Un ghid pentru Neopronouns

Am comandat trei artisti si utilizatori de neopronomi – @katetorias, Anna Stevens-Hill si Teal Doyle – sa deseneze autoportrete. Credit … Ilustratie de @katetorias.

Un pronume personal este o forma de vorbire care reprezinta o persoana sau un grup de oameni. Are opinii online; acestea se lupta in comentarii; si, bineinteles, la fel ca in piesa Prince facuta celebra de Sinead O’Connor, „Nothing Compares 2 U ”.

Pronumele nonbinare, de asemenea – adesea singularul „ei” si „ei” – au devenit raspandite. Un studiu Pew Research din 2019 a constatat deja ca unul din cinci americani cunostea pe cineva care foloseste pronume nonbinare.

Si apoi sunt neopronome.

Un neopronon poate fi un cuvant creat pentru a servi ca pronume fara a exprima genul, cum ar fi „ze” si „zir”.

Un neopronon poate fi, de asemenea, un asa-numit „pronume auto-substantiv”, in care un cuvant preexistent este redactat pentru a fi folosit ca pronume. Pronumele auto-substantiv se pot referi la animale – astfel incat pronumele dvs. pot fi „coc / bunself” si „pisoi / pisoi”. Altii se refera la personaje fanteziste – „vamp / vampself”, „prin / cess / princesself”, „fae / faer / faeself” – sau chiar doar argou comun, precum „Innit / Innits / Innitself”.

Cat de raspandite sunt neopronumele?

Nu prea – inca.

Un sondaj recent privind utilizarea pronumelor in randul a 40.000 de tineri LGBTQ de catre Trevor Project, un organism nonprofit dedicat prevenirii sinuciderii in randul tinerilor queer si trans, a constatat ca un sfert dintre acestia foloseau pronume nonbinare. (Participantii au fost recrutati de la sfarsitul anului 2019 pana la inceputul anului 2020 prin anunturi pe retelele de socializare.) Majoritatea au spus ca au folosit pronume comune precum „el”, „ea” si „ei”.

Doar 4% au spus ca au folosit neopronome, inclusiv „ze / zir” si „fae / faer”, adesea in combinatie cu alte pronume.

Deci, este adevarat?

Da. Si: In jurul oricarui comportament de varf online, trolling-ul, ridicolele ridicate si rea-credinta se ciocnesc indistinct. Pentru cei care nu sunt familiarizati cu cultura din jurul neopronumelor chiar acum, este probabil imposibil sa se faca distinctia intre ceea ce este jucaus, ceea ce este profund semnificativ si ceea ce oamenii sunt rai.

Multi utilizatori de Neopronoun sunt seriosi si fac parte, de asemenea, din comunitatile online care reactioneaza rapid la infractiuni. Ei sunt profund versati in stilul si moravurile conversatiilor contemporane cu privire la politica identitara.

Un popular streamer Twitch care trece pe langa AndiVMG si-a cerut recent scuze dupa ce a scris in gluma ca pronumele ei erau „rele / af”, ceea ce i-a determinat pe multi utilizatori neopronomi sa o acuze de invalidare transfobica a identitatilor lor.

AndiVMG nu a raspuns unei cereri de comentarii pentru acest articol, dar a scris pe Twitter: „Nu a fost menit sa batjocoreasca persoanele care folosesc neopronome. Cu toate acestea, de atunci m-am educat in aceasta privinta si am vorbit cu oameni care folosesc neopronome si vad de ce ceea ce am spus a fost dureros. ”

Criticii persista. „Nu o sa-ti spun kitty / kittyself sau doll / dollself, ci doar cred ca e grozav”, a scris un TikToker intr-o legenda video. „Pronumele sunt o forma de identitate, nu o estetica.”

Dar care este diferenta dintre o estetica si o identitate oricum?

De unde stii pronumele cuiva?

Utilizatorii Neopronoun pot publica limite si preferinte stricte in ceea ce priveste comportamentele, entuziasmurile si urile. Multi dintre ei au definit liste de comportamente pe care le considera inacceptabile in ceea ce priveste confidentialitatea sau cruzimea – uneori denumite liste „DNI”, prescurtand „nu interactionati” – pe care le descriu adesea in postarile de pe Carrd, un serviciu care creeaza site-uri web cu o singura pagina .

Carrd a crescut ca scop in timpul miscarilor de protest din 2020; in zilele noastre, multe dintre cele peste doua milioane de pagini sunt folosite in primul rand pentru expresii de fandom si personalitate. Deci, o biografie pe retelele sociale va include adesea un link catre un CV de identitate pe Carrd, adesea cu un ghid de utilizare a pronumelor. (Un exemplu: „Bug-ului ii place bug-urile.” „Aceste lucruri apartin lui Bug.” „Bugul vrea sa functioneze de Bugself.”)

