Why my pronouns are your choice

Not all pronouns are created equal. This much we know. Which explains why pronouns have become so important as a focal point in recent times—and rightly so. Instagram acknowledged the pronouns new status by adding a field for them in profile descriptions. Considering how closed and controlling systems Instagram employs are, this is really something. [^1]

The 'trend' for assigning oneself pronouns is also good and important in terms of furthering the acceptance and visibility of non-binary folk and the unpicking of established (often toxic) constructs, particularly around gender.

Likewise, the 'they/them' pronoun is essential. The case for defining gender based on a singular physiological binary melts away on examination of the thickly lacquered veneer of presentation and behaviour that is applied to male/female binaries. As Olympia Bukkakis exposed in an essay titled 'A Case for the Abolition of Men' [^2] gender binaries are as easily assigned via thoughts, deeds and actions, (i.e. you can identity as a woman/man but your deeds can define you as the other).

Here we pause and make space for 'the problem of individualism' as recently investigated by Adam Curtis in his series for BBC called 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' [^3]. At the centre of this series Curtis places—not only gender binaries, but also—the binary of the 'individual' versus the 'collective', essentially positioning 'she/him' in opposition to 'they/them'.

For Curtis this seems to be an area of conflict and contention but he also sets up a potent equation—'they/them' becomes potent in a position that opposes established binaries. 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' seems to posit an idea that individuals often end up suffering at the mercy of manipulative overlords, that individualism has a limited lifespan before being either destroyed or subsumed into the collective. In this case 'they/them' portrays a strength in numbers, albeit one that slavishly travels around hierarchical systems of power and dominance.

Away from Curtis' dramatic narrative of power and dominance, the potency and strength of 'they/them' remains. There is a currently assumption that the use of these pronouns, now considered acceptable by the likes of Instagram, will continue to proliferate. Consider though, what could happen if they/them didn't.

They/them is still a categorisation (another reason Instagram seemed happy to integrate pronouns into their system—it wasn't that hard to do), just as 'He/Him', 'She/Her', 'They/Her', 'He/Them' etc. Consider what could happen if this categorisation added fuel to the self-proclaimed designation of 'He/Him's instead. A category already dominant in many areas, often to the determent of all others. What if the only thing created by this embracing of pronouns is a 'tri-nary'.

Luckily we have our friend, the slash '\' to alleviate this issue, although it does serve mostly as a multiplication device, allowing for a splintering of the tri-nary. It is still operating within a system of categorisation though. Labelling still occurs.

Growing up queer, one becomes acutely aware of 'othering'. Ask any queer folk with experience growing up within state sanctioned systems of education. For decades I have chosen the 'Prefer not to say' option when asked to take a gendered position within the 'masculated' realms of forms and contracts. This is mostly because I've never considered my chosen individual identity to be anyone else's business. And when none of the presented options appeal what else is there to do.

My name and physical appearance elicits a style of performativity that is enough to assign my identity to a specific gender whether I am invested in this or not. He/him was assigned to me at birth, without question (or the seeking of permission)—as is so much more that we are laboured with when we emerge into the human world.

Perhaps an urge arises here to protect the individual—an urge that overrides all else. Individuals are assigned categories, often without choice—'individual' itself becoming a category, so maybe sanctioning and protecting this ideal is a battle fought to loose. In which case—in the struggle against suffocating capitalist structures—allegiances become more useful and worthy of pursuit, but only as subsets of individuals. In this way, complexities within the make-up of each individual (that categorical distinctions deny) can be maintained without being positioned in isolation to one another.

Just as forms of social capitalism minted binaries whilst allowing for gradients, so too pronouns become leverage. Like I said, pronouns ARE important. And it IS important that they proliferate... as long as they aren't neatly sorted into neat categorical descriptions or situated camps.

For this reason, my pronouns are your choice. I have chosen not to situate myself. Your direct relationship for me is enough. If it seems as though I am writing like a Man, you're welcome to refer to me as such. If I am presenting outside of the common gender binary, you are welcome to refer to me as 'they'. My personal privileging leans towards 'she' although I am loathe to assign this to myself... but if you chose to do so I would be flattered.

Maybe there is a further nuance that is helpful here as well. Consider the slash. Consider non-human classifications. Consider your own pronouns and how to make them fluid or malleable. Consider how your voice might change from day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute. Perhaps the best thing is to encourage our pronouns to continue to evolve, in an attempt to avoid categorisation. To evolve and generate new categories by ducking and weaving around existing ones. Who knows, but the inclusion of they/them is a very promising start.

This Is Exposed (lyrics by Of Montreal)

I'm macho I'm femme
Call me they, call me them
Bikini boys in the summer scum want nothing and you and scene
Thought rats scurry over hypnosis or what's left of the friend chat
The scents of killers the Eyes Of Mars the seven blood gangs of the parietal

I'm liminal I'm free
Call me he, call me she
I said I'm macho I'm femme
Call me they, call me them

In this place one way or another
You're gonna get radicalised
Oh but my lives they're unreal
Those things are only a spectacle

Thorns are cool thorns save lives
Thorns get me into trouble but I always survive
In a circle of one
Sounding a drum
To a bodysong
What can I say
It's gonna happen either way

Like a Burroughs to Capote curse
Written in a rabid free verse
If you fellate the crown's prick
You run afoul of the Syndicate
Smart kids say no
Disabusing crow drones
What could they possibly glean
Out of a liar's mind?

Thorns are cool, thorns save lives
Thorns get me into trouble but I always survive
Still it's not a lot of fun dealing with true scum
In a circle of one and a body song
What can I say
It's gonna happen either way

Now you got no brain how do you get fucked up? What?
Now you got no brain how do you get fucked up?
Now you got no brain how do you get fucked up? What?
Now you got no brain how do you get fucked up?