We have grown accustomed to using the “they” not in order only to signify a group of people or objects but also as a gender-neutral, singular pronoun. This formal error in grammar has been popularly, if illicitly, employed in instances wherein the speaker knows not the formal gender of the person in question, so using “he” or “she” would be presumptuous and using “he or she” would be unconcise. Yet it was only very recently that the grammatical error became formalized as a social convention, in order to accommodate the ambiguity created by the excluded middle: those of “nonbinary identity”. In this instance, “presumptuousness” was the vice we wished to avoid, and acknowledging the excluded middle as a formal category created the felt necessity for a pronoun that would include this preciously excluded minority. Yet was this truly a necessity?
Technically, “gender” refers to a “classification”,
as do its cognates “genus” and “gene”. In all instances, “gen-” derives from
the same root word as “genesis”, meaning “beginning”. Ergo, a “gender” is that
which is so from the beginning, the “outset”. Since one “sets out” into the
World without the consciousness of one’s gender, one’s gender is said to be “assigned”
(given by signification) according to one’s “sex”. “Sex”, as a description of
an individual’s properties, refers to that sect to which one belongs
intrinsically, biologically. Ergo, one’s “gender” is literally a description of
that sex to which one belongs at the outset of one’s lifetime. It
becomes absurd to suggest that “sex is that with which one is born, but gender
is that which is initially assigned but which may be changed at any time by the
Individual’s own volition.”
Out of this stringent but faithful
accounting of “sex” and “gender” there emerges an appreciation for the extreme
formality and formalism of the classical distinction between “the two sexes”,
known also, synonymously, as “the two genders”. To “have a gender” is to
“belong to a sex”, and this can only be understood within the context of a
formal dichotomy. This does not, of course, preclude the appearance of a
phenomenon which is difficult to classify from the outset, nor does this mean
to suggest that such a human being lacks “personhood” and ought to be referred
to by the impersonal pronoun “it”. Yet it does imply that such a
classification would be informal, as would all consequent arbitrations
of “gender” for such a human being. Similarly, those who are born into clearly
delineated sexes, which remains the overwhelming majority of cases, might
decide to “self-identify with” the person of indeterminate sex by claiming to
be “nonbinary”, and this choice would in turn produce an “experience”. Yet no
such arbitration or experience would necessarily legitimize the excluded
middle to such an extent that to continue to exclude it from FORMAL grammar
would amount to an elitist majoritarian attitude.
Yet already contentions arise from
within academia herself. Wittgenstein famously indicated that “the limits of my
language constitute the limits of my reality.” From this seemingly inconvenient
fact of nature would theoretically arise the ethical obligation to adapt language
TO those Realities which ordinarily human beings do not visit and remain
thereby ignorant of: those of, for instance, “nonbinary identity” and its “experience”.
Yet from whence do these Realities
emanate? We have certainly VISITED such realities when we erroneously
employed “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun, and we can conceive of such a Reality
when we use “usted” in Spanish as though it were an object in the third-person,
as its conjugation chart implies. Yet if we stumble upon a territory by formal
error, is that territory “legitimate”? When Christopher Columbus mistook
the Americas for India, they came to be known as “the West Indies”. Yet is this
consistent with the views of those who use “they” as a singular pronoun, or are
we referring to a demographic that predominantly resists colonialism and “progress”?
The fact remains that “they” has no
primacy in the philosophy of liberal individualism. Perhaps some professor of Heideggerian
phenomenology might have contended that Dasein is “they” prior to its
possessing “properties” and “attributes” such as individuality, personhood, or
gender. Yet while a leftist movement has pushed for “they” to become the
normative non-binary pronoun, (that which “nonbinary people” ought to be
described as, as well as that which ought to describe people of indeterminate
gender, though they may not prefer to be referred to as nonbinary) and
while this same movement has presumed upon “gender” as secondary to that
“they” which “we all are”, it has nonetheless ALSO pushed for personhood and
individuality to stand at the forefront of its cause, rejecting the “objectification”
of “people” by means of “sexism” (though we have seen how sex and gender in
fact PERSONIFY, especially within the realm of language) as well as the “depersonalizing
conformism” of any “heteronormative tradition” which threatens “individual autonomy”
(though to refer to people by default as “they” does far more to insult
their actual, formal “individuality”). Ergo, the critique “bites itself”. Either
we are all “them”, meaning that our personal feelings of deviant identity are
inconsequential, or none of us are “them”, meaning that our language must
continue to operate within certain limits to accommodate our individuality.
Finally: if we are not “predetermined”, bound inextricably to an assigned identity, but rather “autonomous”, then how can I be INHERENTLY PREDISPOSED towards a deviant identity? The limits of my language have thus become the limits of my moral universe as well, not merely the products of a “stupid” Natural Order. I can claim no entitlement for deviating from the “norm” of a formal dichotomy, for I could only do so BY MY OWN ARBITRATION. I am not a “victim” because I am “nonbinary”, since I have chosen this lifestyle for myself and must therefore accept all of the consequences, whereas none of those would befall me were I to “conform” to that identity which was “assigned” unto me. If I am not “them”, then I am always “me”.
[({Dm.R.G.)}]
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