I Got They'd. Why Do I Care?

8/23/2017

It was bound to happen sometime. I was out with a friend-acquaintance-colleague I hadn't seen in a few years. She was ordering for both of us and--gesturing to me--told the server, "They'd like a cup of coffee."

[Record player screeches to a halt.]

I have always used "she," so it was weird to me that this friend would assume that I had switched to "they." It's not as if I look more masculine than I did a few years ago. I can only assume that for her, the context has changed--people who look like me (butch women) are now, at least as a default, "they."

I corrected my friend, saying, "She, please," (after the server left), and my friend replied, "Oh, I just wanted to be safe."

Safe? Wouldn't "safe" be assuming that I still use the pronouns I have always used, unless I tell her otherwise? My friend replied that most people who look like me use "they."

I continued to boil quietly about this. Afterward, I kept wondering why it bothered me so much. I don't get angry when people accidentally call me "he"--in fact, I go out of my way to tell them not to worry about it. Gender mistakes happen. Who cares? Although, if someone who knew me suddenly started referring to me as "he," I would be surprised and possibly annoyed. But I still think "they" bothered me more than "he" would have.

And it's not as if I'm the pronoun police. When I'm in a group and we have to go around and give our preferred pronouns, I now tell people that I don't care about pronouns. They always use "she," because (1) my name strongly signals "femaleness" and (2) I think(!?) I "look like a woman"--or rather, I look like some instantiation of woman with which they are somewhat familiar (the outside layer of a Rachel Maddow babushka doll).

But I guess I do care about pronouns--at least a little. I didn't like my friend assuming that a gender nonconforming look is de facto incompatible with being a woman. I felt like I was being gender policed--as if she was telling me, "You're not doing 'woman' correctly anymore--people like you are a 'they.'" This chafes me. A "she" can look any way at all. And part of my stubborn refusal to use anything but she, despite my annoyance at the very existence of gendered pronouns, is an assertion that this is what a woman looks like.

Grr. I don't know. It's weird. If I hate gendered pronouns, why don't I like "they?" I'm still wrapping my head around why I cared so much. It's at least partly because I don't love "they" as a singular pronoun. Maybe I should just adopt a random word or phrase, like "puppy" or "the silver robot" or "sulky capybara" as my pronoun. Then she would have had to say, "The silver robot would like a cup of coffee," so I'd at least get a chuckle out of it.

18 Comments

Tracy

8/23/2017 09:07:42 am

I get it. I'm in the same boat. I use she, present as very masculine and don't get flustered at the random he and sir. But when people assume "they" it annoys me.

I'm not always sure about why, either. It feels too touchy feely, "I get your 'struggle' and I want you to know I'm an ally" to me, I think. And that grates on me (usually because these are the same people who think all of my public bathroom anxieties are baseless, too).

Root cause is we still don't have good language for anything not one or the other and "they" is an imperfect solution at best. And we're not, as a society, quite prepared for anyone who is across the gender spectrum instead of the binary option. It's like it messes with our western sensibilities, so we have to find a way to label and define, thus throw a "they" out there, nod that everything is in its rightful place and go about your business. Mislabeling makes us uncomfortable.

And, let's also be honest, at this point in time, using "they" makes you come across like you want attention for it because it stands out. It's not the norm, so you run the risk of "throwing it in people's faces" with a simple introduction or asking for coffee. When really, we just want some freaking coffee, we don't care what you think of our gender as long as you make with the caffeine.

Dana

8/23/2017 09:18:25 am

I agree completely. I think the automatic "they", even when well-intentioned, ends up reinforcing gender norms by essentially telling women that they're weird for not adhering to traditional ideas of how women should dress and act. I know women who had a harder time coming to terms with themselves as nontraditional women, and especially as lesbians, because their friends and acquaintances kept treating them as if they were "supposed" to identify as something other than a woman, just because of their hair and clothing.

8/23/2017 10:09:57 am

Completely agree. Someone should ask what pronouns you use before making an assumption. And no matter how masculine or androgynous a woman looks, if she identifies as female she is a she. Very rude to assume otherwise. I look completely female and have no interest in changing but identify as non-binary. They would be more appropriate to use for me but no one has ever assumed that they should.

