How far should we push toward gender neutrality?

Sorry.

I wish we could let people BE what ever they ARE without pushing.

I agree with @tranquilsea

Push schmush. I see less “pushing” in a toys advert featuring Pram-pushing Spiderman than I do in the uproar coming from the (for some unfathomable reason) offended opposition.

There shouldn’t be any type of push from either direction. If it’s going to happen it will happen, just as it seems to be.

Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. When you push there is always something pushing back.

I agree with the no pushing. I think that things should just change at their own pace. Pushing can harm people’s view of themselves.

We are what we say we are. I hate the fact that more often than not when talking about people in the abstract, ‘he’ is used far more than ‘she’. I do this even though I am sensitive to it.

At birth, we are surrounded by gender cues. Boys don’t play with Barbie dolls and girls don’t want dirt bikes. Boys are good at math and girls aren’t. It’s a nightmare collection of horrid messages.

On top of that, while girls can wear dresses as well as trousers, few men would feel comfortable in a dress. This is due, from my way of looking at it, from the feeling that girls are less than boys.

Even as adults, we’re familiar with the glass ceiling for women; the religions that discriminate against women; and the list goes on.

I would love to have a gender neutral pronoun. I think society would be the better for it. Gender is not digital. It’s analog. We need to stop thinking that there’s something harmless in suggesting gender roles for children.

Our language and society will be stronger when we use ‘he’ to refer to a specific male; ‘she’ when we refer to a specific female and ’something’ when we are not talking about a specific sex.

I agree, to a degree. Yes, the male/female programming is strong, and I do believe we should all see our shared humanity beyond the veil of gender bias, but, I’m not in agreement with forcefully trying to take nature and replace it wholly with nurture. There ARE differences in the sexes and while most are due to our cultural programming, some just are.
I wouldn’t insist on dressing my little boy in dresses and hair ribbons just to make this point.
I do not believe in extremist anything.

It’s never going to work

Last time I checked, no one is in a rush to push for gender neutrality except for some examples here and there (my parenting being one). Some people are interested in gender neutrality (though the Swedes are just interested in it NOT mattering when it comes to certain things where it SHOULDN’T matter rather than doing away with gender, actually) and many others are interested in retrenchment of gender. Also, saying there are people pushing for gender neutrality makes it seem like whatever the rest are doing is NOT pushing when, in fact, people ARE very clearly pushing gender onto their kids. And that’s how it starts. I, for one, am in favor of whatever gender identity or lack thereof a person may have as long as others aren’t policing said expression. So you want to be like it’s 1950s and you’re your husband’s perfect soft ying-yang complement? Fine by me but don’t you dare my tell any of MY children that, therefore, nothing but heterosexuality makes sense.

hse she esh hes ehs he seh s/he s/eh e/sh h/se Just looking for a combo of the letters we might use instead of he/she. I suspect the choice might be for s/he, In time (years) we might gradually change to using he for both, which is what we tend to do now, only it would no longer differentiate male from female. Would that be too confusing? Not if it just evolves.

There are also gender neutral terms, @Sunny2 like ze that many of us use. Or they.

Since the respective genders are easily identfiable once they drop their drawers, it seems attempts to make them indistinguishable are sort of silly. The only way of justifying such a move is to make sure that everybody never drops their pants. When the great debate occurs, all anybody has to do is drop their britches. It is sort of like saying that everybody is the same color.

@josie I believe you are referring more to biological sex rather than gender.

@Plucky When I fill out a form and I have to identify my gender, I only get two choices.
Before we go any further, I do not give one shit about how people live their lives. Unless you take from me without my consent, you can do what you want. But some people want me to pretend according to their whim. I won’t do that.
Higher level critters have two genders. That is the way it is.
Humans have a choice to make. That is also the way it is.
They are not mutually exclusive, but there is no sense pretending either.

I think pushing for it is stupid. If you want to do it in your house hold, fine, go ahead, but forcing just about any sort of practice upon anyone is a really, REALLY, bad idea.

Yawn. Utterly uninterested. Not my issue, bores me thinking about it.

I agree totally with @Seek_Kolinahr, and I’d like to add that I enjoy being a “woman” for the most part and I would never get offended by someone referring to me as a “woman”. I am a woman. I think pushing people to become gender neutral borders on the ridiculous.

Interesting how the wording is shaping this discussion. “Pushing” has such negative connotation, people can’t seem to get over it. I wonder how different it would have seemed had the OP included, “Sweden seeks to eliminate obstructions to gender neutrality.”

I would still be opposed to it. I really do think it’s ridiculous. But you can actually say “pushing” when it comes to parents who deliberately “force” their children into a lifestyle that has a 100% chance of ensuring said children are going to catch a lot of shit from their peers and have a really rough social life.

