“She/her/hers”… thanks for sharing?

When I added my pronouns to the signature line of my work emails, a couple of colleagues and friends asked: what’s up with that?

While I was certainly not the first to do, I was, for some of my contacts, the first they had noticed. And I want to say how grateful I am that they asked. We live in a time when there’s a lot of felt pressure to “get it right,” to “be woke,” and to already know what is socially correct to others.

Good luck with that.

All we can do is accept that we live in a world of people who aren’t us, notice whatever we think is normal (and how much it may mean to us), decide whether we care about connecting with others, and if we do, then get curious and learn.

So a sincere thanks to those who asked, who cared enough to take a minute to get curious and have a conversation. I ended up writing a couple of emails about how the English language ends up assigning gender through 3rd person pronouns (“Alison founded Blink Consulting. She has been a consultant for almost 15 years…”), and that I work with a lot of people–some of whom I haven’t met yet, and many of whom have never asked and I’ve never told which pronouns to use when referring to me. And since we use pronouns like names for people, doesn’t it make sense to let others know which ones we respond to? I don’t get emails addressed to “Alex” or “Buttons,” probably because people have taken the time to find out to whom they should address their correspondence. And if they care enough to know my name, it makes sense that they would want to know my pronouns, so they can refer clearly to me, not Buttons.

This brings me to today, when I noticed another colleague’s signature line. After her pronouns, she’s inserted: (What’s this?)

That link takes you to a blog post: “Why sharing gender pronouns at work matters” on Culture Amp by Alexis Croswell. It’s a useful read, that addresses the practice and  underlying beliefs about pronoun sharing, including this framing for those of us who are wondering what’s the big deal:

If a person has never had to worry about which pronoun others use for them, gender pronouns might not seem important. [Culture Amp’s Insights Strategist Steven] Huang says, “For most, their singular and visible gender identity is a privilege. Not everybody has this privilege; those that are referred to with the wrong pronoun can feel disrespected, invalidated, and alienated.” You can’t always tell what someone’s gender pronouns are by looking at them. Knowing and using someone’s gender pronouns is a positive way to support the people you work with.

The article is now hyperlinked in my signature as well. And I’m happy to continue having the conversation.

*Thanks to my colleague SL for the resource.

Care about body safety?

Just a quick post from Upworthy about a 3rd grade teacher’s developmentally supportive and scaffolding lesson about consent. While I think body safety is an issue that should be universal and nonpartisan (at least for anybody with a body who knows other people with bodies), if this isn’t an issue of concern for you, I think there are still takeaways here about how to have vital conversation that matter to you and that you believe matter for the well-being of children and youth.

And while we’re on the topic of body safety, I think it’s a great opportunity to practice equity and inclusion, which is to say:

• Address body safety for every individual and all people
• Address body safety as an issue which impacts different groups of people unfairly.

Does it surprise you to hear that in my work, I come across a common concern about gender and sexuality inclusion, specifically regarding safety in bathrooms, locker rooms, dormitories, and camping and other housing accommodations for students?

Let me be clearer: whether or not folks name it, the concern is for the safety of cisgender and heterosexual students, who may be preyed upon by transgender and queer classmates. And the concern about sexuality inclusion also extends to queer kids acting sexually inappropriately with each other.

Here is where it’s helpful to distinguish between stereotypes and what my colleague D. King refers to as “research-based generalizations”:

• A stereotype is a fixed idea about what a group of people is like, based on inevitably limited personal experience, social biases and assumptions, and a “made up my mind” (consciously or not) mindset.
• A research-based generalization not a 100% and forever proven fact, but a theory grounded in some study.

It is a stereotype that transgender and LGBQQ people are more sexually active and inappropriate or predatory than cisgender and heterosexual people. And this isn’t just an unfortunate stereotype; it’s one that drives exclusionary, unfair and even mortally endangering policies and practices. While examples of cisgender and heterosexual sexual misconduct abound, it signals the privilege of these identities that we don’t seem inclined as a society to theorize that cisgender and heterosexual people group may be even more dangerous than transgender and LGBQQ folks combined.

Here’s perhaps a hybrid of stereotype and research-based generalization: locker rooms can be body-unsafe place for any students. While I haven’t found a robust study, different groups have written about bullying in locker rooms as a general issue that is not-limited-to gender identity or sexuality.

And here’s a research-based generalization:

Of all the reasons why trans kids may be more susceptible to suicidal ideation, we have to include their cognizance of the stereotypes about people who identify within the cisgender binary.

