[Vol. 69] Oops, [they] did it again
Let's talk they/them and grammar Nazis
Welcome back to That’s Gay 🌈 A biweekly newsletter for all the folks outgrowing "the way things are" – written by a queer kid who knows the feeling.
Candid, current, chaotic, and always tongue-in-cheek.
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Happy Friday, everyone :)
I think this might be the first ever newsletter in I don’t know how many volumes that I’m actually writing ahead of schedule. And that’s not for lack of trying.
I don’t know what it is, but ever since High School I’ve always been a dedicated practitioner of the “diamonds are made under pressure” school of life.
I actually fell asleep at my desk one time in my Senior year. Slept through the whole night in a sitting position with my face stuck to a diagram of the Mitochondria. Terrible back pain the next day. 0/10, would not recommend. Invest in a good mattress instead.
Anyways, not today. Today, we’re breaking the script. Cheers to that.
* ^ By the way, hope ya’ll like the new page break design – I was looking through old symbols used/adopted by the queer community (Ex. the upside down pink triangle, the Lambda symbol etc.) when I realized we have our own *modern* queer iconography. So of course I had to give the painted nails emoji ( 💅 ) a little shoutout for quickly becoming a fill-in for “gay”, “lesbian” or “queer” all over the messy world of Tik Tok. Ya, it definitely plays on stereotypes, but with a name like That’s Gay I think we’ve reached a certain expected level of irony here. Kind of a perfect match, don’t you think?
This week, another famous writer (no, not J.K. Rowling) got caught up in the LGBTQ+ politics.
It was Joyce Carol Oates, celebrated novelist and playwright. Brought to my attention by LGBTQ Nation, Oates tweeted Tuesday that she doesn’t think the singular use of “they” will stick (AKA using they/them pronouns to refer to a single person).
Ok, first of all: Is it just me or is it wild to conceptualize that someone born in 1938 could get involved in a Twitter debate about pronouns? Like, could you imagine a 10-year-old Joyce walking to school in 1948 thinking, ‘One day I’m going to send out a virtual paragraph to strangers on something called the internet, and it’ll be all about gender identity.’
Ya’ll, the term “gender identity” wasn’t even coined for another 20 years – and that’s another 10 for the invention of the internet. Does that blow your mind, or is it just me? Goes to show just how much change can happen in a lifetime – and the woman hasn’t even hit her 90s yet!
Anyways, I digress. Let’s get into her actual tweet.
Joyce, you’re not alone. I’ve heard similar opinions from a few people in my own life
– especially when I said I’d start using both he/him and they/them pronouns.
The general sentiment: Using they/them when you’re really talking about a single person doesn’t make any sense – it’s supposed to be plural! It’s confusing!!
Quite honestly, from my own experience that frustrated, exclamation point-ridden interpretation isn’t too far from the truth. They/them is rubbing grammar-Nazis the wrong way left, right, and all across the nation.
Personally, I’ve never had a problem with they/them as singular pronouns …
1) Because vocab and grammar rules change all the time. Maybe not right in front of our eyes, but all throughout time language and the way we communicate is always shifting and changing beneath our feet. Why not now?
2) Because what’s grammar to inclusivity. Don’t you think we’re focusing on the wrong thing here? You are alive to witness an age in which we’re realizing the complexities and intricacies of gender identity. You may even have the privilege to witness someone you love open up and let you get to know them at a level that would never have been attainable even a decade ago. So what if it doesn’t check out in a dusty-old grammar textbook? Grammar is not the biggest thing at stake here.
3) Because we use they/them to reference singular individuals all the time. I use they/them to refer to the general idea of a person all the time in this newsletter, as would anybody else, without so much as a second thought. In fact, I just used it in the paragraph above and chances are you probably didn’t even notice.
This response to Oates’ tweet, I think, says it best.
So there.
If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, I disagree with Oates on this one. In my opinion, they/them is here to stay.
At one point I thought it might make more sense to introduce a whole new set of pronouns for gender nonconforming people – something like the ze/zir pronouns that some use today.
But then I came around to they/them. Sure it may sound a little awkward at first, grammatically correct or not, but it holds the advantage of being familiar – it’s not a whole new set of words and conjugation we have to learn. Plus (and this might just be unique to me), I actually like its unintended plural connotation. Sometime that’s how my identity feels to me – not just he or she, but them, together. It’s kind of perfect in that way, I think.
One thing’s for sure: If they/them is to survive, we have to discuss and not attack.
Another Twitter response to Oates’ take embedded in the LGBTQ Nation article called her “dumb as a brick” for sharing her opinion, and that pissed me off.
I see too many responses like this to discussion online.
Yes, given her reach as a celebrated writer, Oates’ opinions carry unexpected consequences – particularly, as one Twitter user mentioned, in accidentally fueling the fire of transphobic folks online. But she also made it clear in her apologetic responses to these Tweets that she’d never meant to argue against or “invalidate” the trans community.
Change comes around when we win over the majority, and we can’t ever get there if we push away the ones with good intentions; the ones who really want to learn and grow. We don’t have all the energy or momentum in the world, so we have to make sure we use it sparingly and aim it in the right direction.
I think we find talking harder than attacking because it means inevitably opening ourselves up to criticism and making ourselves vulnerable.
But think of it this way: On a topic as deeply personal and undeniably human as gender identity, a little bit of vulnerability may go a long way.
Enjoy your weekends, friends :)
— Till
Find me on Instagram: @till_kaeslin
Check out the newsletter’s home on Instagram to see this post there, and more like it: @thatsgaynewsletter
See you in Volume 70, folks!
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