@WillWorkForChocolate Yeah, that’s how I think of parents who police their children’s gender identity.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Don’t you think it best to let the kids decide what they’re comfortable with? Seems like a double edged sword to me.

I don’t police my children’s identity. They know who they are and who they want to be, and I don’t push them towards certain things to make a statement. I certainly don’t push them towards things that will only serve to get them made fun of and humiliated.

@Coloma Wait a second, was I saying it’s not best to let the kids decide? @WillWorkForChocolate Did I tell you you police their identity? I was agreeing with your comment.

Anyway, I think this is a good movie for people to see if they think gender norms as such are inherent and natural. I, together with many people, argue there is nothing natural about gender identity, it is learned and socialized. Whether you think that’s desirable is up to you. I don’t consider it desirable but, just like many parents here, I teach my children about gender. I just don’t tell them how boys and girls should act.I tell them how other people think they should act and that people do more than just that, they also tell boys and girls how NOT to act, with detrimental results.

I don’t know if I want a special pronoun. That seems like fluff to me. What I want is a world where kids are not programmed into pink and blue from the moment of the first ultrasound. I don’t want little girls being told they shouldn’t like racing fast cars or that they aren’t good at science or that they can’t run as fast as boys. Because let’s face it, there are a lot of women who can run a hell of a lot faster than a lot of men. I guess little boys get the same messages but it doesn’t seem to me that they get so many and the ones they do get are as debilitating and limiting. I wish women could walk or run down the street without unknown people making familiar remarks. I wish jokes about women drivers would cease and desist. I wish jokes about dumb blond females would disappear. Call me she, just treat me like an equal.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir did you want us to watch an add for TNT?

@rooeytoo Agreed, but there are limits. Sorry but no matter how hard I try I just can’t get into sleeping with a man that wants to wear my brand of panties.. lol That’s just the way it is.

@coloma I really can’t think of any limits. People can do what they want to do. But i have the right to choose who I want to share my bed with. And I think women who are brainwashed into wearing thongs and other uncomfortable underwear are crazy so if a man wants to wear it I will think he is nuts too.

Of course, humor, humor. ;-)

hehehe, I thought you were serious and it struck me as strange. You of all people I thought would enjoy such an adventure!

@rooeytoo That’s why when I was a little boy and I wanted to wear pink and make cookies and play with my sister’s dollhouse, my parents let me do what I wanted. I appreciate that they did that.

That’s the kind of attitude I’d have toward my children. I wouldn’t push toward gender neutrality, but I also wouldn’t push gender stereotypes on children. I’d led them develop their own characteristics and tastes, whether or not they match up exactly with gender norms.

@rooeytoo Sure…I don’t know why it’s going to that video. The movie is called Codes of Gender.

@janbb You’re welcome.

@tranquilsea As do I, but we both know that major social change is always pushed along. The push may come from people or nature, but major change on the scale the Swedes are looking for, seldom happens without a driving force pushing it.

@Seek_Kolinahr As mentioned above, sea changes in human behavior seldom occur without a fight. And we have to remember that the “offended opposition” still carry the genes and memes of the raping and pillaging Vikings of yore.

@Blondesjon Change does happen—and almost always with a driver such as peer pressure. The witticism that the only constant is change is close enough to reality that it makes sense to most of us without any explanation.

@marinelife In the ideal world, which this is definitely not…

@ro_in_motion My understanding is this all began with a national debate about a preferred gender neutral pronoun. I’d love to have to have a better one than s/he in English. Forward slashes are so darn difficult to pronounce.

@Coloma Amen. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Fair enough. Sauce from the goose, however, is definitely not sauce from the gander.

@flutherother You might be surprised.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Excellent point. Pushing classical notions of gender rolls onto our children has been the way of the world throughout time. What Sweden is loking for is backing off that pressure, and letting the chips fall where they may.

@Sunny2 Thanks for the permutations of the gender specific singular nominative pronouns. For spoken communication, though, there are a fair number of those permutations that will not work. I have no idea how any of this translates into Swedish. I tend to prefer what @Simone_De_Beauvoir suggests, using some altogether new construct like ze. Of course, that’s pronounced “she”. But I’d be cool with being that kind of a ze. They think they would confuse too many of them.

@josie I think @Plucky has it right. This is not about plumbing. It’s more about what the CPU thinks of itself and others. @josie Conservatives just hate it when somebody starts mucking around with the well-established order they grew up with. Even us liberals can get a bit unnerved by that.

@King_Pariah Sweden seems determined to push, so I guess we will have a chance to observe what happens without risking blowing up our own culture to find out. Not such a bad deal. :-)

@Trillian I am glad you felt so strongly motivated not to answer. :-)

@WillWorkForChocolate Like you, I have plenty of room for those who don’t wish to follow the binary norms. But like you I wonder whether pushing for a rapid adoption of single-state is a good idea. What surprises will the law of unintended consequences have in store for the Scandinavians?

