I Like Not Gendering My Friends When I Talk About Them With Others, It Somehow Lets Their Gender Become

“I like not gendering my friends when I talk about them with others, it somehow lets their gender become a background detail, and allows other, more personal and relevant details about them shine through, shine around and over the sexism and misogyny of our world and skirt around preconceived ideas about who they might be and what they might be capable of. The other day, I was talking to my dad about my friend Carrie. I referred to Carrie as they, which allowed me to tell my father what a good carpenter they were (which they definitely are) without him stopping me to ask what? Carrie is a lady carpenter? My friend Carrie is anything but a lady, but she is a fine carpenter, however, in order to keep the conversation about Carrie the carpenter, instead of whether or not Carrie is a lady, I used the “they” pronoun for her. In my dreams, I imagine a world where we use “they” to refer to everyone, unless for some reason their gender is important or relevant to understanding the conversation, which it almost never is. That Carrie. They are such a good carpenter. I told Jamie about the sweater they knit for me perfectly. That Ivan. They were always such a dreamer. I still use the pronoun she for my publicity materials, and for mainstream media stuff, for two reasons: the first is that I do a lot of work in public schools, and I want those young women and girls to see every kind of she there can be. I want them to see my biceps and my shorn hair and shirt and tie and for some of them to see me as a possibility. For the ones that need to see other possibilities to see me, and recognize a future for themselves. I want them to see me living outside the boxes, because they might be asphyxiating in their own box and need to see there is air out here for them to breathe, that all they have to do is lift the lid a little.”

— Ivan Coyote, Gender Failure

god watching neverafter! already i love them!! the intrepid heroes in the dome!! them holding onto one another as siobhan’s character’s horrific intro. i love them so much.

ok bud this one seems accurate

Hey girlies take our quiz its government mandated

little guy cannot see new pictures of his oc right this minute bc he actually has to create the pictures himself, 100 billion injured 10000 morbillion died forever