Pronouns and Free Speech: A Trans Woman's View | Trans Sandwiched #9

Today, I want to talk about the issue of pronouns, which has, in recent years, gained an unusual amount of prominence in the trans discourse. In fact, there is a view that the issue of pronouns has taken attention away from more bread and butter issues, like housing and employment for trans people, and this is a view that I certainly agree with to some extent. After all, even if everyone used the correct pronouns, it would be no good if trans people were still highly disadvantaged in employment, for example. The issue of pronouns is also a controversial one, especially since it has been linked to the wider issue of free speech in the broader (non-trans) political landscape. I will spend some time talking about this controversy later in this episode.

But first, let's get back to the basics. It is clear that almost all trans people have a strong wish, to be referred to by the pronouns of the gender we identify with. Surely, non-trans people generally like to be referred to by the pronouns of their gender too, but the issue is particularly intense for many trans people. There are various reasons for this, including social convenience, assimilation, and simply not wanting to be abruptly outed when one is already passing to other people. However, perhaps the most important reason is rooted in gender dysphoria itself. Being referred to by our preferred pronouns essentially means not being called the other set of pronouns, which means not getting yet another reminder of the mismatch that is at the core of our gender dysphoria. And most of us would certainly appreciate not getting our gender dysphoria reinforced again and again in conversations. Therefore, I have tried to describe using a trans person's preferred pronouns as an exercise in compassion. And most people do accept this, in my experience.

In recent years, there has been a push by some to make a very big deal out of the use of pronouns in relation to trans people. This has turned the whole thing into a culture war battleground, linked to the wider debate around free speech outside the trans community. I personally think this is a regrettable development: I mean, as I have said, if we explain that using our preferred pronouns is a compassionate thing that helps us experience less dysphoria, most people out there do accept it. However, now that it's been turned into part of the free speech wars, some people are now deliberately resisting it. And so, the activists who are supposed to represent us have made a mess of the whole thing, and effectively made life harder for many of us.

For those who think that not using a trans person's preferred pronouns is 'standing for free speech' or something like that, please hear me out: the reason why we support free speech is that it is essential for free thought and free debate. Free speech means that you are free to articulate any idea, in the free market of ideas. If you have read my other writing, you would know that I am a big defender of free speech. The way we take a stand for free speech is to be unafraid to voice our own beliefs, and hence take a meaningful stance, in the debate of ideas, even if unpopular. Deliberately refusing to use a trans person's preferred pronouns is not this, however, because pronouns are not a debate of ideas, and no meaningful stance is actually being taken here. (Nor should pronouns be used as a 'proxy' for debate about ideas around gender, because that would just dumb down the debate so much as to make it a meaningless shouting match.) Conversely, by calling a trans woman 'she', you are not actually endorsing any idea, because as described above, it is simply an act of compassion.

Now, let's turn to the activists. It is clear that the culture wars over pronouns are not doing us trans people any good. Therefore, things need to change. Not only are the pronoun wars distracting from bread and butter issues like housing and employment, they are now likely to be stalling trans acceptance among the general public, due to association with the wider culture wars out there. Furthermore, the pronoun wars are even dividing the trans community itself. The best example of this is perhaps the 2019 online 'cancellation' of ContraPoints, which started when she made a comment about pronouns on twitter. When a disagreement about the use of pronoun rounds has led to intra-trans community cancel culture drama, you know that something has gone wrong, and we must start rethinking things.

Perhaps we should start by thinking about what would actually be good for trans people, in practice, and not just in theory. We need to think about solutions that would practically work, not philosophically driven schemes that most people simply wouldn't adopt in real life, or could even bring us backlash. And finally, let me say this: when thinking about the way we approach pronouns, we should stay away from postmodern critical theories about discourse and power, because that stuff would only serve to detract from being grounded in the reality of real life. Which is what trans people need most, right now.