Gender Inclusive Language & Practices for Everyday Use

Sweet. I will take your word that it's beautiful outside. It was beautiful when I parked and now that I'm in my little cinder block office, I'm only going to take your word. Good day, my good friends. Um, I'm Bing. I use she and they pronouns. Well, I'm surely going to get to that later. Um, but it's lovely to be here with you all. Um, I've been with the Virginia Tech Pride Center since 2019, back when it was called the LGBTQI LGBTQ plus resource center, which was really long, really long, and impossible to say. And sometimes people would really try to earn extra credit and they'd be like the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans. And I was like, you're making it hard on yourself. Good for you, though. You're doing great. Um, thank you all so very, very much for joining us today. Um I this is a topic that I never get tired of talking about. I think it's such an interesting and fun time. So um we're going to talk about a various number of pieces and tools that are available um or ways in which people are using tools to make space for themselves. As um as Maria said, what's really helpful for me is to let me know where what you're thinking and what you're curious about as we go through the motions. So, there's going to be a time when you're like, "Oh, I have such a good question or I have a question and I'm gonna have to write it down or I'm gonna forget it." Go ahead and ask it. Go ahead and ask it in the chat. Go ahead and unmute. Do something because I want you to stay engaged with me and I want you to stay and listen. And if you're anything like me and you hold on to it till the very end, you're going to remember your question and you're going to forget everything else I said. Um, and so that'll hurt my feelings. So, please, please, please, please use the time and space as you want. Um, and as you wish. Um, also we're doing this highly academic, so we've got some learning outcomes for us to go over. Uh, the outcomes for this session is to recognize natural forms of diversity in the human body and experience. That's going to be our first little stop um, stomping ground. Then we're going to go into identifying existing gender- inclusive language practices and policies. Good times. And then we're going to use a lens of sensitivity towards historically gendered expressions and terms. So, if all things go well, we'll get through it all. It'll be a great day. Um, but no worries at all. Let's go ahead and get started. I really enjoy starting with this definition that comes from the Linguistic Society of America. Why? Because I think they know language probably better than anybody else. And in this quote, they're saying language is always changing and adapting because it's always been meant to. Language is a tool for the user. It is meant for people to use to describe the things, thoughts, feelings, entities in their world and surroundings. And we create new language as we create new things. So, as we created Wi-Fi, we invented Wi-Fi. I don't know what Wi-Fi stands for. That's not my problem. But I do know the word Wi-Fi. I know selfie. I know Bluetooth. I know all these things that did not exist when I was in the world in the '9s just chilling with my like little Nintendo. These words were not around, but we've developed them. We've understood them. They've become a part of society. Selfie became like word of the year one year. That was wild. They became word of the year one year. That was wild. It was kind of fun. But ultimately, language is meant to be a tool. It's meant for everybody to use as they need to use it to describe the things that are important to them. It's a beautiful little thing. And so, that's where we really ground the beginning of this kind this this time together. Um, so let me introduce you to my good little friend. This is our genderbred person. Um it was originally started by um the virtual safe zone and also this this organization called it's pronounced metrosexual and then we've kind of updated it as things have gone on and as our understanding but our gender by person creates four different parts of language and the personhood that we can explore in terms of its relation to querness and transness. Um so we have our identity, we have attraction, we have sex, ooh spicy, and we have expression. Um, so we're going to go through each one of these and kind of talk about where it sits in terms of human diversity, bodily diversity, um, and how this also is in relationship with our queer and trans communities. So, let's go ahead and dive in. I'm going to say let's choose one that we all probably feel really confident in. Feels really good to start with confidence and then we can all just lose our confidence very quickly. So, we're going to go ahead um and recognize our natural forms of diversity by looking at biological sex. Um, most people in rooms that I lecture in or in rooms where I'm invited to chat with folks, lecture feels really rude. It feels like feels like you're in trouble. Most of the folks I get to talk with and and share things with go, I know what biological sex is. I know this because I took science in school and I know that it's chromosome. And you brilliant people in this room certainly know more about the human body than I do. Why? Because you chose to study it and I didn't. But what we certainly know today is that biological sex is actually more complex than chromosonal carotypes. It's more complex. It has more interesting pieces. It includes both your chromosomes, your gonads, your hormones, your internal reproductive system, as well as your external genitalia. Um, it's far more of an interesting picture than just one specific