Pronoun Practice
June 12, 2020 3:06 PM   Subscribe

My younger cousin (who still lives at home with parents), came out to me as nonbinary some time ago, and, more recently, has asked that I use they/them pronouns for them. Great! I have other enby friends for whom I have had little difficulty making the change. But my cousin is not out as nb to literally any of the people in our family, so (at their request) I'm still using their old pronouns with all the people I actually discuss them with. This means it's been a lot harder to make the change this time, but I really want to honor my cousin's request and not misgender them when I think about them. How can I practice this so that I can make it stick, when I can't practice in normal conversation?

For example, writing this question involved lots of stopping and deleting--I want to just think of them properly!
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (10 answers total)
 
My suggestion is to practice a little story in the mirror using the correct pronouns and the incorrect pronouns. Write the story to reflect both environments and rehearse it. So you use they/them in your story that features you and your cousin, and you use the wrong pronouns in the story that you are not in.

This is basically how I activate my "swear filter" for being around kids-- I rehearse things I might say in the manner I might say them in the situation, so that I have sort of a muscle memory of how it works.
posted by blnkfrnk at 3:14 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


If pets have gender, they're not sharing that info. Do you have any pets? If so, you can use they/them pronouns with your pets. Then you get lots of practice! And practice helps develop the neural pathways.

As a bonus, it gives other people who interact with your pet the opportunity to practice they/them in a low-consequence environment.
posted by aniola at 3:33 PM on June 12, 2020


Good for you for taking this on.

Fortunately they/them is pretty straightforward because, as you demonstrated above, there are already English constructions for using those words to refer to an individual. "Bob's going down to the shed and I'm going with them", or "Marge can't come because they're grounded."

To that end you actually *can* practice in normal conversation. It can sound (or rather feel) a little off, but other than some particularly persnickety grammar snob friends no one ever called me out on it.

If you're uncomfortable swapping in they/them you can at least swap in their name for the pronoun. It will help you remember there's something you need to do there.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:38 PM on June 12, 2020


I have some experience with this -- a close friend came out to me as trans a full year before she came out to anyone else in our social group. I tend to talk to myself a lot in my head, so I would tell stories to myself about things I had done with my friend recently, making sure to use the correct pronouns. To practice out loud, sometimes I would tell stories about her to friends in other cities who didn't know her, and use the correct pronouns, without specifying who I was talking about (in order not to out her). I guess it worked pretty well -- I didn't have any trouble using the correct pronouns once she came out more broadly.

In contrast to some of the comments above, I think you should absolutely not use they/them to refer to your cousin when talking to people they're not out to. Using they/them to refer to a specific, known individual DOES sound odd to many people who aren't used to it, and they might wonder what's up. It's possible those people won't notice, but if they do, you will have outed your cousin, which would be a shitty thing to do.
posted by mekily at 4:12 PM on June 12, 2020 [10 favorites]


Can you think of your cousin as playing a role when around people they're not out to? Perhaps you can mentally assign the gendered pronouns to that role, and practice referring to your cousin's true self with "they" and them playing that role as the gendered pronoun.

But my cousin is not out as nb to literally any of the people in our family, so (at their request) I'm still using their old pronouns with all the people I actually discuss them with.

And yeah, I would respect your cousin's request instead of using "they" in all situations! I think some people might be missing these (very important) parentheses about your cousin requesting this. Your cousin gets to choose how they manage their risk.

I don't think it's likely that people will notice if you slip up once in a while - many people use "they" more broadly than they or others realize. But it is certainly possible that they would notice if you changed your pattern.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:32 PM on June 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


I've been reading a lot out loud to my daughter and have been swapping genders up for certain books, including using they/ them. It's helped tremendously with real life situations.
posted by damayanti at 6:56 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


You might try thinking of your cousin as two different people who happen to have the same name (assuming the cousin hasn't picked a new name -- if they have, this is kind of easier). There's the nb one you communicate with directly, and the binary one your other relatives discuss with you. Picture the binary one like someone's new step-kid you haven't really gotten to know yet, so he/she is kind of abstract and you needn't worry about aligning her/him with your other cousin in your head. This would be a lot harder, of course, if you're talking about in-person interactions with everyone involved, but in that circumstance I'd just try to call the cousin by name as much as possible, again assuming that's not going to hurt them. It'll be conversationally awkward at times, but for six months or so my kid wanted no pronouns but also didn't want me to tell anyone that, so I just used adequately convoluted sentences and as far as I know nobody ever really figured out the overall pattern even if they found specific phrases weird. This includes both people who fundamentally reject anything outside a gender binary, and those who use "they" themselves: the bias toward assigned genders, especially when presentation appears to align, is strong. For a cousin, I'd imagine you don't need to discuss them nearly as much as I discuss my kid, so it seems like it should be doable as long as nobody is actively hostile/suspicious about the cousin's gender.
posted by teremala at 7:12 PM on June 12, 2020


I had a friend who requested this pronoun to be used. I spent a few weeks talking to my dog all about them, and that really helped. If you do not have a pet, a plant might suffice.
posted by ananci at 8:17 PM on June 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


I find myself using they/them to describe people in a lot of situations as a default. Using they/them might not raise any red flags if you practice it.
posted by RainyJay at 8:38 PM on June 12, 2020


You should absolutely honor their request to continue using gendered pronouns when talking to others!
posted by fritley at 7:32 AM on June 13, 2020 [5 favorites]


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