@6rant6 What an excellent point. I wish now I had worded it exactly like that.

@WillWorkForChocolate I’m with @Simone_De_Beauvoir on that. The pushing has been there throughout the ages. This movement is really an attempt tp end it, and let kids be what suits them.

@DominicX – I am sure boys have just as many limitations placed on them by society as girls do, I am just not as familiar with them. Good on your parents for letting you be who you wanted to be. And I agree, until humans evolve into androgynous creatures, I don’t know that gender realistically can be neutral, but let’s get rid of the damned stereotypes and strictures!

Well goodnight people, may your breasts and scrotums sleep like babies, blissfully free and floating in your non-gender blankets. lol

@DominicX Great way of summing up that debate. Thanks. @rooeytoo is absolutely right. Forcing roles on people limits all—not just one gender.

@Coloma Now if only I can become double jointed enough to take advantage of having both. :-)

gag me with political correctness.

sheit.

From the Slate article @ETPro linked: One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys “gender-coded” them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed “free playtime” from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.” And so every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children’s lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.”

I don’t like that.

I think Sweden may be going too far. What about specific things like Gender specific rest rooms. Or how do you make maternity non-gender specific? How about the fact that most girls prefer dolls and most boys like trucks and trains?

I believe in complete gender equality, after-all, my children are girls, but see no need in gender neutrality.

@ETpro I agree this conversation has gone rather far from the original question.

I would be very comfortable with using, say, ‘ha’ and ‘hem’ for gender neutral pronouns.

For the ones who are making this too complicated, a gender neutral pronoun is used where the pronoun is not specifying a preferred gender. In English, the default condition seems to indicating using the male pronoun. We are what we say: using ‘he’ when the intended person is either/both a boy and a girl is just wrong.

We could just go back to saying ye, thou, thee, thy, thine…

Do “most” girls really prefer dolls and “most” boys really like trucks and trains, or is that what they have been force fed since birth.

That is what I mean, I don’t care if you call me she, ha, whatever, just don’t tell me what I like based on my gender!

I agree with what thou said ^^^.

@anartist Excessive political correctness can have a cloying effect on me too. You’re in luck. I love gagging people with spoons. Step up close, and let’s do this. Maybe watching you barf witll get me going too, and I can get the cloying taste of PC out of my mouth. :-)

@bkcunningham I’m with you. I don’t like cramming “approved” gender identities down our throats; but I’m just as opposed to cramming alternate identities in there.

ro_in_motion I generally use they when I don’t know whether the subject is male, female or a mix thereof. I love bkcunningham‘s suggestion to ye, thou, thee, thy, thine… If it was good enough for King James, it’s fine with this James as well. OK, so now you guys know my real name, call me Jim. :-)

@rooeytoo I honestly don’t know. I think that it’s dependent on the person. As a really little tyke, I thought girls were incredibly pretty. I loved their clothes and wanted to wear them and look like them. But I also wanted to play with tinker toys, build things with blocks, and as I got older, with an erector set. Go figure.

I haven’t read the previous answers, it got a little bit confusing, but I think this idea is very exciting. Gender-neutral pronouns are wonderful things. As far as language is concerned, does the he/she difference actually serve a purpose? Pretty much since the advent of civilisation, human societies have divided themselves on the basis of gender. Thus the establishment of patrichal systems, and the ‘battle of the sexes’ mentality, which I think is a big problem. I think that modern thought should challenge these ideas.

The regulation of free-play is absolutely a concern, and I am unsure whether changing the marketing of children’s toys will have a huge effect, at least for this generation. The majority of kids will probably fall into the established gender norms anyway, but I don’t think they need any help from us.

@rooeytoo

A good question.

I frequently sell stuff at a local flea market. My booth is right next to a guy that sells used toys. Everything in his stall is used “boy” toys: action figures, Matchbox cars, finger skateboards, cap guns, etc. Why, you ask? Is he some sort of chauvinist? no.

He’ll tell you straight up, he’s been doing this for 15 years, and just about no one, girl, boy or indifferent, wants a used Barbie doll. Girls want Ninja Turtles and Lightning McQueen just as much as boys do, and neither wants much to do with plastic makeup. He just doesn’t bother toting around junk no one buys.

See, in a normal store setting, parents are making the majority of the purchasing decisions. Sure, when a toy appears in a kid’s room, they’ll play with it. But when you take them to the flea market, hand them a fiver and tell them to pick their stuff? It’s Pokemon cards and Green Lantern all day long, folks.

I have to say that I really hate politically correct language. Those forced changes in nouns and pronouns are mind bending and irrational.

I really like the idea of opposite sexes and see nothing wrong with homosexual relationships. Isn’t this “neutral language” really confusing, especially to homosexuals?

