PicoBlog

Interesting you would say that, William. When I first met Lois, I had the strangest experience where I felt this deep cognitive dissonance between my knowledge of the reality of Lois’ sex, and the recognition that Lois was a gay male, but once I was in the same room, it felt WRONG (emphasis on wrong rather than impolite) for me to use anything but she/her as we were speaking in a group and I was referencing her. And, as you say, Lois’s never made any requests about how to refer to her.

To date, I have never experienced this when interacting with any other trans person or anyone with preferred pronouns.

When I wrote this piece, I intentionally avoided pronouns because I know how strongly I and others can feel about using cross sex pronouns. It made it excruciatingly hard to write, but the goal of raising funds for Lois was more important than my temporary cognitive dissonance.

This experience has caused me to rethink how I feel about pronouns and why. I wouldn’t say I’ve changed my stance or opinion, but I’m more certain that I’ve thought it through more thoroughly.

I still refuse to use specific pronouns when compelled by law or demanded by others. But in special cases, where a unique human has earned my respect. I may choose to use the pronouns that I feel best align with my experience of them as a human, regardless of their preference.

The problem I’ve had to overcome, and as you can imagine I’ve had a lot of conversations about Lois in person lately, is how to communicate to others the important detail of Lois’ sex. This is still awkward, and I’m still working this out, but while it feels right to me to refer to Lois as she, it feels like a lie to leave out the detail that Lois is male to someone who isn’t already aware.

Real life is so much messier than our ideological lines in the sand, isn’t it?

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