1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Can I use my name as my preferred pronouns?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by charlavail, Oct 6, 2013.

  1. charlavail

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2013
    Messages:
    43
    Likes Received:
    0
    Gender:
    Female
    Out Status:
    All but family
    I'm having trouble with my pronouns, and my gender (or lack thereof). In clubs at college, they always go around and ask people for their preferred pronouns. I would feel weird saying she/her/hers, but I don't feel comfortable using they/them/theirs. Would be acceptable to ask people to just use my name when referring to me?
     
  2. Saint Otaku

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2013
    Messages:
    369
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Kentucky, USA
    That's completely acceptable. Just tell people to only use the proper noun of your name when referring to you. It might get a little wordy-weird on peoples' tongues though...
     
  3. Gen

    Gen
    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 20, 2012
    Messages:
    4,070
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    Nowhere
    Although I completely understand that desire, and would definitely share it if I could, it isn't really all that feasible in reality. Pronouns were formed to establish relevance in language, much more than to stress gender. For instance:

    "Charlavial went back to the dorms to grab her/his/their book."

    Versus

    "Charlavial went back to the dorms to grab Charlavial's book."


    Not only is the second example grammatically incorrect, but it also would probably make things much more awkward for both the speaker and you. I understand why the idea would be appealing, but in practice it might make people feel as though they have to be very precise and technically in the way they address you, thus probably making you just as uncomfortable as if they addressed you with a pronoun.
     
  4. JustAnotherSoul

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2013
    Messages:
    79
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Albany, NY
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Gen, I would like to disagree. I know two people in real life who don't use pronouns, and we all manage just fine (well, those of us in the queer community do, others... eh... but they don't get mine (they/them) right either most of the time).

    In my experience, it's not terribly difficult to work around pronouns with practice. Of course, often the name can just be substituted in, but also they can frequently be left out. In Spanish for example, possessive pronouns are rarely used because it's usually fairly obvious whose object it is. For example, a Spanish speaker would say "I hurt the head," instead of "I hurt my head," because, well, it's most common to hurt your own body, and if you hurt someone else's then you just tack that on. I understand that in in English, "I hurt the head," does sound pretty weird, but "Charlavial went back to the dorms to grab the/a book," works just fine. It doesn't work all the time, but it does frequently.

    Second, in my opinion at least (please pipe up if yours differs!), gender cannot be grammatically incorrect. Technically, singular they is grammatically incorrect, as are all the other "contrived" pronouns that aren't in the dictionary. The cool thing about grammar is that it's constantly changing. Google becoming a verb isn't that far away from a singular they being made a thing officially or pronouns becoming optional (actually, I'm not sure they aren't already optional, are you positive that you must sub one in if it makes sense?). I believe that our language is inadequate for expressing the full range of the human experience. In order for that to change, we have to be radical some times and make up our own rules.

    Finally, I would like to gently remind you that you are not Charlavail, and thus are not an expert on what Char feels. In your last sentence it started to sound like you knew exactly how our friend would feel in that situation. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, your words just gravitated that way a bit.

    Char, my advice would be to try it. Switching pronouns can be tough, gender-nuetral pronouns (or lack there-of) can be tough, but you'll never know if it works for you unless you try.