And what about animals…is it gender biased to call a female dog a bitch? lol
Animals are not concerned with gender, they accept their gender without question. Why should we humans be any different?
I’m all for the basics of non-stereotyping, but really…I agree, a lot of this “ze” and other insane reframing of he/she is beyond borderline insane. Okay..I’ll kick myself out of this discussion now. haha

@Ron_C and @Coloma But there are people who don’t identify as either male or female. What pronoun do you suggest be used in that case?

@Coloma Not buying the argument. The animals just don’t enter into the discussion. This is a conversation among intelligent people some of whom can see a spectrum and others who see a binary. The entire LGBTQ movement breaks down the formerly binary sexual and gender identity. As the spectrum gets filled, we begin to see that the traditional binary just isn’t good enough.

I have friends that represent the spectrum: I even have friends that are ‘aren’t’ when it comes to gender or sex. They don’t identify as either male or female and they don’t feel sexual attractions to anyone.

Binary thinking is stupid and, frankly, dangerous: ‘All Muslims are terrorists!’; ‘All Jews Are Greedy’; ‘All Christians are not Christ-like at all’.

Some resistance to expanding our vocabulary is ‘If it was good enough for my Grandparents, it’s good enough for me!’. In my case that means we’d have slavery; women would only be minor functionaries in the workplace; and no gays or lesbians.’ Bull. Gays and Lesbians didn’t have much of a voice and virtually no rights until the insisted on their rights. Where would blacks be without insisting their rights be recognised.

It costs nothing – absolutely nothing – to provide freedom inside the gender and sex spectrum.

@augustlan I don’t know. I get the concept of not identifying with a particular gender, but, biologically, you either are or you are not male/female, unless you are a hermaphrodite in which case you would be both, but with a stronger predilection one way or the other I’d guess. Isn;t this where “shemale” comes into play? Not being disrespectful.

@ro_in_motion I agree with the dangers of binary thinking in the examples you present, but I don’t think sexual orientation or identification is on the same continuum as labeling entire races as terrorists or other unsavory stereotypes. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with anyone that has an issue with their sexual identity, I don’t know just how large or small a segment of humanity we’re talking about compared to entire races.

No, I don’t subscribe to following the archaic old school programming of “my grandparents….blah, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blanks just saying that IMO this topic, while valid in many ways, also drips with the old “grievance looking for a cause” mantra. If someone wishes to dis-identify with sexual gender fine, but do we really need a new word for their choices? I dunno….it just seems a little militant and over the top IMO.

Wouldn’t someone who identifies with neither sex be simply called “asexual”?
What’s wrong with that term, it’s well known and true. ???

@augustlan “but there are people who don’t identify as either male or female. What pronoun do you suggest be used in that case?” That’s a joke, right? I have only met straight, gay, transsexuals, and transvestites (of both sexes). If there is another sex, it’s new to me.

Um, @Ron_C, I hate to break it to you, but @Simone_De_Beauvoir is one. I’ve known others, too.

@Coloma “If someone wishes to dis-identify with sexual gender fine, but do we really need a new word for their choices?” In my opinion, yes. How else would they describe how they identify, how else would they find others who share this experience? Words are awesome, and gender neutral pronouns have entered the vocabulary of many people around the world, especially in the queer community, which I think is evidence enough of a want of these types of words.

Also, the word asexual has many different uses already. And none of the common ones that I am aware of mean “identifying with neither sex”. I’m happy to leave the creation of words to those who need them most, no matter how small a group they are.

@iphigeneia Fair enough. I had no idea what a hot topic this is. What can I say, I “identify” as a middle aged bohemian heterosexual female, but I don’t mind if someone calls me a hippie. lol
I was just talking with my 24 yr. old daughter who enlightened me more on this issue.

Still…I think in some ways there’s a lot of ego at play, if we know who we are, and are secure about that from within does a word really matter? We are all multi-facited far beyond our gender identity and to reduce the complex totality of a human to one identifying word is an impossibility but…for whoever it is that important to, go for it. ;-)

@iphigeneia I don’t suppose that gender specific pronouns serve any useful purpose in language. They allow us to become morally outraged when a he or a she does something meant ONLY for the opposite gender, but what is really limited in such a way? I’m thinking of certain biological functions, such as nurturing an egg cell or providing a sperm cell to fertilize it; but those functions work regardless of the pronoun we assign.

@Seek_Kolinahr I would guess that for a generation or maybe two, not a whole lot would change. Those who felt most constricted by the current gender attitudes would become more liberated first. But time would probably disperse that reaction to a wider group. There will always be the outliers who are extreme macho men or womanly women (isn’t it interesting we have no word for the feminine counterpart of macho? ” We have “manly man” or “girly girl” but not “womanly woman”. Are extremely feminine women really forever childlike? I don’t think so.).