Amanda L Allee

12/13/2017 03:01:07 am

Actually as a masculine woman that passes as a male 80% of the time and live as a woman asking my pronouns everywhere I go would be like asking if I'm a boy or a girl everywhere and it's incredibly rude.

Ray

8/23/2017 10:20:45 am

I understand why you feel that way, especially if your friend knows your pronouns already. But I think for a lot of people, "they" is a way to not assume how someone identifies and can be a placeholder until you know their pronouns. I am nonbinary, I use they/them but I also know people can't be expected to know that. It comes down to respect and not assuming how someone identifies based solely on how you perceive them.

8/23/2017 12:52:19 pm

Why not just ask what pronoun they use before using "they"?

8/25/2017 05:45:20 pm

Because if you're in public or a situation where it may not be safe or appropriate to ask, it's a way to respect a non normative gender expression without putting them on the spot.

Whitney Lauren

8/23/2017 12:23:52 pm

I care very much when I'm they/themed and he/himed or any other pronouns are used for me besides she/her. I'm a woman no matter how masculine looking anyone thinks I am. Assuming I'm neutral or a man pisses me off. I do my best not to assume for other folks and ask or wait until ppl tell me what's up before using pronouns. If ppl use he/him or they/them, I 100% use those for those folks and think it's important to do so. My she/her pronouns are equally as important.

Liberacion

8/24/2017 05:33:11 am

The story makes me sad, though I'm glad you shared it.

You are correct: in the increasingly hypergendered and gender-polarized social climate of countries like the United States, where I believe you live, many "liberal" people actually are flummoxed and at a loss when encountering women who don't "do" cultural womanhood yet who still openly acknowledge that they are, irrevocably, women.

I commend you for openly acknowledging the irrevocable and immutable reality that you are a woman when the cultural climate is such that many women deny they are women, simply because they don't fulfill patriarchal expectations of what a woman looks, acts or (internally) "feels" like.

Pronouns in English and most languages are based on sex, not on whichever cultural "packages" (dress, hobbies, mannerisms-- i.e. "gender") toward which a person gravitates.

Sex is inherently neutral, as well as unchangeable and eternal. Like our species (homo sapiens) and our ethnicity (which parts of the world our ancestors originated in), sex is a neutral fact that is permanently set well before birth and extends even past our death to our skeletal and DNA remains.

Unfortunately, just as in a racist world our ethnicity loses its neutrality, so too in patriarchy does sex lose its neutrality. It becomes encumbered with the baggage known as "gender" (i.e. stereotypes of one's sex). Most women and girls have at some point felt dreadful about the expectations imposed upon them based on the genitals they were born with/their sex. Most still muddle along with the cultural package designated for them. Some (you perhaps?) are powerfully drawn to the cultural package the world has designated for male-sexed people. A few report that they fluctuate between the two cultural poles.

We are all still women, from now until eternity. We are all still "she" and "her." And as a happily homosexual woman, I am glad that this is so, even if I am sad each time a woman denies the neutral reality of her sex because we live in a world that makes "womanhood" something narrow, suffocating, intolerable.

I am deeply grateful for the women like you who are increasingly few reminders to an increasingly tunnel-visioned world that "womanhood" is anything a female adult human chooses to make of her life.

By the way, if you have not done so, you should check out the YouTube videos of the Dutch lesbian " peachyoghurt." She is of a generation or two older than you and I but the truth she speaks is desperately needed by young lesbians and other women in Western countries who are being taught that not feeling feminine means they may not be women.

dalex986

8/24/2017 07:08:43 am

Trans people exist and that's okay. It is no great patriarchal beguilement to recognize one's self as transgender and take measures to express yourself honestly. Someone else's experience with gender has no impact on my own except to potentially expand my understanding of myself or provide an example of a new way of self-expression. Further, the author of this piece never says, or makes any assertion, that woman-ness is an irrevocable, biologically-fixed imperative. Your TERF ideology superimposed that onto her text.