data point. And so the body itself has room for diversity, has room to change, and to be different. But we've always been taught there's been two sexes. There's two sexes because there's two carotypes. They are unique. Um the reason why we've mostly focused on those is because those are two pairings that have the capacity, not the promise, but the capacity to reproduce. So these folks, if all things go well and everything and the planets are aligned, these folks could reproduce if they wanted to. Hopefully, ideally, they're not promised to. We know that there are many folks who struggle with creating families. We know that there are other um other things that pop up. So we say they have the capacity to reproduce, they do not have the promise to reproduce, but there are other chromosomeal pairings that do not have the capacity to reproduce, but for the most part result in a happy, healthy human. some medical intervention every so often and we'll get into that as well. But roughly um about 2% of the world's population does not fall into this very easy black and white XX or XY world. They are fitting into a different kind of place. Whether that is based on their chromosomes, their gonads, their hormones, their internal reproductive or their genitalia, they are not fitting into this really neat easy world that we've created. And that's what it is. We didn't look at the world and go, "These are the two natural things." We said, "We're going to create two categories because these have the capacity." Now, 2% can feel really small. Um, because I'm somebody who's like, "Well, if I did a 98 on a test, I'd be pretty good. I'd be pretty happy, right?" 2% in terms of world population is equal to the population of Russia. Fascinating thing. We wouldn't say that Russians don't exist just because they make up 2% of the world. We wouldn't say that they don't exist because we don't know a Russian or our cousin's not Russian or our mom's not Russian. We wouldn't say all the things that we often do to minimize the existence of interex people. That's this 2% folks who do not easily fit into the biological sex binary that has been created. Um these are beautiful and incredible human beings who may just not have the capacity to reproduce. And that's okay for folks. Many folks who have the capacity to reproduce also choose not to. So maybe our production and our reproduction is not the most defining part of our personhood. And that's okay. And we also have to make room for other folks to exist, for other folks's bodies to looks different, for their hormones to look different. I see biological sex come up most when we're talking about athleticism because people want fairness. They want to think that as they enter into this race, they've got an honest shot of winning this race. And I get that I'm not a runner. I have asthma and I'm lazy. I'm not trying to win a race, but I would kind of like an even playing field. Up until, I don't know, recently we've kind of assumed that as we enter into a race, we're on a level playing field. Um, let's say perhaps swimming, jump into a pool, people in water, that feels pretty fair. If Michael Phelps is in the pool, however, and his body can digest lactic acid faster and delaying that burning feeling that we feel in our muscles, it's not fair. It's not fair when we're in the pool. It's not fair when we're on the pool deck. I can't compete with him. His arm length, his wing length is actually longer than he is tall. In all sense purposes, he's a little freaking nature, but he's really, really, really welldesigned for swimming. And it was never going to be fair. So, we have this idea that fairness exists in biological sex categories, biological sex categories, but it just doesn't because some folks are built differently, and that's okay. That's okay. It But when we only apply fairness rules to transgender folks or to interex folks, we might say that's discrimination. when cis folks and non-inex folks and non-trans folks also do not have equal fairness, they may actually be more privileged to um to accomplish certain feats more than others. So that's where we get into some really interesting readings of biological sex, different interpretations of biological sex and also currently in today in the world there are only two genders because our federal government believes there are only two sexes. They are conflating those two things in a really fascinating way. But also, it's just not scientifically based. It's not based in human bodies. Um, interex bodies have existed since the beginning of time. Um, they actually exist um three to four times more frequently than identical twins. So, if you know an identical twin, in almost every single room I'm in, 90% of people know an identical twin, which either means they're quite frequent, or they're very popular people. Everybody wants to know a twin. They're like, "I saw Mary Kate and Ashley growing up. I got to get me one." Or they just happen a lot. But this actually makes up a quite generous part of our population. So if you know an identical twin, you've probably interacted with or come into inter into into contact with three to four interex people. They exist. They look just like you and me often times. Now the g the gap between you and me may be different and that's okay, but they look like us, like everybody else. They're just constantly being erased and invalidated through the ways in which we talk about the body. All right, feel good so far? Excellent. No questions in the chat, no hands. I like it. We're doing great. You are always welcome to ask questions. All right, so our current United States government says sex, gender, same thing. We live in that world. It's not true. We