Trump’s Contorted ‘Gender Ideology’: A Policy Against Pronouns
Listing one's pronouns is actually useful for everyone. Potential for confusion arises not only in names that are commonly considered gender-neutral in American English, but in foreign names as well.
by Pax Ahimsa Gethen
Continuing the time-honored tradition of President Trump’s press secretaries avoiding their actual job duties, Karoline Leavitt says she is refusing to answer queries from reporters who include pronouns in their email signatures. Drawing from the alternative facts presented in Trump’s executive order on "Biological Truth”, Leavitt stated, “Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story.”
Declaring that the use of a core part of speech is incompatible with reality, trustworthiness and honesty is right on message for this presidential administration. Pronouns such as she, he and they are for “woke” folks peddling “gender ideology,” not normal, God-fearing Americans.
Trump and his allies don’t see the need to state their pronouns because they loudly perform their very binary genders at all times. It’s a good thing that nobody in Trump’s administration has a gender-ambiguous name, like Chris or Lee or Alex, because it would be a shame if someone who wasn’t familiar with them accidentally misgendered them in response to one of their emails. Oh, wait…
Yes, it turns out that listing one's pronouns is actually useful for cis people, not just trans and nonbinary folks like myself. Potential for confusion arises not only in names that are commonly considered gender-neutral or ambiguous in American English, but in foreign names as well.
I once corrected a colleague who assumed that a man was gay because he was married to someone named Laurence. I explained that this Laurence (pronounced like this) was a woman originally from Belgium, and that this name is considered by French speakers to be feminine. (I also pointed out that being married to someone of the same sex doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is gay. Hello, bisexuals and pansexuals exist.)
Pronouns take up very little space in an email signature or profile, and fields for them have been added to many websites. Of course, some cis people misuse this feature to add additional marketing terms, anti-trans slurs, or other crap, but that’s to be expected, especially in today’s political environment.
Regardless, this political party that claims to champion freedom of speech sees no irony in not only erasing and censoring anything seen as remotely related to transgender issues, but now actual parts of speech themselves. Earlier this year, federal employees were ordered to remove pronouns from their own email signatures. It now appears that the party of limited government will not tolerate these parts of speech in email correspondence from anyone, period.
History might look back on this time period and laugh, but those of us living today have to cope with the ever-steepening slide into an Orwellian dystopia. But as long as I still have the freedom and ability to do so, I plan to keep my pronouns listed in my email signature and website profiles. If that means that I am ignored by members of the Trump administration, so much the better.
Pax Ahimsa Gethen (they/them) is a queer agender writer, editor, and curator. They live in San Francisco with their spouse Ziggy.