A Note About the Pronouns

Thank you for your thoughtful question, MNS (see preceding post). So as to give credit where credit is due I pulled "sie" (pronounced like "see") and "hir" (pronounced like "here") from Dean Spade's recent article in the Berkeley Women's Law Journal, "Resisting Medicine, Re/modeling Gender." Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Legal Resource Program, cited them from Leslie Feinberg's 1998 Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue 1.

Alternatively I recently found a quote by James Green, in an email to Patrick Califia (regarding trans activitism at the 1995 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival) which Califia used in his Sex Changes: Transgender Politics, using "s/he" which I've always liked, and "heesh." If I remember correctly, Green was letting the Festival's leadership know that Feinberg would make their discrimination public "in every public speaking engagement heesh does" if it continued.

Now forgive me, as I'm a grammar freak but may not use the correct terminology. I'm still not sure what a dangling participle is, though I'm quite sure I rarely if ever use them ;) But it seems the personal first and second person pronouns are safe - I, me, you - as they are not and have never been gender-differentiated. As are their respective possessive versions - my, mine, your, yours. And now I'm good with the basic third person - in sie, s/he, and heesh, if I'm reading them accurately. They overlap, yes? Third person possessive is probably my favorite with hir. But what about her/him? Am I missing it? I don't think I've found it yet, maybe I need to go back to the original Feinberg. Shim?

The bottom line: if I become interested in having myself referred to with neutral pronouns, I'll let you know. I have some internalized misogyny to work out before that time, if it comes. [God damn it.] But I think I will continue to use sie and hir in referring to unknown or generalized individuals. I prefer them to s/he and heesh because they are further from the gendered originals - s/he and heesh, to me, imply more that a choice can or should be made, whereas sie and hir feel more definitively neutral, identity in their own right. Which is the point. At least I'll do so as long as I remember. And, I guess, thank my lucky stars that I have the luxury of forgetting. And try not to forget.

Comments? I'm sure I'm overlooking some strange thing. Or not strange. Anyway.