@Ron_C I would guess gender neutral language is welcome by most homosexuals and by the wider “queer nation” and not at all off-putting to them. God knows they have suffered due to explicit gender expectations of society.

@Coloma Animals obviously are unconcerned with the pronouns we apply to them, and don’t apply such to themselves or their fellow animals. But among the higher intelligence species, they exhibit a range of gender behavior that makes it clear humans aren’t uniquely dreaming this shit up.

@augustlan Indeed there are. I am one.

@ro_in_motion Very well said. I completely agree regarding binary thinking.

@Coloma It;s an incredibly nuanced world. Hermaphrodites are individuals born with the genitalia of both genders. A rare few are so complete they could actually impregnate themselves. Normally, males have X-Y sex chromosomes and females have X-X. But a rare few are born with X-X-Y. What’s that? And shemales are none of the above. They are males who want to be and often look for the world like females. Then there are drag queens, who dress up like females but are generally gay males. Where a shemale or transsexual would never think of wearing the “wrong” kind of underwear, a drag queen often dons a wig, makeup and pretty dress to attract males; but sees nothing incongruous with wearing male underwear.

There are definitely people, myself included, who don’t feel specifically male or female, but who are not even close to asexual. And there are asexual individuals who have no problem with their birth gender, but no interest in getting it on with anyone, male, female or somewhere in between. It’s a big world out there. :-)

@Ron_C No joke. As @augustlan notes, you’ve met @Simone_De_Beauvoir. You’ve met me. I am sure there are other gender blenders here.

@iphigeneia Well said.

@Coloma GA.

@ETpro OT, perhaps: I have a friend who is a bedrock fundamentalist. She believes that being gay is a sin. I once asked her, “Hermaphrodites? No matter who they have sex with, there’s a gay component no matter how you look at it.” I was hoping it would open her eyes to the fact that being gay is not a sin.

It didn’t work.

@ETpro and @augustlan I follow @Simone_De_Beauvoir and don’t really care what sex any of you claim or disclaim. This is what got me thrown our of a Navy human relations seminar years ago.

The instructor went around the room asking why we were there. All of those military people in civilian dress had these high minded and frankly sickening reasons for being there. When they got to men in my dress blues, I said “Because I was ordered to come”.
The instructor asked “aren’t you interested with getting along with other sexes and races??

I told him, ” I don’t care about the sex or race of the person I with whom I work”. All I care is if that person, assigned to me, does the job and works well with others. I was about 23 at the time and one of the Navy’s youngest E6’s. and worked with a wide variety of people and foreign nationals and didn’t really care about their race, sex, religion, national origin or anything else except if they worked well in my group. I haven’t changed much in the last 40 some years.

I was excused from the class with full credit.

@ro_in_motion Yeah, I don’t think your example is evidence that homosexuality is okay. It’s just proof that god creates some people just so he can fuck with them.

^^ oops. Excuse my language. What I meant to write was,

“It’s just proof that god creates some people just so he, she or it can fuck with them.”

@6rant6 I assume you’re being funny – it’s so damn hard to tell without emoticons (especially being new here). But, yes, if there’s a God and if he’s anything like what some people think he is, he comes across as a jealous, malign thug. In that scenario, he created us so he could fuck with all of us.

When in doubt, assume I’m funny. I do!~ __<—By the way, that’s the way you’re supposed to indicate tongue in cheek. Personally, I find it condescending.__

As someone who doesn’t identify with a gender I was raised (sexed female at birth, raised as a girl), asking for a pronoun to reflect who I am is NOT demanding political correctness. If you are omg, so over being PC and you’d rather reproduce existing inequalities, go right ahead. But if, instead, you have half a brain and half a heart and you want to be my friend, then it would be no blood off your body to consider using a gender neutral pronoun. Language matters, people and it is in resistance to changes in language such as these that we see people freaking out about sex and gender norms changing. And just to review, asexual is a sexuality. Here, we’re discussing gender identity. Though intertwined, they’re not the same. Not for me, anyway.

@Coloma I get that you think that ego is at play, or that this applies to such a tiny portion of the population that it is just nitpicking, I wonder how you (or anyone else having trouble grasping this) might feel if from now on, everyone referred to you as “he” or “him” or “his.” You know you are a “she,” you have always been a “she” and you feel like a “she,” and some of us are fortunate to have our genders match our biological sex, but that isn’t true for everyone. I imagine that thinking of it as some kind of experiment would make it easy to say that you wouldn’t really care much, but if the world really did see you that way, if the world started insisting that you are a “he” and not a “she,” it wouldn’t feel very good. The purpose of neutrality is to be inclusive, not to strip anyone of their identity.

Sometimes I think the easiest way to understand things like this is to imagine how they might apply to us.

