My Inconvenient and Very Complicated Truth about Pronouns

"People with non-binary gender identities continually face situations in which someone feels “forced,” by the language norms they’ve internalized, to call us either he or she — even if they’re not sure which one is right, and sometimes even if they have been told that neither is right. These moments, which seem to be about grammar rules, highlight a gender rule that doesn’t work for us: the rule that everyone must be either a he or a she, a man or a woman; that there are no non-binary genders."  -- Davey Schlasko, "How Using 'They' As A Singular Pronoun Can Change the World"

Mr.(?) Rehs-Dupin reporting for childbirth...

Have I told you lately how much I hate being referred to with female pronouns?  No... I probably haven't. Because that conversation is awkward, and unwieldy...  and is not something that I feel like engaging in with the average Joe/Jane Schmo.  I don't even feel like having this conversation with many people close to me, because then it becomes a "big deal".  You say... " I want to use _______ pronoun." and then one of two things happen... they forget entirely (and it is heartbreaking) or they really try, but every time they say the incorrect pronoun, they make a big deal apologizing and that draws unnecessary attention to the issue when you are just trying to talk about what kind of salad dressing you want from the Giant Eagle....

So I haven't talked about it.  But she/her/hers/sister/mommy/girls/ladies feels like nails on a chalkboard to me.  When I hear people use female pronouns when talking about me, it is very out of body.... like "wait, who are you talking about?... Oh... me."  Take the following statement for example:  "Chris went to the store and when she got there she had to go get a cart for her groceries."  Simple sentence, right?!?  To me this sounds like "Chris went to the store and when SHE (wait who?, oh right, the she in this case is me, that's weird.) got there SHE (vomit... yep still me) had to get a cart for HER (oh god... another pronoun...  IT HURTS!) groceries." My brain has fully assimilated my identity as a transgueer guy, and so the pronouns she/her/hers are just stark reminders that other people don't recognize that identity.  I also know, this isn't done on purpose. We live in a he/she society, and so even if I am recognized as neither, there is no language to reinforce/denote that identity.  So it doesn't make me upset with those around me...  it makes me first upset with a world that has created this language, and second upset that sometimes I am not brave enough to ask for the use of pronouns that makes me more comfortable.

When you have a baby, you have the option to create a birth plan... which, being incredibly opinionated control freaks, was an absolutely necessity for us.  The first thing on the list asked for the use of male pronouns.  I like male pronouns...  because for the most part, I am still identified as biologically female, so the use of male pronoun subverts the idea that I am wholly female.  It was very empowering to be linguistically identified as standing outside of the gender binary... It was a huge validation of my trans identity, in a very female driven space.  I am sure it was not easy for all those we encountered, but it made a huge difference in my level of comfort and self-confidence.  Since then, I have been really thinking about the ways I want to carry this momentum forward and start finding avenues to have conversations about my pronoun preferences.

Unfortunately, you don't get a birth plan for every situation in your life...  (Can you imagine handing the cashier at Target a list of the ways you would like to be addressed when purchasing your weekly allotment of orange juice and yogurt?)  Honestly, because I have so many weird preferences about pronouns, I don't even know where to start to get the people I love on board with language that makes me feel comfortable and validated.  I prefer different things at different times...  and it often changes from one situation to the next in a very chameleon like manner.  This is when I truly realize that language is REALLY working against those of us that live outside the gender binary; and many may say that pronouns aren't that important, but in many ways these little words are one of the first barriers in living in a world where people don't feel the need to be divided into two neat gender categories.

Wanna know what I am talking about pronoun rules get ridiculous when you have a language system based around 2 exclusive genders?  Well here goes...




Their have been attempts at gender neutral pronouns....
 nonehave gotten traction....  When I don't get the option
 to opt out of choosing a salutation, I quickly become
 a Dr. or Rev. because those are just
as fitting as Ms./Mr./Mrs.

1.  In a perfect world people would use the gender neutral pronouns they/them/theirs...  but there is this stupid argument that states that this is non-grammatically correct (see brilliant article above for counter-argument ...)  I don't see this one happening anytime soon.

2.  I mostly prefer he/him/his when someone is speaking out loud....  especially when the people who are speaking know me personally.  (If they don't know me personally, I like for the pronouns he and she to be used interchangeably to demarcate that I identify as male and female, or neither, depending on how you look at it.)

3.  I prefer that no pronouns be used in writing... which is really tricky and takes a lot of language manipulation and creativity.  In writing, one has time to really think about pronoun usage and it isn't unreasonable to ask that no pronouns be used... (ask my boss, who recently wrote a performance review with the use of no pronouns.)

4.  Amy usually refers to me as her spouse, but I am not opposed to the use of the word "wife" in a situation where the person being addressed doesn't know me.  There isn't a better term to be used, and I prefer to not be called Amy's husband to strangers, because then she is assumed to be straight, and politically it is important to us that we are identified as two married biological females.  But if the term wife is used, I like it to be followed up with a male pronoun... ex.  "My wife is the best, he is always the first to volunteer to change poopy diapers."

5.  If I am in a professional situation, or when dealing with my parents, I will accept she/her/hers, because I am just not brave or comfortable enough to discuss gender politics in these arenas.