know that these two things are different. We know that the body can exist and our identity can be slightly different from that. We look at people's interpretations of the world and the ways around them. We look at the ways that people wish to be perceived and we know that there's not always perfect unison between that. Um gender identity can be words like woman, man, non-binary. So neither woman, neither man. Sometimes we create new languages like both women and man. Sometimes it's like I'm a little kind of man and kind of a woman. all these kinds of language to try and explain what it is about us that we really feel connected to other people. It's a beautiful little piece of this. I think where we get into some little dangerous territory is when we let woman be a very specific category and we let man be a really specific category and we don't allow for variation in that whatsoever. Um, I am a woman. I do not look like a woman. I look like a small British child and that's okay. me and my little sweater vest go into everybody's classrooms and I look like season 3 of Heartstoppper. And that's okay. We have to make space for people and we also have to make space that maybe they don't feel comfortable with those words even if we do expand it beyond. Not all butch lesbians feel like they're a part of womanhood because they don't see themselves represented in it. Some butch lesbians will use the term non-binary because it feels more comfortable to them. It feels like they have space and room to breathe. I would say that as you encounter language that specifically has been designed to explain people's relationship to themselves and others that we think about it like neighborhoods. I live in Rowanoke. I love Rowan Oak. Um I live in Raleigh Court um which was built around the 1950s. Um my house in particular was built in 1950s. She's cute. She's fun. Some of the houses around were also built around that time. So some of us look similar but then some have been torn down and are new builds. Some are older and have been around even longer. Um, some people have painted their brick, some people do not paint their brick. Some people um take care of their lawns really well and some people don't take care of their lawns. But the thing is is that whole area, we have a shared identity. We have a shared understanding. We oftentimes care about the same thing. So when there was a tree on Avanel or there was a a bear in a tree in Avenel, Carlton cared. The neighborhood cared because we went bear excuse me. No, no, no. We don't live near the mountain. I don't want that bear. We We have similar interests. We have similar perspectives. We can kind of see the mountains, but we can't see them really well because we're not so rich that we got the good view. But we can see it relatively. We might have some similar experiences. My road in particular, people like to cut through because it's in between Brandon and Grandon. A really funny place to be in between. Um but people cut through and so when that car comes speeding through and we're all like, he's driving too fast. We've had a shared experience. I would say more often than not, gender identity and gender identity labels are pretty similar to neighborhoods. The houses may look a little different, but we've got similar shared values, similar experiences. Um, the things that are important to us are important to us all. Um, I would say that's probably a little bit closer to how we can understand what we mean by woman and man and non-binary and all the other words that we come after that. Um, it's a really kind of cool thing. I really like the neighborhood analogy because I love my neighborhood. I think it's really neat. I think it's fun to see what everybody does with what they've got. And to just celebrate it. I think houses that everything single thing looks the same. I go, "Oh no, we forgot to pack our spirit today. There's no life in this neighborhood. What is this? Imagine if everybody looked similar. It'd be pretty boring pretty dang quickly." Um, one of the ways in which we also know that gender identity is something separate than our own biology is that we have folks who have experimented on individuals. Now, I come from a psychological background and I'm sure there may be folks in here who have also studied psychology. And while psychology has a lot to offer the modern day world, um, it hasn't always been the most ethical. Hilarious. Hilarious for a field that is supposed to be really high on ethics. Um, we used to see opportunities to learn and we go, "Let's get it. Let's get it. Let's try and see what we can do here without a lot of care for the individuals involved." Sometimes sometimes that meant putting college students in a basement and saying, "Pretend it's prison. Nothing will go wrong." Or putting students in front of a buzzer and go deliberate deathly shock to somebody else. I dare you. we haven't always been really thoughtful about the ways in which we have engaged with people and tried to learn about people. In one of those cases is this lovely book called um As Nature Made Him. As Nature Made Him actually follows um identical twins throughout their lifetime. Um, what's interesting about this case in particular, not just because I'm obsessed with identical twins, but the parents of these two twins went took their two sons in to uh to the hospital um for a medical circumcision. One went perfectly great, one was botched. There were some issues with a laser and ultimately one of the small boys was notably misfigured. Um, they said, "Oh no, medicine has failed us. What do we do?" I'm not saying that psychologists are often around the corner waiting for the opportunity to arise, but somehow this