Ok, I was going to post how, if Sweden could just being so freaking cold, I’d be there. But then the minister of culture had basically the most racist, blackface, FGM cake imaginable, so it seems like maybe Sweden isn’t much better than our fucked-up ass.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir The silver lining of the gender-neutral pronoun backlash is, you get to find out really quickly what people are totally unwilling to put in the bare minimum amount of work into being respectful, and don’t have to waste anymore time hanging out with them. It’s very close to making that wish that jerks wore jerk tattoo on their forehead come true.

@DigitalBlue – it happens every day, referring to women as “guys.”

Not that it is relevant here, but it seemed to me you were forgetting about that, I consider that not particularly flattering.

@Aethelflaed Hey, that is a silver lining!

@DigitalBlue I hear you, but how do we take into account all these nuances in everyday life?
I was in the grocery store the other day and was goo gooing over a darling little 9 month old boy in a grocery cart. So, I said ” Oooh what a cutie, how old is he?” Obviously addressing the baby as a “he” was not an issue for his parents, but really…just HOW are we supossed to change our basic orientation to accomodate everyone? HOW would I KNOW if I was offending parents with a gender neutral mindset?

What are we supposed to say ” Oh, how old is IT? I feel that this is an intimate thing on a case by case basis and there is no way we can please all of the people all of the time.
If I become close to a person and they wish to have me address them as whatever, fine, but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to know what someones gender orientation is unless you get to know them.

Just HOW do we get around gender identification in casual everyday encounters?

@Coloma It normally isn’t considered better to shift to “it”, but you could say “Ooooh, what a cutie! How old, now?” or “How old are they?” or even “I’m guessing… 7 months?” (No, 8! Oooo, what a precious age!)

I have yet to use “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun and have someone be offended right off the bat. (Though I’d imagine some would be offended if they offered up their preferred pronoun and I didn’t use it). The queer community does actually do a lot of work making gender neutrality a viable option; it’s not just bitching and then no creation.

@Aethelflaed So whats “queer” really mean? Gay, or something else…hey, I really don’t know this stuff hardly at all. :-?

If someone, like @Simone_De_Beauvoir for instance, makes it clear to me that they don’t identify with a gender I really try to be aware of how I address that person. Otherwise, I really don’t give the pronoun I use a second thought unless I’m not sure what gender the person is in the in first place. I don’t think that is thoughtless or rude.

@Coloma Queer… is fortunately and unfortunately one of those words without a set meaning. It differs from person to person. But, in general, it means, coming from the idea that our current understanding of sexuality and gender is some fucked up, harmful shit, and should be changed. There’s a lot of “subvert the dominant paradigm” in it (I’ve heard it described as ‘the label that says “fuck off” and “ask me more” all at the same time’). It’s normally at least a partially political label, that means something along the lines of “I don’t want to be boxed in to any of the current gender identities, or sexual orientations”. When I say the queer community in this context, it’s basically a large group of people – asexual and agender people, transgender and transexual people, intersex people, bisexuals, lesbians, feminists, gay men, gender-non-conforming people… (I feel like I’m missing a group or two? Who’ve I left out of the quiltbag?) – who don’t fit into your traditional heteronormative model, where’s he’s straight and she’s straight and they’re married and he goes to work and she gets pregnant. In terms of gender neutral pronouns, I think Kate Bornstein is the go-to person, though Simone might totally come in and correct me on that.

Okay…well, this is where I just don’t compute. Sooo…the “queer” community takes no offense at being called “queer” which has a denigrating aura meaning odd, not normal, different, freakish, yet the he/she label is offensive. I just don’t get it. Sorry.
Whats up with this? :-/

@Coloma Well, it depends on how you’re saying it. If you’re just saying it like the label they asked you to call them, then it’s ok. If you’re saying it with a sneer and an ew, then it’s not. It’s the difference between calling DominicX gay (which he is and identifies as such), and calling a show “so gay…” or saying that because DominicX is gay he really has no rights to marriage.

But, the point is to not be normal, because normal has really hurt them. Normal has said they don’t exist. Normal has said, you’re a perv for wanting equitable orgasms. Normal has said, either you’re totally comfortable as a woman with female genitals and have zero qualms, or you’re a man in a woman’s body, and there’s no in between. Normal has said, that 17 year old lesbian can’t rape 13 year old you, because children aren’t sexual and women can’t rape. You’re assuming that to be “not normal” is always derogatory. Not everyone wants to be normal.

@Aethelflaed Hmmmm…well…lots to consider, that’s for sure. Of course women can rape and of course the bell shaped curve needs to be shaplier, still, I’d think that the term “queer” would be more offensive than innocently calling a human by their biological presentation. I mean, if it walks like a duck, so okay, maybe it’s an Albatross, and clearly a heavy one around the neck of gender identification. lol

@Coloma Definitely don’t call someone queer unless they’ve identified that way. But “they” can be used in the meantime, until you get to know them better.

