Britt Coker takes a look at the rise of non-binary pronouns.
Gender pronouns are a hot topic these days, partly because we find the traditional ones hard to avoid when describing someone in a sentence (he says, she says) and we don’t know when we should replace them with something else. As more and more people acknowledge that they don’t identify with the constraints of the common pronouns, those of us that do use them are finding ourselves in a new paradigm.
New gender identities. You can roll your eyes and say how ridiculous it seems. It’s no one you know. Why are a minority being so precious? But it’s also important to acknowledge that you are dismissing other people’s feelings as you stubbornly express your own.
Like a lot of people who are transitioning genders, McKenzie has a dead name. The Christian name given to her at birth has been replaced by the aforementioned, though there are people in her life who haven’t buried the dead as successfully as she has.
“Half of my family is supportive and then the other half isn't, so the half that isn't normally uses my deadname when referring to me, unless they are explicitly told that they need to use the other one.”
Perhaps they forget because they can’t fully embrace the new life she has. It’s an additional challenge common for many people who feel uncomfortable with the gender assigned to them at birth. Not just an unease with who they are, but the knowledge that the people who love them, aren’t comfortable with the alternative. But ultimately, you choose what is best for you and hope both sides successfully navigate a personal transformation.
At age 19, McKenzie uses she/her pronouns as she navigates her journey as a trans woman. Assigned male at birth, McKenzie says that she always had underlying feelings of being uncomfortable in her own skin and not feeling like she was fitting in to society. “It’s a very interesting and nuanced thing because for me personally, I was very uncomfortable with the human body hair I had, and how people treated me, mainly in the ways that I was expected to look and the expectations that others put on me. Being a boy brings a lot of connotations with it. It makes you kind of feel like you need to act in a certain way, and I was just so uncomfortable with that.
In a social setting, she says she dresses more feminine to help people identify with her gender preference but it’s her desire to feel like a woman that is important, not to be seen as feminine, which she doesn’t believe is a mandatory aspect of womanhood.
McKenzie works in the hospitality industry and her customer facing role provides a challenge for some customers, particularly concerns around misgendering.
She says she occasionally comes across a transphobic person who may continue to call her dude, mate or bro, even after she has corrected them. She also acknowledges that people use these terms so often that they’re just using them unconsciously.
“I don't really get offended or annoyed at people about that sort of thing unless I've explicitly told them because I know especially in a town like Nelson where everyone is older and hasn't really had much face to face contact with trans people or the queer community in general, there's no reason for me to spend energy being offended or being distressed at somebody misgendering me when I'm in an environment where it happens so often.”
So when you get someone’s gender wrong, what do you do about it and how do you avoid it in the first place?
Zen Shaw is community coordinator at Q Youth, a charitable organisation providing support and advocacy for queer and trans youth and their wider circle. Zen would prefer not to identify with any gender labels but concedes to he and they if necessary.
If you get someone’s gender wrong, Zen’s recommends you don’t make a big deal about it, just make a quick correction, apologise and move on. The more you make it about yourself, the greater the chance you put the misgendered person in a position of feeling bad because you feel bad.
To avoid the mistake in the first place, you could ask them about their pronoun preference.
"I'm like, ‘Hey I’m Zen, I use they/them and he/him pronouns. What pronouns do you use?’... I think one out of 100 people are queer in some way. Asking is a really safe way to mark you as a safe person. And let them know that you are OK to share their identity with.”
Five years ago if someone asked which gender we identified with, most of us would have been affronted they couldn’t tell. Now, many people include their chosen pronouns in their email signatures.
Zen also suggests that if you want to ask generic questions about gender pronouns, resist.
Quite a strong sentiment that young people at Q Youth say all the time is that they feel like they have to play Google for everyone around them. They have to answer questions constantly about their own identities when there are so many resources that people can access now where they could learn themselves.”
Zen points out that Shakespeare was regularly using they/them as a singular pronoun 600 years ago and that we use it ourselves more often than we think.
“If people cut you off while driving, they don’t say, Oh he’s a dick or she’s a dick, we say they’re a dick. I think your brain is naturally going to go to, they. I don't really believe that you can see anyone's gender and that's why I think asking is so important. I’ve got a full-on beard and if you saw me in the street you would say ‘He’s a really bearded guy’, but you wouldn’t know I use neutral pronouns unless you asked.”
