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Law in Contemporary Society
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Paper Title: Acceptance of Pronouns-- By AndyZheng - 23 Feb 2024 Societal resistance to using individuals’ preferred pronouns both stem from ignorance and the limits and glacial pace of progress in society. Before interacting closely with trans and non-binary folks like J, I viewed pronouns as things given by society, just like names given by parents, both nothing more than an identifier. This view is shared by many others, where individuals assume others’ gender and preferred pronouns by the way they present themselves. Meeting gender non-binary individuals like J began challenging my view of pronouns, allowing me to see the ignorance towards pronouns as the tool of indoctrination to view gender as a binary. However, I must reconcile my interest in advocating for the dignity of transgender and non-binary individuals with the natural constraints of society and language, making the path towards shifting our views of pronouns murky and unlikely.Section I: Pitch for using proper pronouns“Neutrality in the face of oppression is choosing the side of the oppressor.” That quote prompted me to scrutinize my biases. While I saw a mental shortcut to assume someone’s gender as a binary, I unwittingly invalidated J’s identity. I realized my ignorance towards pronouns was rooted in colonialism. One way colonizers dehumanized people was through effacing their history. Immigrants coming to the U.S. were denied the spelling of their surnames for an Anglicized version, and slaves in America were denied their surnames completely. In each instance, what was denied is more than an epithet, but humanity, memory, and history. Revoking the opportunity for transgender and non-binary individuals to label themselves is rooted in the colonialist ideology of assimilation, to force those individuals to ignore their own identity. On the flip side, colonizers attach arbitrary labels to subordinate them. Puerto Ricans continue to not have all the rights of a citizen of the U.S. because of their label as a n unincorporated territory, Native Americans continue to have their rights to form contracts denied because of their presumed status as “domestic dependent nations.” Transgender folks are also forced labels on them for the presumed rationale of the convenience of language or even society’s denial of their existence. I learned the importance of decolonizing my language to protect trans and non-binary people — humans who deserve dignity. As we continue to make assumptions regarding people’s pronouns, what we reaffirm is the history of insensitivity committed towards trans folks. We tell these folks that their self-identity is mistaken, their memory of using their pronoun is unacceptable, and the history of trans and non-binary folks is irrelevant. Complacency becomes more than a neutral error: It is the perpetuation of the language of colonization and discrimination.Section II: Reasonable resistance to pronounsHowever, the call to decolonize our language directly conflicts with the more rigid societal context of language. One key reason for language is to clearly associate an idea or concept with a word. It is difficult for someone to see a person who presents as Taylor Swift and refer to her with any pronoun other than she/her/hers. Taylor possesses many traits we associate with femininity, which naturally links Taylor to she pronouns. If Taylor demands to be called by he/him/his pronouns, it would be difficult for individuals to conform their paradigm of language to that because we’ve collectively created a paradigm of what “she” and “he” means. Ultimately, language offers a shortcut to communicate. The mentioning of a term immediately triggers various associations with it that enlivens that word in our mind. “Taylor Swift” is associated with ideas like singer, woman, pop star, entrepreneur, talented, songwriter. All of these associations are helpful for understanding the “meaning” of Taylor Swift. Similarly, the pronouns “he” is associated with a set of traits that would be inconsistent with “Taylor Swift.”Section III: The context of progressNevertheless, language does not live in a vacuum. It changes over time with ideas and conventions. What people think about when someone says “fashion” is different today than the U.S. a century ago. What constitutes “fundamental right” of bodily autonomy to abortion is no longer the case today. Similarly, gender and sexuality has the capacity to change with language. Rather than assuming “she” refers to someone who is traditionally feminine, language can adapt to a more progressive understanding of pronouns as a respectful shorthand to refer to individuals. Progress is glacial and nonlinear. It would be unreasonable to expect that transgender and non-binary individuals will have their pronouns respected overnight. However, the requirements for progress is clear. We must simultaneously change the way we understand pronouns as well as broaden our underlying conception of gender and sexuality. Just as meanings of words evolve overtime, our conception of pronouns must be abstracted from its roots of strict classification of individuals in a binary. We also must broaden our conception of gender and sexuality to consist of a complex spectrum of identities. However, this ask is almost as impossible as uprooting the machineries of society today. All I can expect is a continuous tug of war between the status quo and progress. Hopefully, one day, our conceptions of pronouns will change and we can respect each other simply as human.You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
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