I’ve been reading/hearing/watching a fair bit about gender pronouns as of late. In all honesty, they confuse me. There’s a whole debate over how they should be lawfully obliged, and that anything else should be considered discrimination, or hate crime.
My point of view is a little simplistic when it comes to identifiers. I’m male. I have a penis, I don’t have boobs, I don’t have a vagina, and I have no desire to be called anything other than male. However! If someone decided to call me a girl, or a wuss, or a jessie, or whateverthefuck, I doubt I’d care much. That is purely down to the perspective of the person observing me.
To put this into simpler terms – If someone believes me to be an asshole, and call me as such, that is their prerogative. I’d choose to not be called an asshole, but I can’t force that other person to not do so. This is freedom of speech. To that person, I’m an asshole. I don’t feel like one, but they seem to think I am one. From their perspective, I’m an asshole. I’m not. But I don’t care if they think that way. I identify as a non-asshole. Think differently? Feel free.
To my mind, this is the same as gender pronouns. You want to be called she/her? Ok. But if someone doesn’t agree, so what? They’ll call you what they want, and you can’t stop them. Nor should you be able to. You probably think they’re an asshole for not doing so.
The world is about perception. If you disagree with someone, great, but don’t expect them to conform to your perception just because you disagree. It’s exactly how everyone should view everything. Don’t believe in the same God? Is the Earth spherical or flat? Does the wind drive turbines, or do turbines create wind? You know your answer, and they know theirs. Who is right? Who cares? You do you. If you’re wrong, at least you’re strong in your convictions. If you are convinced you’re wrong, then you either have weak convictions, or you were actually wrong. Again, who cares? Learn from it and move on.
At the end of the day, if you identify as yourself and want to be called xe/xem, go you! Just don’t drag everyone else into your own perception of the world and hold everyone else to your standards. I don’t, and I won’t.
For the record, my pronouns are Grandmaster/The Overlord Of All. I’d appreciate it if you referred to me as such.
Thanks.
[dilisilib] 