There are a large number of gender identities in use globally, and there are a number of new gender neutral pronouns – neo pronouns – with one of many commonly used in New Zealand being Xe xem/Xe xer (pronounced, Ze zem/Ze zir).
McKenzie sympathises with how confusing it can be for cisgendered people who want to do the right thing but feel confounded by new terminology they are not familiar with.
“There has been a lot of things that are being created to explain very nuanced parts of sexuality or gender, and some of those in my opinion, do go a little bit farther and they're very, very niche in a lot of aspects and if you aren't associated with anyone in that community or you haven't really had a lot of exposure to that, all of these ideas are kind of confusing, honestly.”
McKenzie sees gender as a modern construct where we have established male and female as a fait accompli in the way we see the grass as green, and the sky is blue. Why do we narrowly define human existence into two genders rather than accepting that what people feel on the inside is what matters most? It’s a threatening thought for the human population to contemplate if we feel like there is a ground swell of people who don’t want to follow the traditional definitions anymore. We began turfing pariahs out of tribes the moment we started forming tribes, so we could protect ourselves from the unknown and unpredictable.
McKenzie offers a concept that goes one further. “There has been interesting thoughts in online spaces where gender is seen as another tool to be used in the system as a way of dividing people. We live in a society that is very heavily dominated by men so the idea that you can change your gender and be whatever you want to be, it's very deconstructing of that idea.”
She hasn’t met many trans people who regret their decisions because an aversion to their own body affects their ongoing wellbeing. “It’s a very common theme for a lot of people, especially trans people, where there's such a dysphoric feeling around their own body. That's a lot of the reasons why you find that suicidality rates in queer communities are much higher than they are in non queer.”
She initially identified as pansexual, a term that nicely deconstructs the human two-gender system into a simplified ideal. I like you, I don’t care what gender you identify with, I just like you. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as ‘gender-blind’, like Cupid. The arrow strikes who it strikes.
Another term that we may see having an increased presence in the New Zealand vernacular is one specific to Māori culture. Zen says, “People who are queer, LGBT and whakapapa te Māori may choose to identify as takatāpui. Originally that term just meant ‘a lover of the same sex’ but it's evolved to represent people who are both queer and Māori as well.”
McKenzie feels there could be more that schools could do to support students who are part of the rainbow community. That if school curriculums included the topic, it would minimize the mental emotional distress that many young people feel during a crucial life stage where being, or feeling different, or not having words to describe a certain feeling, leaves them particularly vulnerable.
“When it comes to teaching kids about certain ideas like queerness or being trans - there are a bunch of people that have gone through school and there has never been a mention of queer people or there has never been a group in that school for queer people.”
Zen and McKenzie use the term ‘queer’ quite freely but Zen cautions use of it in instances where it could be misconstrued.
“Queer has been reclaimed by the LGBT community in recent years. I would just be very careful with how people who aren't in the community use it because it was used as a slur in recent years. Probably a more broadly friendly term to use would be the word, rainbow and that's what I often do.”
Zen acknowledges that language is always evolving, but slowly. That none of us will get to grips with changes overnight but he encourages us to start with self-education and practice. That ultimately, it will be worth it for all of us.
“So queer people are on a journey, and I think allyship is a similar thing. I think learning how to be a good ally to the people closest to you is a really great way to start, and then building from there- you don’t always need to understand something all the way to respect it.”
Gender-neutral Pronoun Guide
Cisgender
Cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth.
Gender non-conforming
The individual doesn't adhere to gender norms, and often forgoes a label.
Transgender
An umbrella term for someone who's gender identity doesn't fit what they were assigned at birth.
Non-binary
An umbrella term for someone who falls somewhere along the gender spectrum of masculinity and femininity but does not identify with the gender they were assigned. Non-Binary fits under the trans umbrella.
LGBTQIA+
Otherwise known as the letter soup, it's a collection of many different gender identities, sexes and sexualities. New letters are being added to the acronym to make space and bring awareness for the lesser represented members of the Rainbow community.
Neo-pronouns
Literally translates to ‘new pronouns.’ There are many widely known neo-pronouns (for example Xe/Xem or Ze/Zir), but new neo-pronouns are popping up all the time, and are used in place of, or in addition to he/him, she/her and they/them depending on the user's preference.
