Radicalising Language

Inspired by and dedicated to an awesome genderqueer organiser I met during my weekend at CSUN. I hope that one day your identity, as a genderqueer person, will be given the respect it (and you) deserve.

Last weekend's trip to the Queer People of Colour Conference at California State University, Northridge, was... illuminating.  One of the most bemusing things was how many people referred to "they/them" pronouns as 'plural pronouns'.  ....

I'm going to try not to rant.

When I hear folx complain about how 'they/them' and other gender neutral pronouns are 'grammatically incorrect' I want to pause the scene and use it as a teachable moment.  I'll use this space to practise what I'll say when I hear this again.

"Grammatically incorrect".  Ok.  Let's take a step back and realise what language we're speaking when we talk about this.  English. More specifically modern, white, middle-class, American English  A coloniser language.  It's oppressive (read: racist, classist, xenophobic, etc.), by it's very nature.  And when we correct and police each other's use of language (as marginalised and oppressed peoples), we are reinforcing the Oppressor's power.  Language is here to meet the needs of its users, not the other way around.  Language is a breathing, organic thing; it's constantly evolving and should be flexible in its usage. Some examples include mixing of languages (Spanglish, creoles, pidgins) and colloquialisms.   William Shakespeare invented over 1,000 words throughout the course of his career. How many will you use today?

In English, we aren't fortunate enough to automatically have gender neutral pronouns for people.  I've heard Mandarin Chinese and Greek, among others, have gender neutral articles. This means we have to borrow and/or invent our own.  This is what language is about; recognising a need and creating a solution.  When it comes to solving the problem of gender neutral pronouns, I've heard they, them, ze, V, hir, unicorn, J, and numerous others. All are appropriate, especially since there is no go-to alternative.  And even if there was (ha!), folx should still be able to define themselves in this rigid English-language framework.  The same can be said for any language, though my expertise (I use this word loosely) is in American English.

We need to question our assumptions and ideas about language.  English as we know it is not the end all and be all of identifying things, creating ideas and imagining our Future.  There are so many concepts that simply cannot be explained in this coloniser's tongue.  Just think of how our ancestors were able to dream, to feel, and to imagine in their indigenous languages....

Let's make our languages do the same for us.


**This is a work in progress, and may be updated periodically.....