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Correcting my internal monologue to avoid misgendering people
Fry
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It's recently come to my attention that some people I interact with socially on a semi-regular basis prefer they/them pronouns. In my head, I've been referring to those individuals with gendered pronouns for a while, and I'm finding it challenging to break that habit. Indeed, even writing this post has been a challenge not to gender them.
Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for ways I can go about re-training my brain to address those people correctly?
Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for ways I can go about re-training my brain to address those people correctly?
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I have a cousin who used to use female pronouns and now prefers male. I don't see him very often, and obviously I don't want to misgender him out of habit when I do see him, so this is basically what I did. Currently I'm at a point where thinking of him as "he" isn't quite automatic, but "she" feels clearly wrong, so, progress?
"Where's [person]? They were putting their laundry away the last time I saw them."
Doesn't seem like it would ruffle any feathers or draw many odd looks.
Preprogrammed phrases are what give me trouble. I've recently started making progress saying "Thank you, much" because I can't break the cadence of "Thank you, (ma'am/sir)" and need to fill in a third word or the others will tumble out.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Do you have a pet?
Well, now they are a non-binary pet! They're surprised you didn't pick up on it sooner.
Anyway, that seems like a joke, but it's actually super useful and I would recommend it, if you have a pet. At least, it's useful for getting used to they/them pronouns. It probably will help with changing to them, too.
I'm a social worker, (specifically as a DSP at the moment), so I've been trained to ask for and use preferred pronouns by reflex at this point - but the people I support currently expect a Sir/Ma'am as a matter of respect and consistency, so when I avoid using gendered language, they notice and call me out for it.
But yeah, as to Ops request, the best practice I had was a co-worker who was willing to aggressively correct me, at my request. I actively tried not to mess up, but it took a while and the occasional embarrassing public correction, but once it was the default, it just comes as easily as the original gendered language.
I'd also like to add - in my experience, most folks who have preferred pronouns are also understanding of mistakes as long as your making an effort. The folks who jump straight into righteous indignation were looking to argue, not correct or problem-solve.
(And I guess for some more background, my wife, although filling traditionally female roles and pronouns, considers herself non-binary. So the dynamic can be much more complex than just pronouns too =p)
XFIRE:redspo0n (Yep, Zero in there) XBL: Pinkspo0n
(Interestingly, I was in the middle of an Arabic course when she told me and my teachers noticed when I started using different gender forms talking about my family. That was a lot of fun to explain to native Arabic speakers. At least English is comparitively pretty easy on the gender markers.)
Then just talk to them. At work "Hey I sent that thing to you." If you just avoid it at all you won't need to mis-gender anyone because there is no spoon.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Nothing established. I don't know if people have tried to invent any.
There are gender neutral terms to refer to people ("Friend" is one. "Nerd" is another.) but they all carry baggage.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
"Guys," like "dudes," may be considered to be gender-neutral by some, but historically speaking they were used as masculine-coded words, so there's understandably a portion of people for whom terms like that don't feel gender-neutral at all.
But there's only a lack of singular gender-neutral terms for usage in English. For addressing more than one person, "y'all" is gender-neutral.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I usually try and use y'all or folks for plural address, but I was curious more about the formal application.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I always just default to title and last name at work when sending an email to someone I don’t know.
“Area Director ______”
“Inspector ______”
"Y'all" is singular. "All Y'all" is plural.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
What? No.
Y'all is for a small group, but always more than one person. Else you would say "You" "Y'all come back now, ya hear?" and "You come back now, ya hear?" and so forth. Its a contraction of you and all to begin with.
All Y'all is for multiple groups, or for a very large group and emphasizing that fact. Same as with "All of you All" being used in non-southern slang to specific, specifically, that the speaker is addressing each and every one in a group.
The extent of my knowledge on this comes from a southern comedienne saying it, and a friend laughing in agreement, but in looking for that clip I found something interesting: The idea that y'all can be singular might come from northerners misinterpreting the fact that southerners will use it to address a single person who is a member of a larger group. From that article:
That said, and to bring this back to the actual subject, if we can bend the rules around "they/them", then we can do so for "y'all" as well, and I've been using it in that way for a while.
This is not a joke post.
As for internalizing the they/them pronouns, yeah, it's just practice. I've gotten better at it lately in part because I have a few friends who prefer non-gendered pronouns and partly because I've started working in admin in a school where there are many students from lots of different cultures and honestly I'm not always sure of their gender when reading their name, so if I'm talking to parents and I'm not sure, "they" has become my safe bet.
"Guys, gals, and non-binary pals" a bit of a mouthful but I like it.
For groups I generally default to "Hey, people" or if it's late enough and people are drunk enough "Hey, shitheads" :P
Singular I find that just "hey" is usually enough to get someone's attention.
Oh it totally is. It's less for every day use and more used to address and audience in a theatre. But I love it and like to share it in case people are likely to be in a public speaking context and want to add a little flourish