@Aethelflaed I saw that Swedish story in the Guardian. Did you watch the video? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/17/sweden-europe-news

@ro_in_motion Yup. Some seriously bone-chilling stuff.

@DigitalBlue Beautifully stated. Thanks.

@Aethelflaed That is indeed a silver lining. Thanks… Now, what am I to do with the big dark cloud?

@rooeytoo There’s that too. Same thing on the opposite side of the scale. We’re far from even treating males and females equally. Why would we expect to do better by the outliers?

@Coloma Excellent question in its own right. How do we integrate gender sensitivity into everyday interactions? Perhaps the biblical Thee, Thou, etc. might have merit. That appears to be what Sweden is determined to determine.

@Aethelflaed How about how old is the baby?

@Aethelflaed Well, you left me out. But then, I’m not even sure what group I’m in. Waiting to be a transsexual, but not gifted with the proper genes? I’ve got rippling muscles and a full, close trimmed beard. I look as macho as the Govenator. But I’m not. But fortunately I don’t feel the least bit slighted when casual acquaintances don’t know all that.

@Aethelflaed In first person, you works too. :-)

@ro_in_motion That is truly disgusting. That’s Sweden’s idea of sensitivity? Wow!

@Coloma “Okay…well, this is where I just don’t compute. Sooo…the “queer” community takes no offense at being called “queer” which has a denigrating aura meaning odd, not normal, different, freakish, yet the he/she label is offensive. I just don’t get it. Sorry.
Whats up with this? :-/”

1. There is no reason to put the queer community in quotes unless you are going to do that for straight people, as well.
2. Some people do take offense at being called queer when they don’t identify as such…kind of like if I called you a whore and that’s not what you do for a living and you think that’s a bad thing to be called. If someone says, I identify as queer, that’s my sexuality, then it’s okay to use that term. It’s not so hard to understand, really.

It’s complicated no doubt.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, I think the complication comes in addressing people without knowing them. Changing pronouns for everyone’s use to fit a minority of people, agree or disagree, is where the controversy comes in, at least that is how I see it.

It’s not complicated once you get the hang of it. :)

For example, a transgender male (one who was born with the sexual characteristics of a female but the gender of a male) should always be referred to as ‘he’. Likewise for a transgender female, use ‘she’.

You can read more and get a feeling for some of the current issues starting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT

That is my point, @ro_in_motion. I don’t know if someone is transgendered when we first meet. When I find that out, I’ll refer to them with any word they ask me to use when referencing them.

@bkcunningham Perfect. Just as a style note, the preferred usage is not ‘if someone is transgendered’ but rather ‘if someone is transgender’. Transgender is the state someone is born into, it is not a process that occurs after birth. :)

All I want is a gender neutral pronoun that carries no connotation whatsoever.

So I can use, say, @Simone_De_Beauvoir‘s “Ze” to refer to a person whose gender I simply don’t know, or in an example where the gender of the person referenced doesn’t matter. It would be nice to be able to write a sentence like this:

”@ro_in_motion and I saw the new Quentin Tarantino movie last week and ze really liked it. I still don’t get the appeal of that guy.”

Now, since I have no idea whether @ro is genetically male or female, nor their gender of identification, I’d like it to be acceptable to use “ze” as a pronoun, instead of “s/he” or “he/she” or “they”. Double points if @ro_in_motion were to not be offended at all at the use of “ze” in that sentence.

I get it, @Seek_Kolinahr. You want to be able to describe someone you already know and how they identify themselves. Right?

We should not just push but sweatily thrust towards the orgasm that is gender neutrality.

@bkcunningham Not necessarily.

For example, in the question about whether we read science fiction, I slipped the word “ze” in.

”...the magical gray area between sci-fi and fantasy where the author doesn’t quite know which ze is writing.”

Is the author male or female? Makes no difference to the sentence. Why immediately assign “he” to the sentence, or use the inaccurately plural “they”, since I’m not directly referencing a book with two authors?

Putting aside situations where someone just prefers to be identified as she or he; how would you handle situations where identifying the person as male or female or whatever was important? Say, for instance, going with the author example, the author is writing about personal experiences that happened to her/him and knowing they were male or female was important to the story. Or suppose you are identifying a perpetrator? Does that make sense?

I’m not saying to remove gendered pronouns entirely. I just want the option to use a gender neutral alternative when gender is unknown or unimportant, instead of defaulting to male, or plural, or a clunky amalgamation like “s/he” (kind of like how you had to use “her/him” in your post. Wouldn’t it be much nicer if there was a word for that?)

Not to sound short or rude, but…what is stopping you?

The lack of a commonly accepted word in the English language.

@bkcunningham The lack of a universally known and accepted alternative, I’d imagine.

