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Him/Her
Lucas Fernandes



Why cant him and/or her be considered gender neutral? We attack these words as if
they were the Devils spawn we forget that these words can very easily mean the same thing
as ze or hir if we were to focus our subversive energy into renouncing the certain
expectations that surround, envelope, and define them. But we have defined them, we have
attached to them certain rules, boundaries; we have built walls around them, walls of
expectation.. We have the hammers to destroy these walls, but we lack the nails to build new
ones: we have imagined for ages a new architectural era for the LGBT community, we have
thought up new ways to establish the genderless Utopia, yet we have forgotten that the problem
doesnt exist in creating something new which perhaps may do more harm than good but
instead exists in working at, transfiguring, and redefining what we already have. We are
confusing ourselves with the language of other, we are directing our intolerance, our natural
disgust at the gendered walls when we may, now in this very moment be trying to do something
more daring and even more difficult: abandon gender roles, expectations, and barriers.

Although straighter than an arrow, I am a diehard advocate for gay rights. I believe
fiercely in the struggle of those who have been for so long in Westernized/fundamentalist
cultures outcasted. My stance is held by many others, though I felt it necessary to mention as my
argument may, unfortunately, be seen as homophobic or anti-progressive. Such is not my aim; I
simply wish to present another, perhaps unpopular, opinion. However, in order for us to explore
this opinion, we must navigate through one source in particular, which puts into laymans terms
the issue at hand. Jennifer Conlin, a writer for the New York Times, published an article called
The Freedom to Choose Your Pronoun which reports on a few examples of people and
institutions attempting to adopt and adopting non gender language. In first describing an
experience of a teenager by the name of Katy Butler, who celebrated at the fact that Google
offered three choices for choosing gender (male, female, and other), Conlin writes, though
Google created the other option for privacy reasons rather than as a transgender choice, young
supporters of preferred gender pronouns (or P.G.P.s as they are called) could not help but
rejoice.

It is here where I would like to begin deconstructing the claims made in this article.
Firstly, Id like to address the strange hypocrisy that follows P.G.Ps. Conlin writes, Katy is one
of a growing number of high school and college students who are questioning the gender roles
society assigns individuals simply because they have been born male or female. But does this
questioning and formation of new pronouns not perpetuate the gender roles society assigns? If
we were all to consider ourselves other or transgender, wouldnt there still be expectations
for how our offspring behave, think, and feel? Are not the questions far more complicated than
we first imagined, and can the problem of gender roles, assignments, and expectations really be
disavowed through the development of new pronouns?
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Katy says, Maybe one day you [will] wake up and feel more like a boy. Though, again,
does not this mean that if one person can switch seamlessly from girl (etc.) to boy (etc.), that
there is an awareness and understanding of certain roles those genders inherently play? I will use
myself as an example. Say I do happen to wake up and feel more like a girl, and less like a boy,
does that not mean that there are certain behaviors I wish to imitate, and certain behaviors I wish
to discard? If the question is refused answer, then another may be asked: Why not just be without
a gender altogether? Why not wake up and feel more like a person, kept from the girl-boy binary,
and so on? What word would be used to describe that person?

There have been different invented words, coming from as early as the 19th century, but
many English speakers just dont (and probably wont) speak in that way. Many of those people
being absolutely aware of the need for disowning our ideas of gender roles, but realize it would
be easier, desirable, and even inevitable to hold conservatively to the language we already have.
Then using that language in a way that doesnt connote gender or gender being a substantial
measure for communication between people.

People who are born with penises but consider themselves female also feel as if there are
certain prerequisites for what it means to be a female or a woman, and perhaps are greatly aware
of the expectations of people with penises because in considering themselves female reject the
feelings, behaviors, and thoughts associated with the male; and in understanding those things
associated with the male become more deeply involved in the binary we fear most, and have a
harder time trying to escape it. Therefore, if there is a point in time when others may refer to the
aforementioned people as him and her, without ever implying that the two terms cannot be used
interchangeably, then what is the problem? However, you may ask, what of the men and women
that dont want to be referred to with interchangeable pronouns? This is where the revolution (the
desire to renounce gender roles and expectations) meets condition (the present circumstance
which is still heavily involved in the argument between man/male and woman/female as we
understand it). I fear that if unless we attempt to move the revolution of the condition into other
generations, then the struggle will be stationary. As argued earlier, we have the hammers
necessary to be rid of the walls that surround those ideas which have the capacity for neutrality
however, our greatest conflict lies in whether or not we want revolution with revolution: if we
are ready to take the hammer to the walls and risk what we know for something unknown and
new.

I remain hopeful. I believe we are building up the courage and gaining new insights into
this beast of an idea. Some of us, unfortunately, hold to old traditions and ideologies, but for the
most part, we are becoming ever more aware of the necessity for change. We are an evolving
species, capable of greatness. Sooner or later, we will forget what gender ever was, and move
into an age where we can live freely in our languages, unabated and strong, never again
influenced by our own expectations of people who assign themselves certain pronouns, certain
words, certain walls.