He / Her / They / It / Elephant (Why you should not be allowed to choose your gender pronouns)

So you think people should be able to choose their gender pronouns? Maybe you’re right. But we’ve been getting along just fine enough for centuries with some version of “he/him” and “she/her.” For hundreds of thousands of years before we had spoken language, we had “stick” to represent “boy” and “rock” representing “girl.” They didn’t get to choose. Suddenly we’re so uppity we need to choose our own pronouns?!

Now, please don’t get me wrong—I’m all for people having the right to live their lives however they damn well please. As long as you’re not hurting someone else, you do you! By its very nature, though, that bolded sentence can be a deal-breaker. No matter what you do, some cuckoo somewhere will claim you’re hurting them. I think you know what I mean, though. Claim the gender you prefer . . . or make up your own. I don’t care. Take your hormone replacement therapy. Have your gender reassignment surgeries. I’m happy for you!

But you’re hurting each and every one of us—whether people admit it to you or not—by forcing us to keep up with your ever-changing pronoun preference.

It’s just too much!

In the past, the legitimacy of the singular “they/them” had been highly debated. “They/them” were plural pronouns—not ones to be used as singular replacements for “he/him” or “she/her.” That debate has been all but relegated to the dustbin of history upon the relatively recent encouragement of gender pronoun choice. Anyone still arguing against the singular use of “they/them” is labeled, at best, a bigot. At worst: an old, White, Republican dude.

All the big-boy dictionaries and popular style guides need to officially update “they/them” to be proper English in both singular and plural usage. This should suffice as both one small step for man, and one giant leap for a man of any kind. Give all people the universal “they/them” they’ve been demanding for so long. It’s a win-win for neutrality. But draw the line there . . . or risk all hell breaking loose.

Maybe I decide I want to use “them/they” (not “they/them”) as my pronouns of choice, even though it’s grammatically incorrect. Are you even allowed to ask people to use grammatically incorrect English? We’ve culturally accepted the singular “they/them,” proving the English language evolves. Are we really ready, though, to leap to the drastic extent of foregoing the correct use of nominative -vs- object pronouns? Then again, folks already seem to believe it’s correct to employ “I” in the predicate with common phrases such as, “The kind-hearted drug dealer gave Kevin and I our first hits for free!”

A bit more realistically, I’ve heard of people preferring “he/them.” Not the more easily remembered “he/him” or “they/them.” That’s right—these people want nothing more than to create mass confusion, increasing the incidence of misattributions to spur faux outrage at the inequity and atrocity of being accidentally attributed the improper pronouns. Simple conversations will demand the concentration necessary for a game of Memory. Until chats are inevitably abandoned in anger, like every game of Monopoly I’ve ever played.

I posit the real question: when you talk behind their backs (or is it “they” backs?) about how absurd and impossible their demands are, must we still use their preferred pronouns? Granted, if able to remember their chosen pronouns to begin with, it may be good practice to continue using them to embed those pronouns in your memory. Otherwise, constant regression to errant pronouns may be seen as more hostile than intended, ruining relationships.

Perhaps the real real question is: if other’s can demand to be referred to as the pronouns of their choosing, can you counter with the demand to universally refer to everyone as the pronoun of your choosing (i.e., “they”)? And if so, does your attribution preference override another’s desire to be called something other than “they”? Will the inevitable resulting stalemate spell the end of friendships across the globe? Lifelong besties unable to communicate due to recent differences, so immovable, a full can of WD-40 couldn’t budge them. Nuclear superpowers at the brink of war after heads of state fail to compromise on pronouns—international diplomacy be damned.

And there are sure to be wise-asses who want to use something totally off the wall, like “it/it”, or “he/elephant.” If we accommodate every other whack-a-doodle combination, we can’t readily discriminate against these folks’ desires, can we? Who’s to say we can’t turn nouns into pronouns. Nouns have worked too hard for too long with no pay; it’s about time they lose their amateur status.

Imagine the chaos that’d result at a conference with 100 people you’ve never met, each introducing themselves with different he/her/they/it/elephant pronouns. Hell, it often takes me 30 seconds to remember someone’s name I’ve worked with for 3 years. The entire time attempting to clandestinely eye their left breast. Wearing a nametag listing pronoun preference could become mandated by law. But if we extrapolate the enactment and enforcement of COVID mask mandates, it’s fair to assume nametag mandates would be an impossibly tough sell.

So, you still think people should be allowed the luxury of choosing which gendered pronouns they wish to use? Allow me to tell a little story:

She often uses pronouns prior to setting the groundwork for who she’s talking about. I’ll often interrupt her right away, demanding she disclose who she’s referencing in her story.

So, who the heck is the unreferenced “she/her” in this anecdote? It could literally be half the world, couldn’t it Phoebe? Suppose we might as well further the confusion by including the other 3.9 billion people. So, I guess, yeah, come to think of it . . . You’re Probably Right.

[048] May 01, 2022