Academia Pronouns Or Else

But Can You Not See How Fascinating I Am?

August 10, 2023 by David 170 Comments

From Montreal, via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, another feat of unrelenting pretension:

Last year, I attended a conference where everyone wore name tags. I had proudly and visibly written “they/them” below my name.

The proud author, Ms Julia Wright, a student at McGill University, is, we learn, a them – a paranormally ungendered being. And all is not well:

When I helped a special guest presenter set up, they asked to see my tag. But while remembering my name, the presenter repeatedly referred to me as “she.”

As one might, all things considered.

My head started spinning and I had an overwhelming urge to run to the washroom and throw up. I wanted to interrupt them and tell them to stop misgendering me. But I had no idea what their views on non-binary people were and I worried about seeming rude.

Well, as possibilities, the words neurotic and aggravating come to mind. And we could perhaps throw in hysterical, as a bonus, what with the whole hyperventilating-and-vomiting thing.

As for rudeness, pressuring others to pretend things on demand, despite the reality right in front of them, is not the most obvious recipe for civility and mutual respect. Some, for instance, will have come to realise that The Pronoun Game, so very much in fashion, is often a way to exert power over others, by making them say things, publicly and repeatedly, that they don’t for a minute believe to be true. There is, after all, the issue of probity.

And once you start playing The Pronoun Game, a game of pretend, it’s by no means clear how you might stop pretending before things veer into farce. Which, as we’ve seen, they very often do.

And then of course there’s the fact that the Pronoun Game is by definition a game all about you, but which others are expected to play, or are coerced to play, albeit in small, supporting roles. Not an altogether thrilling prospect.

However, Ms Wright appears unconcerned by such details – which affect other people, people who aren’t her. Instead, she returns to a much more engaging subject – namely, herself and her extensive list of feelings:

I sat through the presenter’s instructions as my stomach turned. Once the workshop was underway, I ran to the washroom where I reassured myself that my feelings were valid, even if the presenter didn’t misgender me on purpose.

Again, as so often, one has to ask – exactly which player in this drama is doing the misgendering? The unnamed presenter who sees a young woman named Julia and refers to her as she; or the young woman named Julia who expects to be perceived as something other than she is? Indeed, as something that doesn’t exist. The kind of young woman who tells us, with an air of triumph, “I had been thinking about my pronouns daily for over two years.” As one does, when one’s mental wellbeing is not at all in question.

But ours is an age in which self-preoccupied young women are encouraged to boast, in print, of their unhappy compulsions, and to bemoan the fact that they appear to be what they are – no more, no less – and consequently struggle to seem complicated and fascinating. Specifically, a miraculously sexless being, “neither a man nor a woman.”

Mentioning my pronouns again can be scary. If they don’t respect my pronouns, does that mean they think being non-binary isn’t valid?

Probably. Not everyone wants to play.

At one dinner, a person shared their opinion that non-binary people were an “epidemic” that had “exploded” in recent years. I felt like I was a disease.

Perhaps the word fad would be less offensive. Or tedious status-game played by the pretentious and insufferable. I’m open to suggestions.

These types of interactions with co-workers, professors and fellow students run through my head at night before I fall asleep.

It occurs to me that being surrounded by students and professors, for whom faddishness and contrivance are often the stuff of status, may not be entirely helpful on the mental health front. If everyone around you is playing the same game, and pretending the same things, and doing it competitively, you could easily lose your bearings.

I shouldn’t have to ‘look’ non-binary for my identity to be respected… I like my feminine name and wearing the occasional dress. That does not make me any less non-binary or my identity less deserving of respect.

Ah yes, the woe of not being immediately and telepathically perceived as “non-binary,” and thus being denied the status of terribly interesting. As agonies go, it’s pretty niche. But given Ms Wright’s apparent lack of interest in how her Game Of Self may impose upon others, I’m tempted to suggest that respect, a reciprocal virtue, may not be the most apt card to play.

Update, via the comments, which you’re reading of course:

Regarding this tearful pronouncement,

I shouldn’t have to ‘look’ non-binary for my identity to be respected

EmC adds,

And the rest of us shouldn’t have to play silly games just to make you feel special.

Well, quite.

I suppose the drama above – all that time on the verge of vomiting – is what happens when you spend your formative years steeped in the Progressive Identity Hierarchy, in which straight white woman is somewhere near the bottom, barely above the universally disdained straight white man. Inventing some modish gender nonsense – and then publicly complaining about other, less sophisticated people failing to defer to it – may boost your social standing a little. And that does seem to be what these things are very often about.

Says Ms Wright,

What can I do to get people to understand? I know these ideas are new for many people.

Thing is, what we’re seeing looks more like a trendy paintjob on an old, familiar vice. The same old self-absorption and self-flattery. The same old desperation to be special, but without the bother of any actual achievement, which takes time and effort, and often rare ability. And so, identity, or pretend-identity, is the fashionable shortcut.

And here we are. All swollen with progress.

Heavens, buttons. I wonder what they do.




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