Miss Gender

Strap in folks, this one’s going to be pretty personal.

You may have noticed a *minor* change to the homepage of my website - “they/them” smack-dab in the middle, in massive bold font. Oh yes, those dreadful things destroying western culture and silencing Every Day Americans - pronouns.

Let’s lay some groundwork before I address the elephant in the room. It’s fascinating how the discourse around pronoun usage that plagues conservative politics reveals an astounding lack of basic knowledge of the English language and how it serves us. Pundits I will not dignify by drawing attention to by name proudly proclaim nonsense like “biology is the nature of the pronoun,” a conclusion so bizarre and blatantly wrong I have to laugh. If you were to look at my headshot without knowing my gender, you would default to using he/him - but not because you can see my XY chromosomes and not because my… erm… “private parts” are visible. No, you default to he/him because my presentation in the photo is in line with cultural signifiers we associate with men. My outfit is straight from H&M’s men’s section, my vacation stubble is clearly visible, and my hair is clipped short. Unequivocally, in that picture, I look like a man.

But, if the picture was exactly the same - same pose, same framing, location, color grading, etc. - but my hair was shoulder length, I was wearing a red sundress, shaved my arms and face, and had on red lipstick and a beret, I’d venture to guess most people would default to she/her. Sure, my shoulders are broad, my face structure is closer to a man’s than a woman’s, and chest-wise I’m… flat as a cheeseboard (or at least I was until I gained all this Covid weight). But in the first millisecond you see me, you’re not seeing those things. You’re seeing the sundress, the hair, the lipstick - cultural signifiers of femininity. In effect, to claim that “biology is the nature of the pronoun” is to ignore that usually, pronouns are unconsciously used to describe what our eyes are telling us.

Which brings me to they/them pronouns. First of all - no, it is not ungrammatical to use “they” to describe a singular person. Do you want to know how I know? Because when you’re talking about one individual whose gender you don’t know, you usually refer to THEM with they/them pronouns. Case closed.

I understand why people who have never interacted with a nonbinary person have a hard time wrapping their head around it. We live in a binary world, so there really aren’t cultural signifiers to denote nonbinary people except for androgyny and nonconformity. But even then, the response still seems to be “I can’t tell if that’s a man or a woman” rather than “That person is neither a man nor a woman.” Frankly, overcoming that hurdle is a pretty big step for nonbinary acceptance and I don’t have the time or energy to delve into that today, nor do I think I would do the topic any justice. What I really want to talk about is why I am currently using they/them pronouns.

It begins with Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube.

This video popped up in my recommendations when I was on a ContraPoints binge. I put it on a bit passively, but by the end I was sobbing my eyes out. It’s a beautiful story, but it resonated with me in a way that went deeper than just… being moved by a beautiful story. I saw in Abigail a spark of recognition in myself, and this whole identity crisis snowballed from the realization that I’ve always taken my identity as a gay man at face value. I figured out from an early-ish age that I was attracted to men, and that was kind of it as far as queer self discovery. At the time I came out, I didn’t have any close relationships with trans people, and honestly didn’t really believe in the validity of trans identity. I probably hadn’t even heard of nonbinary people now that I look back on it. But as I’ve grown older and come to know and love many trans and nonbinary people, trans identity and inequality has begun to take up a lot of mental real estate… too much mental real estate for someone with zero skin in the game, so to speak. I’m always thinking about it, and I find myself always wanting to talk about it.

When I look at a trans woman, or a cis woman for that matter, I’m often petrified by her beauty. It’s different from how I look at a beautiful man. In the past I’ve shrugged it off as “Maybe I’m just a little bi. Sexuality is a spectrum!” but I still have no romantic or sexual interest in women. No, what I think I feel looking at someone like Abigail Thorn is not “I want to love you.” It’s “I wish I was as beautiful as you.”

So, I’m a trans woman right? Well, it’s not that simple. Gender identity isn’t something you can just figure out in two weeks. I can’t yet confidently say that I want to live the rest of my life as a woman. But I also know I can’t spend the rest of my life being perceived as a man full stop. The difference between coming to terms with the fact that I was gay and coming to terms with my gender identity was that the latter could be done internally. Who I love is not conditional on how other people see me. But to me, gender is something that’s predominantly social and interpersonal. It’s not something I can figure out entirely on my own, in my own head. I can’t know how I want to be perceived until I am perceived that way, and that can only come from outside myself.

For me, the ability to exist in a space where I am neither a man nor a woman is necessary. I’m in gender purgatory, and they/them pronouns are a way for me to still exist in the world while I consider what my ideal next life is. It’s important, though, to note that “gender purgatory” is just how I am conceiving of my internal world right now. I cannot stress enough that nonbinary identities are NOT, oh, a “pit stop on the way to Transtown (sounds like a place I’d like to visit!).” Just because I don’t foresee myself using they/them pronouns for the rest of my life does NOT mean I think it’s invalid to do so, nor do I write that off entirely as a potential future for me.

So, for those who skimmed my meandering, sickeningly saccharine prose thinking “what the hell kind of leftist antifa snowlfakery is this! Are you a boy or a girl?” my answer is……..

(Shaking Magic 8 Ball)

….. ask again later.

If I had to choose a label for my current presentation, I like the labels gender-nonconforming and genderqueer. But those are just words I’m using to sublimate my internal world into something communicable. Ultimately they don’t really mean anything to me anymore than the fact that I have XY chromosomes. What matters to me can be easily summed up by this astute observation from the only good YouTuber Natalie Wynn: “Being a boy was fine, but being a man is not.”

I’m not going to chide anyone for misgendering me or deadnaming me, but my pronouns for the time being are they/them, and I will be asking those in my personal life to call me Lin (I don’t want to give up my name entirely!). I’d like to think I’ve cultivated a following that will understand and will be happy for me, and who will see me for who I am. At, least I hope so. Ultimately I have no control over how you refer to me, and I know getting used to different pronouns for someone you’ve perceived as another gender takes time and effort. Go ahead and use your free speech to call me whatever you’d like, and in turn I’ll use MY free speech to respond accordingly!

I’m not naive. I’ve seen how trans and nonbinary people are vilified, degraded, mocked, and abused by the majority of people. I won’t pretend that doesn’t scare me. But what resonated with me above all else in Abigail Thorn’s video was that I had never seen or heard a trans coming out story so unapologetically joyous. Of course it’s difficult. Of course openly identifying as genderqueer is not going to make my life any easier. Of course I’ve just alienated a pretty hefty group of people. But to see that pain is not the definitive trans experience, that there is joy in liberation from a dissatisfying societal role, in becoming… that means something to me. That gives me courage. That is the life I want, and it’s the life I’m striving for.

Just one last thing:

Kiss my genderqueer ass, Joanne Rowling.