A few weeks ago in a series of posts about the Queer rally in Bloomfield, I got pretty beat up because I misgendered some folks. The resulting thread in the comments was exciting and very enlightening, if you could look past the self-righteous shaming to see the real issues underneath. Some of today’s queer youth (and others?) choose to confront a male/female identity binary, and have adopted a number of words and pronouns with which to better describe themselves. The linked story goes into much of this in a really great way. The start of the article was Google’s effort to add a level of security and allow folks to hide their gender by choosing a category “other,” but this also spoke perfectly for these individuals for whom, male and female doesn’t cut it.
Though Google created the “other” option for privacy reasons rather than as a transgender choice, young supporters of preferred gender pronouns (or P.G.P.’s as they are called) could not help but rejoice. Katy is one of a growing number of high school and college students who are questioning the gender roles society assigns individuals simply because they have been born male or female.
“You have to understand, this has nothing to do with your sexuality and everything to do with who you feel like inside,” Katy said, explaining that at the start of every LGBTQQA meeting, participants are first asked if they would like to share their P.G.P.’s. “Mine are ‘she,’ ‘her’ and ‘hers’ and sometimes ‘they,’ ‘them’ and ‘theirs.’ ”
P.G.P.’s can change as often as one likes. If the pronouns in the dictionary don’t suffice, there are numerous made-up ones now in use, including “ze,” “hir” and “hirs,” words that connote both genders because, as Katy explained, “Maybe one day you wake up and feel more like a boy.”
Without a doubt it is more fair and courteous to refer to a person with whatever pronoun they prefer.
For many however, this will be extremely confusing and troubling. A friend who is himself trans, reminded me that with individuals who may identify outside of the gender binary, gender, and identity is a journey more than a static characteristic. I found this notion of “journey” helpful.
Admittedly, I don’t understand all of this. There is little in my personal experience that helps me to relate or grasp. What I do know is that when a straight friend asks how did I know I was gay, the most I can really say, is that in my gut, I just knew, and then one day, I found language that explained well how it felt inside. I use that as I respect others’ choices of identity. I don’t need them to prove it to me, any more than I would prove my sexual orientation to someone else. Self-identification is self-identification.
Still, I’m left with a ton of questions. What does Katy mean when she says:
Maybe one day you wake up and feel more like a boy.
For me, my gender identity is closely linked to my physical sexual body/anatomy. I identify as “male” because of my anatomy. I don’t know what it would mean to one day feel more like a boy or one day feel more like a girl. As a kid, I never understood myself as a very masculine or “butch” boy, but I never doubted I was a boy.
I’ve often thought of Gender and Gender Roles as two very different and distinct things. I thought of Gender as one’s sex, and one’s body was anatomically, either male, female or indeterminant. Gender Roles were for me, cultural constructions. In some eras of history perhaps, most everyone adhered to the roles culture had assigned, and it was the odd person who lived outside these understood norms. However, since about the second world war, gender roles have been changing and for many in American culture, do not seem as rigid as they once were. P.G.P.’s call this into further question and suggest that Gender itself may be a construction or open to interpretation.
What do you think? Are Gender and Gender Roles the same or different things? If you understand yourself as gender non-conforming, share how you came to this understanding and what does gender mean to you. Please share, speaking from a place of “I” and help others come to understand how you see gender and what it means to you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/fashion/choosing-a-pronoun-he-she-or-other-after-curfew.html?_r=2