lovely psychologist whose name is, and I kid you not, Dr. Money, take that in. Um, said, "Oh, I we've got a really great opportunity here. We've got a really great opportunity to see just how much the mind, the body is really in connection with itself. We can see if we can manipulate one's identity when we manipulate one's body. Let's see if we can mess with this. Um, what they ended up doing is they said, "Whatever you do, do not tell the children that this happened. What we're going to have you do is you're going going to have you raise your two children. We're going to have you raise your young boy as a boy. We're going to have you raise your other boy who is now misfigured as a girl. We're going to do some corrective surgery. We're going to make that individual whole in whatever way. Um, and we are going to release him into the world. And what we want you to do is we want you to raise this child as a girl. And so they did. It's amazing. This is psychology in its bad days. So they did. And what we saw was the one boy grow up, be happy, healthy, becomes a part of society, is contributing, is able to keep jobs, is doing quite well, has closer relationships, gets married. What we see the other individual really, really struggle, struggle with sense of himself, self with others. He struggled to develop relationships. He struggled to achieve in school. He struggled in his job. He struggled with his mental health. He then started to self-medicate, drank, using drugs, ultimately experiencing a ton of depression and anxiety. Um, in his life, he decides, I'm so unhappy. Everything in my life feels deeply out of whack. I think I might be trans. And he transitions. So this this assigned male at birth child comes into the world is told now you're a girl because we say you are and we'd like to experiment with you and then this small girl then transitions to a full-grown man later in life. At this point in time I think the research they felt like okay this is definitive this is interesting and they tell the individual hey your entire life has been an experiment. We have been manipulating and affecting your entire life and you are now in the expression and the gender and the sex consistent with your sex at birth. That messed up with that individual so horribly that very unfortunately David Rhyr does take his life at the end. And we learn something through this absolute horrid thing is we can't tell people who they are. They knew who they are. Some people in this world are born with their sex being consistent with their identity. That was David Rhyr. For other folks, they are born with a sex that feels inconsistent with their identity. And that may be our trans community or our interex community. It's a really interesting piece. Um, based on our sex, as we were brought into this world, you're typically assigned a gender. It's early science. It's really early science. It's probably, I would say, not the best science because what we usually see is people going, "Okay, it's a boy." We're not doing a lot of tests. We're not running a lot of labs. We're usually just like, "That's a boy. We got this. It's fine." And that's some that's some that's some it's not our best work. It's not our best work. But we also can't talk to that person and be like, "What words feel good to you? What words make you feel like you can show up in the space?" And this is what happens. So we understand that there are these different pieces that are different from individuals. Our our body, ourselves, our mind. Um, and then we have other pieces that have to do with like what attracts us and what we're interested in and who we're interested in. And that's really interesting too. So gender expression is a fascinating little piece of this. Some folks may be cool with their sex, may be cool with their their identity and their sex, feel like that's good. We're happy with it. We feel comfortable. We feel great. But what we don't feel comfortable with is how we are able to express ourselves in our body. Being a woman has always been really restrictive even today. Um I say that knowing that there was a quite a long time where women were not allowed to wear pants. That's a fascinating piece of the world. We were not allowed to have pants because it was seen as too masculine. You can't carry things because it's too masculine. Can't have pockets. We won't allow you. And even today, it's a real fight for pockets and women's pants. Um, but we have kind of restricted how people are allowed to engage and represent themselves in the world. This is a part of gender expression. And your gender expression could be your actions, the way you dress, the way that you talk, some of your mannerisms. Maybe you manspread and you're not a man. It's all these different pieces about who you are and how you show yourself up in the world. Um, that's part of how you express who you are. We call it gender expression. I would also just call it identity expression. How you move yourself. Now we interpret that through our contextual little lens and we go that feels masculine or oo that feels feminine because of these things have been really historically gendered in our lives. So we kind of assume and assign different things to people. Now when we engage with people or when we see people we are meeting them at a very specific negotiation in their life and in that day really. Um now most of you if your cameras off and I'm cool with that don't get me wrong most of your cameras off so but I assume that you were clothed. You got up you you made some choices today. You put on some clothing, so did I. I promise that underneath this there are pants. Um, you don't get to see, but there are pants. Um, we all made choices