Pinch, poke. Owe me a Coke. ^_^

Damn it. :p

I thought there were advocates for the gender neutral words. Otherwise, where did you get ze? Start using the words and if someone doesn’t know what you mean, hopefully they’ll ask.

Well, I’ll have you all know that I have been discussing this issue everywhere I go the last few days, it’s a mixed bag.. The same mixed bag I hold. lol
I was discussing this with a mom in the store today with a little “boy” and a little “girl”...she was baffled as well. Sooo…the trickle down effect is trickling with Coloma. haha
Once I sink my teeth into an issue I get “queer” about it. Uh oh..was that a phallis in the mouth comment?

My son is 3½. So far, I haven’t cut his hair. He has long, blonde, curly locks. He also has such interests as are usually attributed to boys – race cars, baseball, Pokemon, such as like. I let him choose his own clothes, and he dresses like a “boy”.

Still, a good 85% of the time or more, the go-to quote is “What an adorable little girl!” or “She really loves cars, doesn’t she?”

I’d say it’s because he has long hair, but my husband has long hair, too, and no one mistakes him for a woman.

Now, I couldn’t care less. I just say, “Thanks, I think he’s cute, too.” but there are people who insist that he must be a girl because he’s too cute! To the point of arguing, even. Like I’m not aware that my son has a penis.

Why can’t it be okay for a kid to be cute, regardless of whether ze is male or female?

@Seek_Kolinahr I love little boys with long hair, and this is nothing new, Been pretty mainstream since the 60’s-70’s. I had a friend whose little son was the cutest boy ever in the 70’s, long ringlet hair like a little Jimmy Page. haha He was always being mistaken for a little girl.

Yep. My son looks like the little boy on the Zeppelin album cover.

@Seek_Kolinahr Yes! The Houses of the Holy Zepplin album, so did my friends little son.
Hey, I’m the hippie throwback type, nothing cuter than naked babies in nature. haha

I’m no conservative masculist or traditionalist by a longshot, but when you’re born as a certain sex there are some differences that divide us whether we want to believe them or not. I do believe there is a line here, and Sweden in my opinion has gone too far with this.

@Paradox25 Which differences are you talking about? Can you be specific?

@Paradox25 All people have differences between them. Whey keep sticking them into two groups? And furthermore, what are these differences to mean? All that they’ve ever been used for is to subordinate women and trans people.

@ro_in_motion & @Simone_De_Beauvoir, I am looking forward to @Paradox25 explaining that in more detail as well.

I happen to @ETpro and @Simone_De_Beauvoir are very intelligent and interesting people and it is a pleasure to read their comments, questions, and answers. Please don’t think me prejudiced because I refer to them as “he” and “she”. I think “it“is disrespectful but I am very uncomfortable inventing new pronouns and adjectives.

My pet goose “Marilyn” turned into a boy at 4 months old when I discovered “she” had a penis. lol
It was a bit of an adjustment, but now, 14 years later “Marwyn” is fully integrated and so am I. Transgender goose, he’s come fully out of the barn. haha

@ETpro I’ve been called both “he” and “she” depending on how I looked at the time. Since I’ve resigned myself to live as nature designed my outer shell, he is just fine with me. I have been called a whole lot worse.

But I can understand how those who struggle with the dichotomous gender identities we tend to impose on all around us yearn for some term that better fits them. It’s off to me that English had gender neutral pronouns in wide usage at the time of the King James translation of the Bible; and that in this more enlightened time we see such as an impossibility.

@Coloma, Here’s to Marilyn/Marwyn. As long as the grass and grain is good, this bird really doesn’t care. Call me “he” or “she” but whatever, call me to dinner.

@ETpro and @Simone_De_Beauvoir I hope that I am not on your shit list because of language differences. I wish we lived close so that we could go out for dinner sometime. It is rare that I agree with people on so many other reasons, except for changing “the King’s English”.

@Ron_C Changing the King’s English? It’s one of the most constantly changing languages around!

My favorite quote: “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.”
― James Nicoll

Yeah, @ro_in_motion you’re probably right, I really like that quote. I guess it illustrates my point. I don’t mind using other languages but I don’t like it changed from withing, especially the urban street slang. I say we continue mugging other languages in the dark allies but any other changes should limited to technical additions.

@Ron_C I like change from within – it helps identify the good and the bad of what’s going on in a society.

This is about activism and social change, not about linguistics.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Believe it or not I’m actually with you on this. The physical differences are obvious enough to pretend that they do not exist, and that’s where I was getting at. I also believe that constructed gender roles have alot to do with each sex and their behaviors. Will the world be better off by eliminating gender behavior expectations? I don’t know.

@ETpro I’m familiar enough with the Swedish version of feminism. I’ve read plenty of internet and magazine articles about it.