Bound to the Binary: Pronoun and Title Use Amongst Transgender Individuals

Gender in the United States is often seen as a binary structure. In recent years, the gender binary has been challenged by younger generations. It is becoming common in society to identify as transgender and gender non-conforming (Stryker 2008). Non-binary or gender non-conforming is when an individual whose gender does not agree with the traditional masculine/feminine binary (Stryker 2008). Commonly, many people who identify as gender non-conforming use “they/them” pronouns. Often this is met with conflict due to a changing in the language use and being seen by cisgender people as grammatically incorrect.

When it comes to english and gendered language, there is masculine and feminine, but often no neutral. In recent years, there has been a push to finding the alternatives to these words in the English language (Zimman 2015). I want to look at how language change has occurred in the past ten years to be more inclusive of the gender binary and how we can make a language more inclusive to those individuals. There will be a specific lens on how the internet is used to shape language formation around identity.

Methods

The field of Queer Linguistics is generally new to the world. It is related and focused on sexuality and how we discuss it with language and the queer community (Zimman, Davis and Raclaw 2014). This will be my key point of how to connect this work to linguistics. There is power, gender and sexuality that all blend into this design of language. Gender should be another sub-focus for Queer Linguistics, and often it is discussed because of the common theme of fighting the binary and structure with sexuality and gender (Motschenbacher). Though there is caution to be had due to Queer Linguistics being so heavily based in the binary. The sub-field often categorizes in binaries of male and female, as well as heterosexual and homosexual (Zimman, Davis and Raclaw 2014). This often leads to certain identities being erased or forgotten about when doing research about non-binary people.

I want to use blog posts to compare and contrast language use in the trans community. Internet allows for the spread of knowledge to happen rapidly (Poe 2013). The biggest non-binary community is found on the internet. The internet and blogs are often spaces for trans people to come together and create and use language because there is freedom to be out on the internet due to anonymity. I think it would be interesting to look at language and how it is created on these blogs and reasons for why they formed and are used in language and in such places where language change is on the forefront (Motschenbacher 2010: 41) . It is also getting the information directly from the trans people which is something I cannot get in an academic setting due to a lack of understanding and research in the field.

I also want to acknowledge my positionality as I do this research. I am a white non-binary student who uses they/them pronouns. There is a lot of personal stake in my research because it is about my identity and I also have to look at how my whiteness impacts how I view the LGBTQ community as it is a very white community and I am contributing to that mass of white scholarship and need to be aware of that. With academic texts, I will focus on who the author is and what identities they encompass, are they cisgender or transgender and how that impacts their claims and how their voices are heard in academics. I also looked at what the identities of these blogs are and how does their race impact how they understand their trans identity and how much of a voice does their blog have in the trans community that is often dominated by white people?

Research

As I started conducting research, I found that the topic of this paper has shifted. There is an interesting phenomena I saw happening in these queer internet spaces. Instead of finding new words for parent or child, I found words that are blending of the masculine and feminine forms or they are words already found in the english language that do not exactly fit, but are used more frequently or taken more seriously by the rest of the internet (Finch 2015).

The internet is where I primarily did my research for language use amongst transgender individuals and language creation. The internet provides a space for spreading information at fast rates and allows it to directly come from the people regardless of their identity (Poe 2013). People can present their knowledge and information to large audiences and so when new words for pronouns can be spread and used by multiple people (Poe 2013). With that, social media is especially important because sites like Facebook and Tumblr are focused on the person and talking to other people (Zimman 2015). Pronouns are used on these sites in to communicate to people. In the english version of Facebook, there is the option to change the gender marker to a plethora of different identities like agender, genderqueer or non-binary (Zimman 2015). Although there is freedom in this category, you can only pick from three sets of pronouns: she/her/hers, he/him/his, and they/them/theirs (Zimman 2015). This constrains the individual to a choice of masculine, feminine and neutral, which is a good stride for inclusivity, but falls short in validating those people who do not use any of those pronouns (Zimman 2015).

When we try to define what are “real” pronouns and what are not, it becomes difficult. Language is all “made up” based on a system of sounds that make sense in the cultural context (Anagnori 2016). When a cisgender person calls a pronoun or title “made up” then they upholding a prestige dialect (Anagnori 2016). There is a power hierarchy when a cisgender individual calls a pronoun “fake” because they already have the power to invalidate a transgender person. New pronouns used to describe different genders are a way to deconstruct the gender binary system (Anagnori 2016). There is a force of trying to make non-binary people choose they/them pronouns because those already fit into the existing structure. This force tries to assimilate non-binary people into the gender binary and is erasing their gender at the same time in order for them to fit under the cisgender definition of being trans and to be seen as human (Battistella 2013).