today. We had a quick negotiation. We said, "Who am I? What do I want to wear today? Am I going to go to my closet or my significant other's closet or my neighbor's closet? I'm going to go to my closet. That's my identity." Probably what's in there has been selected by me or gifted to me by people who think they know me. Now, that's always there's a degree of there's a degree of misinterpretation there. Um, a lot of times people think they know you and they get you something really ugly and then it just sits in your closet until Goodwill comes around and you go, I think it's time to get rid of this. Um, but we have certain amount of resources that we go to. We have an identity. We also have a context. So, some of you were like, I'm going to go to a Zoom. I don't have to. I'm going to wear PJs. And if you're here in PJs, I love that for you. I wish I was in PJs. Um, I'm going to be in a couple of different places. I went with a sweater vest because Doug Funny never went wrong with anybody. Um, but we're constantly having to negotiate who we are, where we're going to be, and what is available to us. And so when we meet people, we may meet them where the context is really important. Um, so they thought, "Oh, I'm going to go somewhere and it's not going to be safe for me to dress how I usually would, so I'm going to change how I dress." Or they go to their closet and it's been solely picked out by somebody else. I'm thinking of our younger folks who may not have the financial resources or the agency to choose what's in their closet. um and they go, "This is all I have. This is all I have, so this is what I will wear." Um so really when we meet people, we're meeting them at a certain point in the negotiation. We don't actually know who they are and what they look like at their most comfortable because oftentimes we're engaging with them in places that are a little bit formal, whether it's the classroom or a doctor's office or in my office, at school, at work, the post office. Who knows where that person's been, what kind of negotiations they've had to make. So, we can't always say how you look is who you are because it's a real privilege. And I say this as a little butch lesbian from the Midwest. It's a real big privilege to be able to have your haircut the way you want it, for your clothes to fit you the way you want them to, and for your clothes to represent and as an extension of yourself. It is an absolute privilege. I did not always look like this. Many of my students change how they look between freshman year and senior year because they are gaining money through their jobs and internships. They're gauging agency, through their own self-exploration, and they're finding a way to make space for themselves. And it's beautiful. It's great, but it's 100% a privilege. You may feel very much trapped in a way of existing in the world for yourself to the best of your ability. Um, there are many different words that we've used to describe this. Male, female, interex, those are our sex categories. their gender identity, we'd say cis man, cis woman. For folks who are assigned male at birth and identify as man, we go that's same, similar, great, sis. Um, same with women. Assigned woman at birth, assigned a girl at birth, assigned female at birth, identifies as a woman, beautiful, great. There are folks who maybe identify across. Um, so we might have somebody who's assigned female but is then identifies as a man. We'd call them a trans man. Um, same for women. folks who do not fully identify with that with that identity but with that expression of masculine or feminine. We might say transmasculine trans feminine or folks who want to have a slightly more gray blur existence or way of talking about their existence. They might use non-binary which uses agender as in no gender bender as in two genders or more. Demi kind of kind of boy, kind of girl, gender fluid, check in on me the day, gender queer, couldn't possibly exist in the very finite world of who and what? And then we have expression, masculine, feminine, butch, fem, androgynous. Um, does this mean that there are less freedom for non-binary people? Beautiful question. There's a lot of expectations set on non-binary people that they must give you androgyny. And that's what's interesting, actually. is I think for trans men, they have to perform a certain amount of masculinity to be accepted as valid. Um, and so we do see a certain amount of expectation for trans men to perform a certain amount of masculinity. For trans women, we see them having to perform a really hyper femininity because anytime we see a tomboyish trans woman, they go like, "Are you sure you're a girl?" And it's like, women can like science and bugs. That's okay. We don't question in other people, but we question in transness. Um, non-binary folks often do really get put into this corner of you must perform androgyny. You cannot present as masculine. You cannot present as feminine. And that's just not true. They see themselves as not being fully encapsulated by either one of those categories. And they exist more freely. And so, ideally, they should be freer. Ideally, we should have a lot less expectations of them. Um, but I think a lot of times they do get kind of pigeonholed as we expect them to be the person we can't quite pin down. Um, but there are non-binary folks who look sis, who look passing, who just look like a part of the community and they identify as non-binary. So, our eyes in this are not our best tool. What is our best tool? Language. It comes full circle. Um, I'm going to spend a little bit of time on attraction, but I am looking at the time and it's 26 after. But how we are push pulled to things is greatly