A note on the utility of gender-free pronouns in literature
[text in square brackets without asterisks are 2024 additions]
Consider the phrase “the Raven of Stars begins xyr [simplify: their] dance” which is what I was writing (for the Discordian Postcard Conspiracy) the first time I decided I required a multiple genderless possessive. In my case, I wanted to specify that despite being a ‘the’ the Raven of Stars was not-singular yet not-separated entities, and also that it may hold any combinations of genders or agender[?ed] types. This is considering a being in a somewhat abstract mind/spirit/story realm, but it could have its material aspects as well. *[a singular genderless/unspecifying possessive would be “xe’s” [2024: simplify theirs], if I recall the page where I looked this up correctly]*
From here, we may consider, when we write of ethereal or not-quite-physical or ‘beyond’ beings, why do we declare them a he or a she [because we didn’t care/notice enough to think about it at all?]? On what basis do we assign them singular vs plural? On an ephemeral vision of a humanoid? On a direct perception of within-their-consciousness? On what basis does the imaginer or experiencer of this other-being assign boundaries to the other-being? It’s a bit of a puzzle, and, technically, assigning them [many of our commonplace] qualities [without modification] can be a quandary [less-than-100%-fitting] too. But with adjectives, usually they tend to be many [can be applied in groups and with gradations instead of being absolute and mutually excluding] and are often understood to be abstract anyway, so pronouns present much more pronounced [offer nitpickers and zealots and ideologues a much easier target to try to insert an assertion of absolute-mutual-exclusion/polarity-oppositeness] problems, as trans- or non-binary- or non-conforming- gendered people have let us know. [gender non-conforming can be something simple or something not simple. a man in 2024 Louisville, KY wearing a dress, lipstick, and high heels is gender non-conforming (simple) & a woman in 1915 America wearing pants is probably gender non-conforming (simple) if I am not wrong about densities and prevalence of such dress back then. want to get down into more details and wider categories? see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_nonconformity#Atypical_gender_roles and the whole article]
If writing of extraterrestrials, why would they have precisely two genders? Why would any of their genders correspond to our ingrained male/female concepts?
Why do people assign and assume a singular and a determinate binary gender to their deities? Why, especially among monotheists, or especially among the polyreverencing [as opposed to unbelievers or believers of supernatural/non-material entities stipulating that NONE of them are divine] would one not use a[s a] default plural/multiple [pronouns and possessives], and decline to assert hard separations? Why not a mutable/genderless [state of affairs? idk, trying to group stuff into sets with abstracting synonyms can endlessly multiply so don’t bother trying to refine them unless you want to be screwing with punctuations and shifting phraseologies for 12 hours like some cross of a polyglot linguist/Post-Doc mathematician who took too many amphetamines]? Under what specific circumstances would a singular or gender be thought more correct?
What does one name the Earth-Spirit? What does one name the actor of quantum physics?
[I will not here be getting into an endless argument about the human tendency to divide things into absolute binary/2-category ‘buckets’ vs spectrum of multidimensional spaces OR the genderedness of various social friendly/smalltalk/public interacting/flirting/dating/harassing/relational aggression patterns and practices. let’s stick with commonly understood attributes, so we don’t have to endlessly litigate the boundaries of all these word-concepts. to pin a butterfly and make it still and unchanging requires you to kill it. so it is with thoughts and language too.]
[having a discussion of words as a writer, not as an ideologue, sociologist, religious fanatic, activist, psychologist, clinician, teacher, parent, feminist/anti-feminist, queer theorist, troll/shitposter or lawyer here]
[in case it matters or someone is curious, writing as a cisgender heterosexual white male, 40 years old who favors female and lgbt-etcetera equality and empowerment]
[originally written and posted in slightly (much shorter and less spicy/saucy) different form on 8/17/2017: https://lostinmist.blog/2017/08/07/a-note-on-the-utility-of-gender-free-pronouns-in-literature/ ] *[ps: are we not all many uncountable factions within?]*
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Lost in Mist 