on pronouns and operation paperclip
The dreaded question.
"hey so... what pronouns do you use?"
Someone clocks me as maybe queer and offers a perfunctory token of allyship.
I could say I use she/her and be deemed forever a woman in this persons eyes... or say I use he/him and... be seen as a woman with parental trauma. I could cop out and say I go by they/them, the new third binary, and maybe if I'm lucky they'll see me as woman-lite. But who am I to dictate a persons perception of me? If someone decides to see me as a girl, no amount of forced pronoun compliance will change that. There is no freedom from gender without total deconstruction of the systems that uphold it.
I spoke with my coworker recently about the futility of gender expression and being publically trans. I told her about Operation Paperclip and the picture-perfect ideal of the American Nuclear Family that resulted from it... and how it degenerated into the fucked up capitalist hyper-binary that we have now. it's so freeing to have this dialogue with someone who gets it. She said I can use she/her for her, despite not identifying with any mainstream pronoun options. I asked that she use she/her for me too, just to avoid the hassle of explaining anything to anyone.
About a week later the topic comes up again, and she told me shes been using my name in place of pronouns when I come up in conversation.
I remember when I first found out there was a word for the disconnect I felt from my sex. It was a little over a decade ago at this point. I remember after cycling through every pronoun under the sun and not finding a single one that fit... and then discovering the option of using none at all. I felt like I found the holy grail or some shit. Now a decade later, my brand new coworker intuitively used this age old technique for me... without me even suggesting it... oh man.
It goes past the point of being respected or understood... its being seen for your life's experience that led you to this point. The traumas that occur form birth to adolescence to adulthood that separates a person from their community, from their society, and from their leaders. The broken trust in the system and the retreat into questioning everything, including one's self.
Your outlook on the world is a direct reflection of your "identity" or lack thereof. If one does not question their gender, one does not question their society nor the powers that which rule them... and how could I trust anyone who is so willfully integrated within the system?
i've spent so much time questioning myself that i feel like identity has lost all meaning completely. its like when you say the same word over and over and slowly it turns into this absurd jumble of mouth sounds? maybe deconstructing gender into complete absurdity is a good thing. maybe next time youre at the store you should try and figure out the difference between razors for girls and razors for boys.
hey, its a start. :)
