Life As Performance Art 86

I'm going to get some of you mad, today, Gentle Reader. Too bad. I'm a bit mad myself right now, and likely in both senses of the word. I did have a chat on the phone yesterday with a friend who is also a faithful and regular reader of this blog. Perhaps after reading this, this person will suddenly be neither. I am not going to go into a lot of detail, because publicly embarrassing others is usually not the purpose of this blog, not even to those who really deserve it, except perhaps as a desperate and final measure. I am thinking today about gender, and of how some of us choose to be identified by others. No, it isn't just about how they want to identify themselves. That is something personal, and of course to be respected. However, when this sense of respect or recognition becomes expected, or should I say, demanded and coerced, from others, then I begin to get a bit uncomfortable. If you haven't guessed, already, Gentle Reader, I am referring here to gender. This is a very complex and controversial issue, these days, especially with all the new definitions and categories that are being bestowed on gender. We are no longer simply men and women, female and male. There are the cis binary gender men and women, whom are the usual and the regular and the majority. There are transwomen and transmen, or men who have always identified as female and women as men. There are intersex people who are more or less hermaphrodites, carrying both male and female sexual characteristics. Then there comes this subtler but deadlier category, of which I am myself a member. We are the gender nonconforming, basically speaking. Bodily, we are clearly male or female. Our sexual orientations tend to be diverse, though I would say that same-sex attraction and asexuality still tend to dominate this group. In my case, I don't really relate to the socially defined roles of gender. I feel and experience life not as both and, but as neither nor. I simply do not relate to gender. On the other hand, I have no big problems with pronouns. There does not exist in the English language a gender neutral pronoun other than "it," and that word is used generally for non-living objects, plants, and non-human animals. To call someone an it is to demean, disparage and dehumanise them. There is rather a strident insistence that gender-nonconforming people should be referred to as "they" and "them", but this is also problematic, since it works fine when you are referring to others in the plural, but in the singular, it simply does not work. It is an abuse of the English language, and for any wordsmith or writer, such as myself, Gentle Reader, the language must be respected, honoured and maintained in its grammatical purity and integrity. Some people feel insulted when they are identified with their biologically assigned genitalia. To me it's irrelevant. On the other hand, I also have an identity that does not gravitate around my gender identity. I would like to think of humans as being more complex than the presence or absence of the letter X to their chromosomes. I am thinking here of young university students who have become so angry and shrill at absolutely everything they do not agree with, that they will simply shut or shout down anyone with a different or opposing view, rather than show the good manners of participating in a rational and courteous conversation. This has been made abundantly clear with the absolute hatred that has been spewed all over a certain prominent Toronto professor of psychology, whom, simply for refusing to use nongendred pronouns for non gender conforming people, or for trans people their preferred pronoun of gender, has been particularly and egregiously targeted and vilified. What is even more tragic is the way the alt right has also hijacked his narrative, claiming him as their ally, even after he has several times publicly denounced them and everything they stand for. I did see a documentary about this man. It was a sympathetic portrayal, and to me, he came across as a reasonable, kind and open-minded sort. That he is a straight white cis binary male does nothing to help his position, unfortunately. Nor, when he has spoken publicly, has it been helpful, that the non-gender conforming students who hate him so much have done everything they could to silence him, shout him down, even unplug his amps and microphone while he is speaking. I feel sorry for the man, both for the abusive treatment he has received by students whose brains are still not fully developed enough to process things rationally, and the way he has been co opted by members of the alt right, who don't appear to have any functioning brain at all. Where do I stand with all this? Well, I respect people's right to self-identify in the way that they are most comfortable. I also want respected my right to disagree and not buy into their demands that I should have to somehow abuse the English language in order to keep them quiet. I do not have any trouble at all with the male pronouns as ascribed to me. I was born, biologically, a male. I have no trouble with that. Neither do I feel trapped or confined within my gender, since to me, our identity as humans is far more than our gender. I will accept and welcome those who self-identify in whatever way they choose. They also have to accept that the world is not necessarily going to buy into their little fantasy. I think that on all sides there is room for kindness, but we also have to be prepared for and be gracious about it, when others forget, neglect, or refuse to call us by the gender to which we self-identify. And those of us who don't buy into it have to accept that their expression of themselves is to be respected. And by the same token, that not everyone has to agree with them. I really like to think we have more important things to focus on and that these little hissy fits are but distractions that shield some of us from having to face some of the bigger issues and problems of life. Or it could also indicate how terribly, comically and tragically seriously a lot of people still take themselves. Call yourself whatever you want for all I care. Just don't scream and cry when some of us don't call you what you want to be called. There are also much worse things we could call some of you. Or maybe we just won't call you at all.