Which is why we need to teach body safety both as a universal and also with a commitment to bias reduction and anti-discrimination. We need to:

• Honor the importance of body safety for all.
• Name homophobia and transphobia and their basis (fact or low-hanging fruit of prejudice?)
• Point out that focusing only on the behaviors of trans and queer kids creates a blind spot that enables inappropriate and dangerous cis and hetero behavior. And that we have reason to be concerned that a group of kids who are all hetero and cisgender are not, in fact, guaranteed to be body safe.
• Recognize that this isn’t just an individual behavior issue: it’s a cultural behavioral issue, and an institutional design question. Dorms, locker rooms, bathrooms and other facilities were traditionally designed in the US on the assumption that gender determined sexuality. And that is just not the case. So we need to talk to all kids about body and sexuality safety, include people in the assignments we make about where we presume they will be/feel safe, and offer options to include and empower everyone in our communities to thrive (and here’s the catch) without requiring them to disclose who they are.
• What?! Kids don’t have to tell us? Yes, I said that. First of all, identity is life-long in formation. Or as Jack Kornfield says, “We think of ourselves as nouns, and we’re really verbs.” So I may not be able to tell you accurately for all time how I identify. Secondly, it may not be safe to disclose. You may want to know, but you don’t have the right to compel me to tell you, especially if I don’t feel safe. Third, it’s not about stereotyping people’s behaviors based on their identities. How people behave is definitely a nature-nurture question, and what communities need to do is focus where they have agency, which is not how someone got born, but how we empower them to be in community with us and us to be in community with them.

 

 

On millennials, GenXers and Baby Boomers and gender identity

A colleague recently wrote to me, asking my thoughts on something they were experiencing with their friends: a consensus that Millennials are “overreacting” about gender pronouns. I interpreted “overreacting” to indicate a perception that as a group, millennials are “making a big deal” (perhaps insincerely) out of not identifying as “she” or “he.”

What do I think about that perception? First of all, we need to frame whose perception we’re talking about: a group of people who don’t identify as Millennials (as evidenced by their talking about Millennials). I believe the group having the conversation may Gen Xers, maybe with some Baby Boomers in the mix.

Re: Millennials, here’s what they have right:

 
What this research confirms is that what we’re experiencing regarding gender identification is generationally diverse. (Like so many other things: the #MeToo movement, religious identification and participation, access to and valuation of marriage, employment opportunities…) And what’s true of gender diversity in a generationally diverse society, is understandably not making sense to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, if our frame of reference for “normal” is limited to and defined by our own age group.

And I get it. Everyone has their perception of “normal”: consider financial diversity. You, like me, like everyone else, has a sense of what’s normal for a person or family financially–and what’s, frankly unfathomable or weird to us. But as Dorothy Parker said, “Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.” Similarly, a particular bandwidth of financial means and limitations is just common for some of us–not normal for everyone. And back to cisgender identity: it’s definitely still common… but that doesn’t make it normal.

So what do I do when I’m having an “oh come on, really?” moment because I’ve let myself believe that my “common” is “normal”? I try to invite consideration of what doesn’t make sense to me (and “my people”) by thinking “yes, and…”

Yes, one theory is that Millennials are “overreacting.” And, what could also explain a trend of preferred pronouns beyond “he/she”?

• Changing social understandings, norms and ability to identify otherwise these days
• A greater openness and readiness by younger folks to see themselves in the greater spectrum of boxes than by older folks, who have spent more time in the only two boxes previously available (and may, regardless of how we see ourselves, be habituated to identifying within them)
• Greater social safety to identify as other than cisgender female or male.  Note: this is not to say that identifying as transgender or non-binary gender is safe. In fact, it’s clear that the social and personal perils and risks persist, with sometimes life-threatening and ending consequences. At the same time, it may be safer for some individuals and groups, whose privileges in other aspects of their identities may create greater perceived or actual safety for them in identifying outside of the cisgender binary.
• A biological and social truth that gender has historically, incorrectly been oversimplified. Consider race as an example. Some people feel that racial identity is too complex to be simplified into white, black, Latino/a/x, Asian, Native American/Indian and multiracial (6+ categories). Yet, dominant US society has bought into gender being as simple as an “either-or”?
• Normative developmental identity exploration. Rather than “overreacting,” maybe Millennials are doing what makes developmental sense across all domains of their identities: exploring and defining and redefining not just themselves, but how the world thinks them. Are we as intolerant of Millennials’ work identities shifting, morphing and redefining the old boxes? (Yes, sometimes.) The point is, that we older folks may be more tolerant of some identity exploration than other identity exploration. And yet, it’s all identity exploration. It’s human.
• Which brings me to wondering whether the perception of Millennials “overreacting” might be about how Millennial bias (more broadly) drives a tendency to dismiss their experiences and perspectives. In the history of generationally diverse societies, there’s a pattern of older generations wondering “what’s up with kids these days?” How Gen Xers and Baby Boomers view Millennials with a touch of disbelief and dismissal is both historic and common… but we don’t have to practice it as normal.
• And. I can’t help likening the characterization that Millennials are “overreacting” about gender expansion to the impression that people of color “are always bringing” or “making everything about” race. Whether this perspective is coming from white folks or other POC, it’s the same idea, right? Why do those people have to make a big deal out of something that from my perspective (and for that matter “our” perspective) doesn’t matter? I think David Gaider, gamer and game designer, says it best: “Privilege is when you think that something’s not a problem because it’s not a problem for you personally.”

** Thanks, David. And thanks to my colleague KS for the question.