Unul dintre Carrd explica pe larg neopronumele. In sectiunea de intrebari frecvente, acesta ofera un raspuns folosit adesea in comunitatea neoprononomelor atunci cand vorbeste cu persoanele care sustin ca neopronumele „nu sunt cuvinte reale”: „Da, literalmente fiecare cuvant este inventat! Neopronumele sunt reale pentru ca au sens si sunt intelese de altii. ”

Why are neopronouns so heated right now?

Online conversation gathered steam in November with some contentious TikToks about neopronouns. (“Bro, neopronouns are gonna break the English language,” said a young TikToker in November who goes by @Pokebag in a video that racked up hundreds of thousands of likes.)

But noun-self pronouns are not exactly new; they emerged from an online hotbed for avant-garde ideas around gender expression. “The noun-self pronouns emerged on Tumblr, starting around 2012, 2013,” said Jason D’Angelo, a linguist and queer scholar who has a substantial following on TikTok for videos about gender and identity issues. “They’re a unique way of exploring people’s understanding of their own gender.”

Mx. D’angelo (who takes the nonbinary references themself) said the social media discourse around neoprounouns “died off” to some extent around 2014, before resurfacing recently; they theorized that increasing interest may be a result of the coronavirus forcing people indoors.

“When we go about in the world, we have to perform gender in ways that are typical and normative over and over and over again, but because a lot of us have been in our houses for the last year, we haven’t had to perform them,” they said. “So the link between the performance and the self is weakened.”

I think this is weird or not OK!

That’s OK. Horror at noun-self pronoun usage is so common that it has spurred a meme in the neopronoun community. In it, people compare neopronouns to all kinds of things we take for granted.

Neopronoun users say new terms allow them to engage with gender — or other aspects of identity — in a way that aligns with how they feel.

In some cases, neopronouns are met with frustration because their use shows people divorcing themselves from continuing, unfinished gender business between men and women. Neopronoun users are trying to “construct something new and different that doesn’t have the same societal issues,” Mx. D’angelo said, as the traditional gender binary: “It’s almost like gender abolitionist.”

How can a pronoun address identity beyond gender?

Considering their Tumblr origins, it’s not surprising that many noun-self pronoun user interests’ overlap with fandoms, including anime, K-pop and Minecraft YouTuber stars like Dream. Intense fandoms are rife with neopronoun use.

Neopronouns are also prominent among some communities of young people who identify as neurodivergent, which includes diagnoses or descriptions like Asperger’s syndrome and autism.

Mx. D’Angelo said that one reason people on the autism spectrum may use neopronouns could be “because they feel like their relationship with gender is different than the neurotypical one.”

Neopronouns give people who feel different from the rest of the world a way to avoid all its boxes at once.

But pronouns are permanent and must never change!

In his book “What’s Your Pronoun?” Dennis Baron, an English professor at the University of Illinois, describes a series of attempts to create a nonbinary pronoun. (In 1808, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested “it,” which flopped; it is now beginning to have a small moment in the sun.) In all, Mr. Baron identified more than 200 gender-neutral pronouns proposed between the 19th century and the 1970s.

As nonbinary identities have become more widely accepted in recent decades, so did the requisite pronouns. In 2015, Harvard began allowing students to choose their preferred pronouns from a list that included gender-neutral terms like “ze, hir and hirs,” as did administrators at the University of Tennessee — before that university withdrew a guide to pronouns, amid conservative pushback.

Countries including Australia, Iceland and Argentina have given citizens the option to use nonbinary passports, and several U.S. states have done the same with driver’s licenses, including California and Oregon.

What do neopronoun users say about all this?

We wanted people to tell us in their own words about why and how they used neopronouns. Because they are very young, we agreed to let them use only their first names.

“Being neurodivergent, I tend to perceive how a word makes me feel rather than just seeing the word,” the noun-self user Gum, 13, wrote in a direct message on Twitter. “I chose my bink/bonk pronouns because they remind me of clowns. Clowns and harlequin dolls make me very happy.”

“Being neurodivergent, you are more likely to have a complicated relationship with your gender identity and expression, and pronouns are just one part of gender expression,” Elijah, 17, wrote.

“When I first encountered them I actually didn’t agree with them,” wrote one 15-year-old neopronoun user. “Eventually I met a lot of people online who used them and decided to educate myself further and realized that they were perfectly valid and just another way of expressing your gender to others. hooligan22.com I chose the ones I use as I feel a connection to them, EG vamp/vamp pronouns — I feel a connection to vampires and that in a way feels connected to my gender.”

What are the limits of neopronouns?

Limits? What are those? Some people even use emojis. A 2018 post on the Tumblr emojiselfpronouns explains how the paw emoji may be used as a pronoun: “Where is