Words are hard especially when you ignore grammar.
Ok, I get it. The language you are born into is not necessarily the language you want to speak. I am sure I could find many scholarly articles on this to cite. And yet, this is about MY experiences with pronouns.
About a year ago, we started having the pronoun conversations with BigOne. They/Them we were told. He/His doesn’t do it for them.
My first response, to tell the truth, is that it is amazing to me that they want to embrace the pronoun used for other. Outsider. At least in literature. The “Them” instead of the “Us.”
My second response was to say a plural pronoun does not go with a singular verb[1].
It took many months to get to my current state which was – I have been wrong for years. Nothing is static. “Society” tells you to do things because the biggest, loudest person in society convinces everyone else to follow what THEY want. But the they in this scenario is an individual with the voice that people decide to agree with.
We decide to follow rules. We decide the rules are the ones we want to follow. We, the collective we, change them all the time.
One Example: Skirts need to be so long, on girls, in the color swatches that are popular this year. In three years, the skirts could only be worn by boys and be entirely different colors and lengths.
I think BigOne understood this about rules long before I did. And perhaps, that explains why they want to be they. Who wants to buy into a mindset where everything you are is defined not by consensus but by dictate – particularly if you don’t really understand who is dictating and how the dictator benefits.
This idea has been growing in me for several years, and I don’t like it. I like things to be set. It is all part of the pendulum swinging which I do not control and I have never been able to keep up with. That story about the Sneeches was right. As soon as you get a star on your belly, the star won’t be worth anything.
Words are hard because words change. Grammar is hard because grammar changes. We have to pick a point for evaluation and communication, but whatever that point is, it won’t be valid in the future. It wasn’t valid in the past. Time and how it relates to everything is so much more complicated than I want it to be.
Changing, “Goodnight Moon,” so the dad no longer smokes is not evil. Changing the words to hymns to make them gender neutral isn’t evil. BigOne did not change their pronouns simply to cause discord in my head[2].
I guess part of my problem is as we let all parts of communicating politely become fluid, we are giving up control to a dictator we don’t know and we don’t control.
So.
Instead?
I have to be open to the pronoun thing. I know it. I have to be open to communicating with an individual and modify how I communicate to meet their sensibilities. I have to strive to expect that as I express and own my sensibilities, the person I am communicating with will be open to what I see as polite and meet me just over halfway. Only if both sides are will to go at least 51% of the way will we actually still be acting respectfully.
Or so I think.
[1] The AP style guide let me down on this one. Stupid Ivory Tower.
[2] Though, in truth, it may be an added benefit.