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So does xir(doesn't need to be this one, but any non-typical pronoun) have a particular/agreed upon meaning? If not, what descriptive purpose does it serve differentially to they? What is it adding over and above a combination of they and the individual's name? If the claim is that the person has an individually unique gender identity, are these pronouns serving as generic placeholders for them? I assume the last part is true, because it seems to me that the issue of pronoun usage is an extension of correct gender ascription. However, if an individual is claiming to belong to a unique gender category, it is a non-trivial request to ask someone to learn the rules for correctly employing that gender's terms, because those rules are generally complicated, even in a binary system (hence the talk of a binary spectrum, which I would argue is an oversimplication of how gender terms are ascribed). That is of course assuming it is not a generic term, which if it is I am uncertain as to the value it offers above already established terms (this is what I see as a common point of contention, because if they are generic there is no end to the number of possible terms that could arise, simultaneously adding nothing to language while increasing the likelyhood of confusion). The natural followup to this will of course be "it's not difficult, just call them what they ask". If it were so simple to do this (to repeat, this is under the assumption that the pronoun does connote a particular gender), the requestee must either have a pre-exisiting understanding of proper use (which would make this whole chain irrelevant), or they somehow the usage of the gender is already manifest in the rules of other genders, which would then make the claim of uniqueness contestable. It might be that people feel that gender stereotyping is undesirable, but by establishing one yoh are directly asserting that there are certain prototypical elements to performance of the gender (or else it doesn't really fall into the gender domain). Handwaving this issue off by claiming the issue of pronoun is separate from that of gender is indirectly asserting that the selection/use of a pronoun token is arbitrary or not well linked to gender, which defeats the original contention that incorrect ascription is not (and as many have pointed out, there any many people for which this linkage is very important). So either the request is trivial, but not meaningful or useful (thus why some might be suspicious of the motivation behind the request being self-aggrandizing in nature), or non-trivial, which makes claims of it being "easy" questionable. I'm inclined to believe both occur, and that the ones of the former sort should not be entertained precisely because they make light of the ones of the latter.
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Mar 29, 2016 07:24
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jivjov posted:I'm saying that if you have an actual case as for doubting someone, present it as such. Don't just say "nope you're wrong". Have a dialog. Discuss it. Present rational evidence. Gender terms do not have this level of first person/third person asymmetry, precisely because of what you said in your first paragraph (that there can possibly be evidence to the contrary). I'm not really sure what you mean by definitively prove if you are claiming that gender terms are asymmetrical in this fashion, because the sort of evidence upon which their employment would rest would necessarily be internal and unattached to performance (e.g. that someone claims they are a man is not attached to behaviours that we associate with being one). Since that is not the case of typical gender terms (if it were, concerns about body image would not be a problem for some), what makes it so of non-typical ones?
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Mar 29, 2016 15:41
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The Kingfish posted:E: I mean, this seems like the fundamental disagreement between Internet gender theorists. Some people argue that gender is a social construct and others that gender is an innate aspect of our identities. Maybe they are both partially right, but I tend to lean towards the former because the latter doesn't jive with the way that I understand the "self" to function. Identity is an extremely broad term whose broadness is abused extensively in that particular debate to justify either part of the arguement. If you take extreme positions on either end, the former implies it is reasonable to suggest gender reassignment surgery is not necessary ("the linkage between gender and sex organs is entirely socially fabricated and thus there can't be a" true" mismatch between them"), which is obviously a rather strong claim. Meanwhile, the latter implies that the plethora of gender terms (see: http://mogai-lexicon.tumblr.com) might not be infinite in scope, much to the ire of some. I endorse neither of these positions, but when taken to this level they become quite incompatible.
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Apr 2, 2016 08:53
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