I understand it's a symbol, but how is that style of writing sustainable? Wouldn't a completely new pronoun make much more sense?
He first identified publicly as “non-cisgender” in an article for The Players’ Tribune in 2015. But it took longer for them to embrace the idea that they belonged under the trans umbrella, requiring them to unpack some of their own internalized transphobia and seeing trans identity beyond the singular, dominant narrative of transitioning from one binary gender to the other. Last summer, during the WNBA season, she told teammates that she was changing her pronouns, and she quietly updated them in his Twitter bio.
I understand it's a symbol, but how is that style of writing sustainable? Wouldn't a completely new pronoun make much more sense?
I think at this point, I would personally go with just using his/her/their name every single time instead of going through all of the pronouns? (as weird as it would look in writing)
I think at this point, I would personally go with just using his/her/their name every single time instead of going through all of the pronouns? (as weird as it would look in writing)
Because the antecedent is clear from context, I think the writing works fine. I'm reminded of this video discussing BMO from Adventure Time which similarly switches between he/him and she/her...
Because the antecedent is clear from context, I think the writing works fine.
I'm reminded of this video discussing BMO from Adventure Time which similarly switches between he/him and she/her throughout. As a bonus, the idea in the video can also help explain how using someone's (multiple) pronouns can be an expression of accepting their identity.
In the case of the article, if the reader has to process that "he", "she", and "they" are all referring to same person, so much the better: that processing hopefully helps internalize an understanding of that part of who Clarendon is.
Apologies I hadn't read the article yet and did not realize they use all pronouns
The correct practice is to immediately cease using all old pronouns and/or old names, and to only use the current name and pronouns. They should not have written it this way and I'm surprised it got past editors like this.
Apologies I hadn't read the article yet and did not realize they use all pronouns
I think you misunderstood; that's deliberate, and Layshia is happy about it: https://twitter.com/Layshiac/status/1383178014649847808 (Quoting the main tweet that they were replying to, but there's...
(Quoting the main tweet that they were replying to, but there's more info in the replies too)
From a copy nerd perspective, you’ll note that we seamlessly use multiple pronouns (he/she/they) for Layshia, because Layshia uses multiple pronouns! Editors (and all humans), take note! Want to also shout out @TransJA’s style guide here: https://transjournalists.org/style-guide/
It was one of the things I found really interesting about the article.
Thanks for this information, I didn't realize they used all pronouns - I had this bookmarked to read later based on the length and probably shouldn't have spoken up before reading the article and...
Thanks for this information, I didn't realize they used all pronouns - I had this bookmarked to read later based on the length and probably shouldn't have spoken up before reading the article and just responding to a quote about confusing terminology.
From what I can gather Layshia uses all pronouns so the writers were trying to be equitable in their usage? Somewhat of a jarring editorial choice -- they could have at least kept them coherent...
From what I can gather Layshia uses all pronouns so the writers were trying to be equitable in their usage?
Somewhat of a jarring editorial choice -- they could have at least kept them coherent within sentences.
I know very few people who use multiple sets of pronouns where it isn't some gendered pronoun plus the non-gendered they or context specific gendering (gender them male when presenting male,...
I know very few people who use multiple sets of pronouns where it isn't some gendered pronoun plus the non-gendered they or context specific gendering (gender them male when presenting male, female when presenting female, etc.), and all of them have a preference. I'm gonna throw this question out to a discord server I'm on where there's better representation, but my understanding is that alternating per sentence (pick one set of pronouns per sentence, and then alternate which ones you use by sentence) is typically what's preferred.
I understand it's a symbol, but how is that style of writing sustainable? Wouldn't a completely new pronoun make much more sense?
I think at this point, I would personally go with just using his/her/their name every single time instead of going through all of the pronouns? (as weird as it would look in writing)
Because the antecedent is clear from context, I think the writing works fine.
I'm reminded of this video discussing BMO from Adventure Time which similarly switches between he/him and she/her throughout. As a bonus, the idea in the video can also help explain how using someone's (multiple) pronouns can be an expression of accepting their identity.
In the case of the article, if the reader has to process that "he", "she", and "they" are all referring to same person, so much the better: that processing hopefully helps internalize an understanding of that part of who Clarendon is.
The correct practice is to immediately cease using all old pronouns and/or old names, and to only use the current name and pronouns. They should not have written it this way and I'm surprised it got past editors like this.Apologies I hadn't read the article yet and did not realize they use all pronouns
I think you misunderstood; that's deliberate, and Layshia is happy about it: https://twitter.com/Layshiac/status/1383178014649847808
(Quoting the main tweet that they were replying to, but there's more info in the replies too)
It was one of the things I found really interesting about the article.
Thanks for this information, I didn't realize they used all pronouns - I had this bookmarked to read later based on the length and probably shouldn't have spoken up before reading the article and just responding to a quote about confusing terminology.
From what I can gather Layshia uses all pronouns so the writers were trying to be equitable in their usage?
Somewhat of a jarring editorial choice -- they could have at least kept them coherent within sentences.
I know very few people who use multiple sets of pronouns where it isn't some gendered pronoun plus the non-gendered they or context specific gendering (gender them male when presenting male, female when presenting female, etc.), and all of them have a preference. I'm gonna throw this question out to a discord server I'm on where there's better representation, but my understanding is that alternating per sentence (pick one set of pronouns per sentence, and then alternate which ones you use by sentence) is typically what's preferred.