While conducting research, I ran into a lot of binaries. What was interesting was the idea of a “trinary” that kept coming into the picture while I was looking through term lists and pronoun pages. It was based off the she/he/they system of language. We often operate with masculine and feminine binaries and when society cannot place them into the category that best fits them, people are forced into a box that best fits them (Lucal 2005). There is too much of a focus on gender presentation and the body than how people identify (Hall and Zimman 2009). Commonly when doing research on transgender identity, there is reference to the “third sex” to explain the middle category. The problem with this line of thinking is that it begins to normalize the binary and objectifies the third category, and lumps the “other” into one group (Hall and Zimman 2009). And the third sex being too focused on the body of the trans individual because of the word use of “sex” instead of gender and language is a powerful tool to how we shape and view the body (Hall and Zimman 2009). There is also an importance to recognize whiteness and english as a language of power. Often there is a sentiment that gendered languages are seen as oppressive to transgender or gender non-conforming individuals (Aurelmoon 2016). This paper is looking to address the power of the english language and the cisgender white heterosexual system set out to erase non-binary identity. I do not want call out non-english languages because non-binary people who speak different languages interact with their language differently. My english native speaker body can not condemn other languages and cultures, because that is not my language that I speak and partake in the culture (Hall and Zimman 2009).

Results

To understand the results of my research, I divided the study into two categories. One looking at “title” words and the other looking at pronouns. I separated the two because they work in different ways and the discourse about pronouns is harsher on social media like tumblr.

Titles are often gendered terms to refer to people. These are words like “Sir” or “Mam”, so terms you run into when going to the grocery store or at a restaurant. There are many term lists on the internet that curate words and tell the origin of the word’s creation (Genderqueeries). There is this common trend for the words to be combinations of the titles already in existence or just using the gender neutral word instead. When someone tries to create a new word to fit to their gender identity it is not taken seriously by others, especially cisgender individuals. The example of Mommy and Daddy depict this phenomena very well. Non-binary people who are parents need terms to describe that role. There is the masculine daddy, the feminine mommy, and the neutral word parent. There is a certain connotation of parent as being cold and distant, so thus transgender parents want to create their own word, one being Nini (Genderqueeries). When non-binary individuals use words like nini, they are often called “transtrenders” which is a derogatory word for people who do not fit into the traditional definition of transgender. The word is treated like it is fake and the person is not to be taken seriously. There is this force of trying to fit into a category that is determined by cisgender and binary transgender people (Finch 2015).

Pronouns are used to refer to someone and are often gendered terms. Common pronouns are she/her/hers (feminine), he/him/his (masculine) and they/them/theirs (neutral). These are the most accepted pronouns, although there is contestation between the use of the singular “they” as not being grammatically correct, they/them still has the institutional power of being an established word in the english language (Zimman 2015). The “trinary” is built upon this system. As someone who does trans inclusivity training for college professors, in my experiences professors have been open to they/them pronouns. When I flip to the slide that also includes xie/xem/xyr pronouns, faculty often scoff and call it “made up words”. The basis of this is the reason that those pronouns are thought of as being “made up”. There is a need to ascribe to the already existing language to be seen as human or non-binary in this case (Battistella 2013). There is immense power given to cisgender people who get to decide what pronouns are “real” or not and when they can be used (Finch 2015).

Conclusion

This research is vital to transgender people. There is often the sentiment that non-binary people are not real and are making up words. Language is a system of made up words put together to have meaning. Words like sprog (child) and nini have meaning to people, but those people are not occupying privileged bodies. When cisgender people decide what pronouns are allowed, they are delegitimizing gender identities and helping to enforce the gender binary or trinary. This research is about a community on the internet that finds connections, and although they might seem to be discredited and could be anyone, most of them are scholars. There is a place that creates freedom of expression and access to people. Most of the blogs that I referenced in this paper are scholars with degrees and PhDs. Their pronouns and identities are not taken seriously because of the words used to describe themselves. There is a need to recognize that language holds great power in who we grant human or sub-human. I hope that this research will lead to more scholarship about non-binary pronouns and identities being seen as valid and scholarship worthy.

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