For those who demand everyone must use new pronouns…
Individuals have rights. We each can pursue life paths according to our values, coming from the choices that each one of us sees as directing us to our happiness. This includes – if not emphasizes – that each individual can pursue our happiness in ways that do not necessarily follow the norms set forth by others or society. We can talk, think, interact, exchange, and more. The key point in one exercising rights is the voluntary nature; if there is not voluntarism, then in some degree there is compulsory talk, thought, interactions, exchanges, and more.
Life is the blending of the objective world with our subjective perceptions and our value bases and biases. There is a world of difference between the objective and subjective. You perceive, interpret, and act from your subjective realm based upon and into the objective world where everything else exists, including me. I perceive, interpret, and act upon my subjective experience of that objective world which includes where you exist, along with everything else. It is up to each of us to use and temper our subjectivity to properly recognize and act within the objective world. Our subjectivity and biases may make us prefer chocolate or vanilla, but neither of them have an effect on whether or not we will stub our toes when walking barefoot and accidentally kicking a stone.
Objective realities remain regardless of one’s ignorance or denial: good intentions and wishful thinking did not deter infections – it took Semmelweis to discover the hygienic practice of handwashing as for a time even surgeons discounted the practice; though tradition held differently for millennia, it took Galileo to show the Earth was not the center of the universe; though faith healing and alternative medicine may have tradition and rituals, it is when they have been controlled for and tested can true medicines be found instead of placebo and suggestion effects. Whether through some form of mystical thinking that one’s own subjectivity will override objective reality, or that objective reality can simply be denied, some expect those outside one’s own subjective world to swap their perceptions of the objective world, and follow the rules created in one’s own subjective world.
The demand for recognizing someone’s ‘identity’ or ‘pronouns’ is an example of someone’s subjectivity to override objectivity and control others. I don’t see your intended identity. I see what I see and a person can have a number of ‘roles’ or costumes, none of which are necessarily visible, especially upon first or single impression. A man can be a father, a biker, artist, and many other things, even at the same time. The role or costume may change, who wears it does not change.
Genetic expression directs your phenotype: genes build our bodies. Conception forges genetic expression and fetal development began the emergence of the potential phenotypic expression including the organs that will later create gamete production. Those organs in utero help direct the developing phenotype and will continue until death. Some phenotypic features we can modify such as working out for athleticism, but we cannot change our bodies beyond genetic limits, such as making a male phenotype female.
Your phenotype produces a gamete unless the organs are removed; even if removed, the genetic expression would still show a phenotype that would otherwise produce a specific gamete. The phenotypes of males have general differences and produce different gametes than females. Removing the organs that create one gamete does not make the body compensate and create the organs to make the other gamete. In that case the body is missing something it used to build and maintain itself. There are artificial measures one can take to compensate in some way to replace part of the lost functions. Reality will take over if one has the surgery to remove gamete-producing organs and stops taking the artificial levels of hormones: the genetic expression will reassert making the phenotype what it is and has become, a spayed/neutered animal. Similarly, one who lost a hand can have a prosthesis, but it is not a real hand and a new one will not grow back.
For those who want to change the how they are perceived: an objective reality you perceive is wrong so you try to change it to match your subjective feeling. Existence is outside your subjective world and it involves your objective body and everyone else’s who sees one another – I see the objective reality that you see and want to change to match your subjectivity. To have to take objective measures (surgery/hormones/etc) making your body match your perception is to explicitly state the objective reality exists and you want to change it; the rest of us see that objective reality. ‘Trans’ as a prefix means to cross borders or boundaries; transgender is to cross the border of a gender to another. The reality is one thing and the desire is to cross over it.
There is transgenderism, but that is not the only trans-identity: ethnicities (transracial1), age (transage2), species (transspecies3), other organism types (4), and taking into consideration, any ‘noun-self pronoun’ can be created (neopronouns5). There is also ‘gender fluidity’ which can include “That change might be in expression, but not identity, or in identity, but not expression.”6 Some advance that gender and pronouns can change – even within the same day – according to how one feels. Identity is to be subject to a whim and passing like the wind. Identity is not the same thing as a passing feeling. We see the same body, regardless of how one feels at the moment.
Your subjectivity has made ‘gender’ divorced from binary sex and meaningless. ‘Tomboy’ or ‘Tomgirl’ are examples of terms that refer to one of a sex who did not follow stereotypical social roles; biology was not negated, but still recognized as part of one who was already pursing a path that made them happy outside of stereotypes. ‘Identity’ should not be chance in nature, a fleeting feeling, or an appetitive preference; identity should blend them along with biology and moral behavior. Each individual should have these characteristics; each individual is not just a characteristic. In addition, in a conversation between the participants the only pronouns used are first and second-person: I, me, we, us, and you. He, she, him, her, and the rest ‘gendered’ pronouns are third-person. Third-person pronouns are for those not in the conversation, so you demanding specific pronouns are attempts to control language and thought when and where you are not a participant.
A bit of wit from Abraham Lincoln “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.” George Carlin quipped in a different context but same principle “These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow you’ll change the condition. Well, hey cousin doesn’t happen. Doesn’t happen.”
Live how you see things; those who embrace transage, transspecies, transgenderism, or any other trans can find those who want to and do participate with the desired identity. Some will want to share that experience, while others do not, and some will even exploit in professional or personal relationships (7). That is not an obligation upon others to recognize how you subjectively see things. To say that I must address things according to your perceptions and not my own in trying to understand the world we live in, is to control not only my behavior, but also my language and my thoughts – all violations of my rights.
7. Co-founder of queer Indigenous artists' collective in Wisconsin is unmasked as a white woman https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/co-founder-of-queer-indigenous-artists-collective-in-wisconsin-is-unmasked-as-a-white-woman/ar-AA15WpY0?li=BBF1w9o
Indigenous identity theft must stop https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/17/opinion/indigenous-identity-theft-must-stop/?fbclid=IwAR078SmiAjf-Q2cKdosSYL7iRCnL66NABIs3SKMbVrkueXJrBQ8qHzBTZIY&mc_cid=09f049861b&mc_eid=UNIQID
Transgender exclusion from the world of dating: Patterns of acceptance and rejection of hypothetical trans dating partners as a function of sexual and gender identity https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407518779139
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