math teacher who was a transwoman. This fact was never disclosed to the kids or parents at the beginning of the school year, although I'm sure many parents (and some kids) knew, as this teacher had "transitioned" while at the school. Since this happened before our time there, I didn't know who this was, I just knew the school had a trans-identified teacher. Believe it or not, when this person became my kid's math teacher, I initially wasn't sure if it was "her". To my (back then) untrained eye, "she" passed pretty well as a slightly chunky woman with a punky hairstyle and tattoos. I thought she might be a somewhat butchy lesbian. I also liked her, and even after I was certain that this was actually a male, I didn't have any issue using the pronouns. She was a good teacher and very well liked among the kids, both prior to and after "transitioning". (She also didn't wear a mask, with which I would have had a much bigger problem, given the impact on communication.)
I don't know how I would feel about "her" today, knowing so much more about transgenderism. This teacher had a wife, so was clearly not gay. In hindsight, I find it much more problematic to impose this deception on the kids, and I do remember that my son's best friend (a girl) found "her" creepy because of the deep voice. The teacher's voice didn't strike me as clearly male back then (I have a pretty deep voice, too), but kids may be even more attuned to this, and clearly this girl (who knew this was a male) was feeling the "wolf in sheep's clothing" aspect, despite the teacher's genuinely friendly personality.
Maybe it was just my lack of experience with "trans" people at the time, or maybe it was the fact that I liked the teacher and didn't know about his history at the outset (thus thinking of him as female from the start), but back then it didn't bother me. Even as I started learning more about the issue, I still thought back of that teacher and would say that despite my emerging gender critical views, I wasn't bothered at all by my kids' teacher being a transwoman. I don't know how I would feel now if this happened again, given my much deeper knowledge about transgenderism and its implications.
I am genuinely confused. When you say, "This teacher had a wife, so was clearly not gay," I don't follow what you're saying. The teacher was a biological man who transitioned to a woman and is now married to a woman. So, two women, and they're married. That's in my view a lesbian couple. Can you explain why you don't think that's the case, Kate? I really want to understand. I mean, if it were the opposite and the teacher had been a woman and transitioned to a man, and married a woman, then you'd be right, the teacher wouldn't be gay. Please help me straighten this out. Thanks.
I am not sure if you are genuinely confused or just trolling, given that it is very commonly known that people critical of the "trans" concept don't believe that males can be lesbians. Nobody truly "transitions" to the other sex. Therefore, I view this as a heterosexual relationship. Sexual orientation is and always will be about sex, not gender identity, no matter how much those in the thrall of the gender identity cult claim otherwise. Men, including transwomen (who are a subcategory of men), cannot be lesbians.
How very dare you compare a Heterosexual Spicy Straight couple to lesbians? Males cannot be lesbians. That's Lesbophobia 101.
God, you people are exhausting.
It’s homosexual, not homogenderal, Lilith. You transbians are ridiculous.
I think this was a trans woman married to a cis woman, that is a male person married to a female person. We would describe that relationship as heterosexual. Gay is usually shorthand for homosexual.
I'm not sure what the relevance is in the story though. I think some people find non-homosexual trans people odd.
I don't find non-homosexual trans-identified people odd, as they are probably the more common variety among males. But I think that trans-identified males are often driven to transition by autogynephilia, and if that is the case, one may view the male's presentation as a woman as the realization of an erotic fantasy, which in turn may be seen as problematic around children. That's what makes it potentially relevant to the school environment. I didn't feel this way around this particular teacher, as back then I didn't know about the phenomenon, and I also don't believe this erotic element, even if initially a driver of transition, is constantly present, but it depends on the person. For the record, I do NOT think that all autogynephilic men are perverts.
language should clarify, not confuse us. I really hope sanity prevails and we as a society can just agree on the obvious- Biological sex is real, it matters (especially in crime reporting) and doesn't make you hateful for standing for truth. Thank you Lisa for digging into the details of these issues.
Imagine family members submit a missing person report on their adolescent or young adult child. Would it be better for police and the public to be told to look for a "girl", if the child is male?
Would it be better for police and the public to be told to look for a "boy", if the child is female?
Of course not!
Evolution has given all of us an almost unerring ability to discern whether a pubescent or post pubescent person is male or female, no matter how they are dressed. One still photo can be misleading, but seeing an individual in person, moving and speaking, enables us to spot who is male and who is female 99+% of the time.
In my opinion, while anyone can and should do what they are comfortable with in a social situation - potentially using inaccurate words to describe someone in order to avoid conflict, for example - I think it is vital that we use accurate words to describe people involved in a crime in journalism - especially perpetrators. I don't see any need to use inaccurate pronouns if we know the sex of an individual.
If and when we as a society decide that reporting the sex of someone in a news story is irrelevant, we can use "they" (or a new singular sex-neutral pronoun) to describe everyone involved. Until then, we must use accurate pronouns in reporting.
While pronouns could evolve to have a different meaning rather than describing the sex of the individual, any such change should be natural, not top-down, and, more importantly, the change should make sense. Since "gender identity" is a nonsensical notion, where some people supposedly think they are a different sex than the sex of their bodies (males who think they are female, vice versa, or males or females who think they are neither or both sexes), I can't see using this nonsensical notion as the indicator for a pronoun. Think what you want in your fantasy world, but that should not be the basis for references to you by other people - especially not in journalism. (I also don't find it kind or polite to treat someone's fantasy world as if it were real.)
Boy, those pronoun "guidelines" are some dictatorial brainwashing. "there is never a reason" to write this or that. Bullshit, just look at those cowards falling back on language prescriptivism because nothing else gets them their way.
“Preferred pronouns” are self-centered, counter factual nonsense. In reporting the news, journalists should focus on factual accuracy, not ideological bullshit.