Pronouns never interested me and now they make my conversations stumble
Perhaps this is a statement that reflects my age, but I'm prompted by seeing another friend declaring they are now them.
It brings to mind a funny exchange with my partner when the high school sent a letter home about one of my children.
My partner exclaimed that our offspring must have changed their pronouns as it referred to they and them.
There was a laugh when I realised the school had a letter template that moved beyond the unwieldy s/he and, with it, any reference to the concept of biological sex.
Anyway, I am happy for anyone to promote the language that best suits their identity.
It's one of those aspects of contemporary life that is so fascinating and warrants deeper reflection.
For example, recently I read this observation in an interview with poet Forrest Gander and it's given me a new appreciation for taking a non-binary label:
As people are choosing the pronoun “they” to represent themselves, it has occurred to me that beyond the specifically gendered notion of what that means… I think that we have to admit how much we’re composed of others and how much that “I” is changing constantly.
In our lives we assume many roles and very few of them have anything to do with gender.
Just as feminists rejected the idea of being defined by their marital status, I think there's an opportunity to embrace pluralism.
The identity that I hold as a parent often collides with the immature posturing that I adopt in social situations.
Increasingly that model of authority I have as an older human conflicts with the carefree attitudes I have been disinterested in maturing.
These have been strained by the role that I am learning to fill as a teacher, particularly if it involves keeping a straight face while disciplining colourful language.
Being they/them seems an authentic reflection of feeling that the roles assigned at birth don't capture the person you grow to be.
We each contain so many identities, possibly wearing different masks to do so, which means it's a great step for society to embrace this kind of pluralism.
If that's woke then I'm happy to be awake!
There is a further dimension to recognising plurality and it goes beyond our roles.
In his book Entangled Life the author Merlin Sheldrake describes human as composite beings:
...we all inhabit bodies that we share with a multitude of microbes without which we could not grow, behave and reproduce as we do. [...] A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behaviour and the millions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems.Maybe, in addition to redefining the notion of the individual, we also need to reconsider freewill?