important. How you are push pulled to masculinity and femininities says a lot about you and your identity and how you want to express yourself in the world. I clearly um enjoy a certain amount of 2D cartoon uh style and that's okay. Um some folks are really drawn to certain things and not drawn to others or certain things ignite in them when they see things. So when we talk about attraction within the queer and trans world, we talk about multiple kinds of attraction. Typically everybody's always wanting to talk about sexual attraction and that is one of them, but there are many other different kinds in which we feel push and pull to people. Um aesthetic attraction, you love how they look, but you don't want them to touch you and you don't want to touch them. That's valid. Sensual attraction, you want a cuddle with them. You want a little bit of hug, a cuddle. That's beautiful. That's great. It does not mean that it's inherently sexual. It's platonic. Um, an emotional attraction, somebody who understands your desires, your thoughts, your feelings. It doesn't have to be romantic. It doesn't have to be sexual. You can have a conversation at Starbucks or your coffee shop of choice. Um, and just really feel seen and heard. Intellectual attraction. You're reading their books. You're listening to their podcast. Some of you are probably named after people. your parents were intellectually attracted to. Um, in romantic attraction, the swoons, the swoons. Um, we all have a relationship with each of these pieces. Now, whether or not you have sat down and go, what does my relationship with aesthetic attraction? Where does aesthetic attraction show up in my life? Get to know yourself better. Ask yourself these questions. Where does this show up in my life? Do I experience this? Do I prioritize it in my life? Depending on your answers to that, there is language that has been developed to describe that feeling. Um that can be for our sexual identities. Asexual meaning I do not prioritize or I do not feel that I need a sexual relationship to be fulfilled and to be happy. So asexual, no sex, right? Aloexual meaning I do find a sexual relationship to be important to me and I prioritize it. So if you today are brand new to this and you're like I just thought I was normal. You may be alosexual and that's beautiful and that's great. There is a word for you too. Um, if you are attracted to two or more genders, you might consider yourself bisexual. There are some really interesting like inner community conversations about like what's the most progressive, what's the most inclusive between by pan and queer. It's just more than two genders. You can you can parse that as much as you want. There's a really great um example in Shitz Creek that talks about pansexual being I like wine. It doesn't matter if it's white or red. It's not about the label, it's about the wine. And so like we get some different understandings of this. Um, and then we have our homosexuals, our boring kids who are just right across the way and we're like, "Hey, I'm a girl. I like girl. That's great. I'm a boy. I like boys. That's okay. We might get gay. We might get lesbian. Our other boring folks is our heterosexuals. I'm a man. I want a woman. I'm a woman. I want a man." And that's okay. You guys get it called straight though. And I think that's a fascinating choice. We're like gay as a lesbian. So you're just straight. I think you need better language. But that's okay. It's your It's your choice. I respect you. For our romantic identities, we have a-romantic. I do not prioritize or I do not see a romantic relationship as being important to my well-being or my happiness. I don't think it's something that I need. A-romantic. If you do prioritize and see a romantic relationship as a part of your well-being and happiness, you are aloantic. Another label you have learned today that you fit into. Beautiful and great. Biromantic wanting or prioritizing a romantic relationship with two or more. And these are nonsexual relationships. Otherwise, it would be in the other category. Homoorromantic, heteroromormantic. We get to some of those pieces. Yeah. Some interesting things. So, these are all language that's meant to describe our relationship with these various pieces. And as we learn, there's always more labels. And those labels again are like neighborhoods. The houses may look different, but they all have some similarities. Um, so that is my really fun job is I work with a lot of non-heterosexual folks or I work with a lot of non-cisgender folks. I do, however, work with straight folks and I work with cisgender folks. It just depends on kind of where they sit in the world or who they're related to. I often meet with a lot of folks who are like, "I've got a brother. I've got a cousin." I'm like, "Let's talk." But also, there are straight people within the LGBTQ plus community. They're often trans or they might be asexual or they might be a-romantic. There are um straight people in the in the community as well. Um so, it's a really kind of like cool thing. I kind of get to work with everybody and I get to really enjoy human diversity. So, there you go. That's your first little foray into the human diversity of the body. Learning outcome number two is reci recognizing natural forms of identity existing gender inclus and policies. Wow, that's really great. Um, those are poorly written. That was my bad. Um, there are different ways in which we already have language practices built into our world. Um, one of them are these two to fourletter words that we use all the time. um he him, they them. Sometimes we create new ones like a m because we're not so we're not so into she and we're not so into he, but we like a mid. Maybe we don't even like a they. Sometimes folks will use zzzir. Um zzzir. It's an x and a z. I think they sound very similar. That might be my Midwest dialect that those differences have been lost. She they maybe we like two or more. These are things that are already built in. Pronouns have existed since the beginning of language. These are were not brand new. But this is a tool that we use to refer to other people in a way that feels consistent with who they are. So these are pronouns. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. I, me, you, him, her, they, personal pronouns, my, his, hers, theirs, ours, possessive pronouns, anybody, something, someone, nothing, indefinite pronouns, each other, one another, reciprocal pronouns. There's all kinds. There's a diversity of pronouns. It's a really fun time. But what I hear the most is like, "Oh, I don't use pronouns or I don't do this thing." And you're like, "This isn't new." This has always been a part. So, game time, because I promised I would make this interesting. There are four pictures on your screen. Using the chat, try and figure out what do these four photos have in common. From top left, we have the signing of the Constitution. On the right, we have somebody praying and reading the Bible. Bottom left we have a adorable group of school kids citing the pledge of allegiance and bottom right is Miss Beyonce Nolles at a presidential inauguration. Um, what do these things have in common? Use your chat now. I believe in you. We can do this. I believe in you. Let's do it. Come on, my friends. Take a wild guess. There's no there's rarely wrong answers. I do promise you. I don't expect you to read my mind. But like, go ahead and give me something. A softball, anything. There's people in them. All humans. We do believe this. I do believe Beyonce Nolles is human. I have never checked, but I believe so. Some people would say a god. I don't know about that. They're all humans. Beautiful. Thank you. An element of faith in something larger than ourselves. Oo, that's so good. I like that. where it's a group of people. They're coming together. They're like, "We're united." I love that. That's good. There's a certain amount of faith or belief in something other than themselves. That's kind of nice. People expressing themselves. Absolutely beautiful. We've got this guy signing. Well, the signing of the Constitution surprisingly has no one holding a pen, but we believe they're signing something. So, there's an expression through written word. There's expression through thought when we pray. There's expression through voice when we when we pledge the allegiance, when we talk. And there's a voice, there's an expression that's musical and melodic when we sing tradition. This is like it comes out to like be like really interestingly like deep Americana in some ways. It wasn't intentionally this way. American culture and rights, these are all so beautiful. I'm going to give you the inside key to my brain and tell you that every single one of these pictures relies so stinking heavily on pronouns. We the people starts with a pronoun the Lord's prayer. Our father who art in heaven. So easily one of the most famous prayers in the Christian lang in the Christian faith. Our father. Um thy also a pronoun. Um I pledge allegiance. You start out with a pronoun. And of course o say can you see. We are calling people in. We're constantly in communication with people. So pronouns are not only this thing that exists and have always existed, but we welcome them, celebrate them, and heavily depend on them in American culture, in ideas of faith, in ideas of unity, in nationality, all these different things. Pronouns are deeply important to us. So that's why particularly I think it's funny when folks get on the internet ex formerly known as Twitter and say something like my good friend Leverne Spicer. I don't know Leverne but I love her Twitter account. It's one of my favorites. Leverne once said Shakespeare didn't walk around putting pronouns in his plays. That's why they're classics. Interesting. So we've got a argument here. Shakespeare is so good and we teach him in school because he wasn't a part of the woke agenda that uses pronouns. So, let's double check. Let's check that work. Here's a little excerpt from a from a nice little Shakespeare. Um, okay. Let's look this up. Let's look. Okay, I am seeing some pronouns. I'm seeing a few pro I think you're seeing some pronouns. I think there's a lot of pronouns in Shakespeare. We actually even see an early like singular they them there in that that isn't particularly tied to a specific gender. Um so we see kind of this like gender neutral they them as well. So in fact he loved a pronoun. There's multiple in almost every single sentence. Do you know who else loved a pronoun or loves a pronoun? My good friend Leverne Spicer. She writes you will never catch it me using pronouns. And while this is off and it should be over this me. She sure does. She uses two in saying that she refuses to use them because we just don't have an understanding that this is part of language. This is a tool and people are using the same tools that you always have and have available to you. When we see people really start to pull and push is that person's using a tool that I have available to me and I don't like how they're doing it. I don't like that how they're doing it. I can create my own word. I can make fetch happen but I don't want them using my toys. I don't want them to feel empowered, liberated through the same tools that I use to liberate myself. That's interesting. Oh, and Shakespeare plays are queer as the day is long. As somebody mentioned, men were