BW link

8/24/2017 08:03:57 am

@dalex986: Thanks.
@Liberacion: I don't think that being assigned female at birth means that someone is "immutably" "a woman." Nor do I think that trans men are unthinkingly adopting some dominant patriarchal ideology. I'd say that "womanhood" is anything someone who identifies as a woman chooses to make out of her life. The reason your comment didn't sit well with me is that it denies the reality that trans people and nonbinary people exist, and that their identities are just as valid as mine! Perhaps that's not how you meant it, and certainly I wouldn't want anyone to transition because they have a limited idea of what being a woman is, or they feel like they are not "doing" womanhood in a valid way. But at the same time, I wouldn't want anyone NOT to transition because they feel like they're somehow "betraying" half the population or being a bad feminist. I want people to be who they are, and I want everyone else to recognize them as such.

8/24/2017 08:34:57 am

Hi BW, thanks for responding. I appreciate where you're coming from and am sorry if it seemed I was ascribing an intention to your post that wasn't there; I was just very happy to read a post by a butch woman in my age range who wants to go by "she." This is something of great personal value to me.

I would like to respond further to your response but will await a green light or red light from you as to whether you'd prefer I don't comment again in this thread. I value the opportunity for lesbians with differing worldviews to come together and talk about subjects important to our communities, but of course it's your blog and the call is yours.

8/24/2017 01:15:37 pm

@Liberacion: of course you can keep commenting! Please do! Part of why I write this blog is to get dialogue and share different perspectives. Even if I don't agree with you, I want to hear your point of view (and this goes for everyone!). And I think that even if I disagree with you intellectually, I get where you're coming from emotionally, at least in some sense. I'm in my thirties, and it *does* seem like there's an assumption that I must be uncool, retro, or anti-trans if I identify as a woman. Nope, nope, and nope. Just doing my own thing. (Well, possibly uncool.)

amsilldn

8/24/2017 06:51:51 pm

I think what bothers me most about things like this (aside from my intense level of rigidity about they being a plural pronoun) is how it erases my identity. I can be a woman and look masculine. Just because I look masculine doesn't mean I'm gender non-conforming or I'm transitioning or interested in doing so. The assumptions about and ignorance towards/erasure of my identity because I look like a dude infuriate me more than I can express.

8/24/2017 07:31:36 pm

This is why I sometimes wonder if people feel that they are trans instead of just gender nonconforming. I think they think masculine = male and feminine = female and feel they have to transition. Particularly for people from a very rigid conservative environment.

8/27/2017 06:42:10 pm

I think this is why many masculine presenting women question whether or not they are trans, but I don't think it is why they transition. If you don't have body dysphoria as a woman, can you imagine what would happen if you became a man? No, I think after doing research and all that most would realize they're not trans. But I'm quite certain it leads to the question of "am I trans?" some masculine presenting women ask.

Les

8/26/2017 11:25:39 am

I am in my early 20s and living in Europe. I am glad you posted this!!
I have been asked about my pronouns a lot of times lately - like most of the times I get in queer spaces. And while it gives me a sense of relief and being accepted, I also feel like people expect me to use something else than she. I find it a way of not assuming, and when I'm uncertain about someone's pronouns I tend to just ask people even or use 'they' although it might create a bit of awkwardness, and would be put off by someone I know switching to they by themselves. Being a masculine and defo genderqueer woman, I sometimes feel more at home in the trans community than the lesbian one. Like, I see so many butch women binding and wanting top surgery, but all the info is from just a trans community. And by identifying "still" as woman, makes me somewhat lonely, especially when it comes to sharing the genderqueer experience. Sometimes I just 'need' a community, and the trans one is nice, but they assume I am just in the phase of still coming out, which is weird.

Marty

9/11/2020 08:10:49 am

Me tooooo!!!!!! Its like so weird. Im like queer but too masculine for the women spaces to cis for the trans spaces and to lesbian for any other spaces.

Like I remember talking about binding to a trans friend and he was like what are your pronouns. ;/? I get the respect but the correlation between looking masc and being questioned and not being cis is hella intense.

Like you don't see that with gay men like all these YouTube can be and fem as heck and no one questions their gender :/

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