So what is a guy to do?  Just brace myself to be uncomfortable, I guess.  Some day (maybe far after we are all gone) gendered pronouns will be a thing of the past... Until then, I will just work on knowing that misuse of pronouns doesn't make me anymore or less who I am.

Being "Heard"

I came out as queer at a very "young age"...  I was 14 to be exact... and was met with a resounding chorus (from most) that this must just be a phase... because how do you know something of that nature when you aren't even old enough to drive a car..  Friends, my parents, and even the guy who did my first tattoo questioned how I could know for sure.  Some shouted "attention seeking" and others just logically couldn't get down with the fact that at a ripe 14 years young I could have a better handle on my identity than they did.

You know the end of a mystery movie when you find out "whodunit" and then there is a quick retrospective of all the clues that you missed that should have clued you in to who the culprit was.  That's how "coming out" to myself was.  Lots of little clues I missed, adding up to an inevitable truth.  It was February 9th, 1998 (I know this because I drew a little rainbow on that date on the Beatles Calendar that I kept on my room).  I was watching the Real World thought...  "Oh Man!  That girl is hot!!!  Oh Shit!  Oh....  That explains a lot..."  If anything...  "being straight" was a phase for me.  And once I figured it all out, I felt so liberated!  But as I heard more and more people say "it's just a phase", "you are too young to know that" or "you just haven't met the right guy" the more I felt silenced.

Senior Potrait- 2002.  I was the gayest
High Schooler EVER.

The funny thing about silence, is the more you are silenced, the more you are likely to stop using your voice.   It was easy to feel like I was wrong, about myself; and a truth that was so simple

and apparent to me.  So I fell silent.  I spent my freshman year of high school scared and silent.  Until I realized my silence was paralyzing me...  And I promised to never be silent again.  People may say I was "out and proud" but I like to think I was just "out and Chris".  I just started talking about being gay like it was "normal"... because to me it was.  And people responded.  That's when I realized people are more likely to talk about you, when you are unwilling to talk about yourself.  If you give them all the information that they need... they won't need to fill in the gaps, and you become uninteresting... but alas, I digress.

If coming out as "gay" was hard...  coming out as trans is like climbing a mountain.  And it certainly isn't wrapped up in a nice "fable"-type package where the good guy (that's me) learns a tidy message  It is a process and is in now way complete.

There are many contributing factors as to why its hard to come out as a transmasculine genderqueer boi (that's what I choose for a gender today), but it is mostly steeped in the fact that our society believes in "2 and 2 only" genders.  Most people believe that you are born with a penis and you are male, or a vagina will make you female, end of sentence, no variations.  People with a more evolved view of sex and gender may understand that there are people who are born with one set of organs, but their identity indicates the opposite sex (ex. a person born with a penis who is actually a female).  But there are few who can dig deep enough to understand there are those of us who live in the middle of the two...

When I have tried to explain to people that I am neither male nor female, I am usually met with a blank stare (at best) or the denial that being neither M nor F, Adam nor Eve, Romeo nor Juliette isn't even a valid identity.  Similar to "its only a phase", after a while being repetitively told that your identity isn't real makes it hard for you to feel like you have a place.  The more times people tell you your identity doesn't exist, the more you feel like you aren't doing your own "identity" incorrectly and you begin to ware at the corners, and assimilate into molds where it is "easier" to be understood.

This is from the portion of my life when I lived by myself
and dressed up like Kid Rock for fun (before he turned into
a dick).  Also... just a note, that is a fake goatee and my
real goatee now is far more lush.

When I became pregnant, I wanted to do it on my own terms.  It was imperative that my identity as a trans-identified pregnant person was understood and respected, especially by our care team.  There is so much vulnerability in a birthing situation for ALL people, but with my discomfort with my body, I feel like I was more vulnerable than most.  I have certainly had my fair share of being made to feel uncomfortable in my own skin by people in medical professionals...  Once, when discussing how I felt like I was never fully female with a THERAPIST,  she asked, "But you don't want to HAVE a penis, DO YOU?!?"... not that I will be discussing with you Madame Therapist...

These types of experiences over a lifetime left me weary that anyone would/could ever "get" me.  I had become conditioned to be misunderstood, or doubted.  This was not the experience I got from those who we chose to work with for our birth.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I could talk about who I was without being shut down, dismissed or silenced.  Our midwife group, our doula, and our lactation consultant all took special care to make sure that they were sensitive to this special caveat of my identity. ( I find it very sad that only after 31 years of life do I feel like I was respected as a whole person in a medical situation.)  What is even more interesting, is the more my gender identity was validated, the less it made a damn bit of difference.  For the first time I really feel like I really was existing in a space that was free from the rules of male and female...  Where I could just be myself free from the constraints of societal pressures to do or be anything.  When we gave birth at OSU hospital, with a full goatee and a buzzed head, you would have thought that everyone who had ever given birth there was a transmaculine guy with a wife who was planning on doing the breastfeeding...

Really being  "heard" has finally made it easier to "speak" about who I am.  All the "its just a phases" and "you have to choose male or female" have faded away a bit.  Obviously, my work to continue to speak my truth has just begun, but I after having the experience of validation, I can no longer be complacent in silence.