why I use 'they' as my standard pronoun / I now require gender-neutral pronouns in reference to me

[belenen]

icon: "queer (the logo for Transcending Boundaries Conference overlaid with the words "genderfree, queer, + trans / never a 1 or 0")"For many years I used ze/zir for everyone, and fairly recently I changed to they/them (still working on it, I have all of the slip-ups). I made the switch for several reasons. One is that even though ze/zir does not

Comments

[alicroc]

This is really fascinating to me. I have a cousin who is transgender. Born male, living as female. And it has personally been a huge struggle for me change pronouns in reference to them (I'm trying

[raidingparty]

Thanks for letting us know!

[kmiotutsie]

I'm so glad you wrote this! As a cis-person I've felt like a jerk airing criticisms for some of the more awkward sounding pronouns, because so many staunch resisters of gender neutral pronouns use language like mine ("it sounds awkward!" et al) to excuse their lack of respect for chosen or gender neutral pronouns. There are so many that just feel awkward on my tongue, not because I'm not used to them but because I'm super sensitive to clunky sounds. (I really take issue with the word "chocolate," for example, and hate too many consonants next to each other. The word "sandwich" makes me cringe

[lilywolfsolomon]

People seem to hear my "ze" either he or she depending on the assumptions they already have about who I'm talking about or what I'm saying. I think more often "she."