playing all gender roles. They were doing it all by themselves. Honestly, most history is really queer. Even some of the places that we consider most hostile towards queer and trans people, like the army, um, have really, really queer origins. This is not a part of the slideshow, but I will say this just because Tanya put that in the chat is hilariously the United States Armed Services in World War II had a drag show, a drag show with script and costumes that traveled across bases to entertain people. And they did so really seriously. They had dress forms, they had patterns, like they would send it and you had to do the show as it was written, as they wanted you to do it. It was so serious and it was drag. It was men in dresses pretending to be women and they loved it and it was hilarious and yet at the same time they're like no gay people we just like men in dresses and you're like this is bizarre but a lot of things are really really queer and we just don't know it because we haven't been taught about it. Hilariously enough um it was Army Special Services. That was the department that this that the um drag shows were under Army Special Services. So if you're an acronym person, enjoy that. It's really funny. Um, but otherwise it's really interesting. So, people don't have a problem with pronouns. People have a problem with people using pronouns for their own liberation. Now, this has always kind of been done too as well. Um, if you are somebody who identifies as a woman in this space and you vote, this is part of your liberation. Back in the day, suffragettes who were fighting for the women's right to vote were looking at what was written and said, "Hey, sometimes I'm a he, him, according to you. Sometimes I'm man, but sometimes I'm wman. Sometimes I'm she, her, and I don't understand that because the language that was written in many of our founding documents were about men. All men are equal. He blah blah blah." And they said, "So I have to do some things. I'm considered a man and sometimes I'm considered a woman. this is unclear. I should have the right to vote because I'm oftenimes a hein. And that kind of discrepancy, that unclear, that gray area allowed people to go, you know what? You're right. We're unclear about that. So, we're going to write it down. And I apologize because this is bleeding off the screen for some reason. But women are considered a hehem when it comes to paying taxes, incurring criminal charges. And I forget what the third one is actually now that I'm thinking about it. But you are considered a she, her when it comes to voting. It's very convenient. So we can arrest you, we can tax you, but you don't give votes. So you're sometimes a he, him, and sometimes a she, her. Our use of pronouns has always been a part of people's climb for liberation. But it also hasn't been important to be very specific about who we're talking about because otherwise it leaves room for manipulation. We don't want that. Women could have had the vote earlier on if maybe we had had different language. Or maybe there wouldn't have been this gap for gray area. Um maybe we should think that women are people earlier. That would be nice. Right. Right. Right. Um so we have a combination of different kinds of things that po folks can do. Um he they maybe we like he more and they less. Maybe we like he and they equally and we want you to go back and forth. There's different kinds of ways that we can use this and it's really the best thing to do is talk to the person. So the next couple of slides are actually going to talk about how can we use pronouns. Um one of the best things that you can do in every environment where you're engaging with somebody new is hey bing she they lovely to meet you and you've extended an invitation. Um and more often than not the people who are looking for that invitation will hear it automatically. You don't have to say my pronouns are or the pronouns I use are. You don't have to slow things down too much. You can just say, "Hey, Bing, she it's really lovely to meet you. What brings you what brings you over to campus?" And that way they know how to respect you. I'm telling you the my name, which I would ask that you use. Um, I'm telling you the pronouns that I would ask you to use because those are a part of me. And if you want to respect me and you want my attention, please use the things that I'm giving you. Um, this is a really great thing. This really normalizes the practice and gives you the information that you need right up top. People who who really care about their pronouns and how you address them are going to hear that invitation and automatically reciprocate. People who do not enjoy that will try and ignore it. And that's okay. You can ignore it for them. We don't This isn't a moment where you have to collect everybody's pronouns. It's an invitation. It's not a demand. We want to make sure that everybody always feels comfortable offering them, but is not required to. What if it's obvious what pronouns I use? This is an interesting one. I hear this a lot. Maybe it's how you look. Remember what we talked about gender expression? Remember how we said it's a constant negotiation between multiple things. So maybe that day your context won and so I should gender you based on your context. I should gender you not based on who you are. I should just guess. Interesting. Maybe I should take your name and I should just assign a pronoun to you based on your name. Let's do it. Let's try it. Um Stephen Lynn, let's talk about this. Steve in the chat. What would we automatically assume Steve's pronouns are? I believe you. You got this. What would we automatically assume Steve's pronouns are? Use the chat. Generally, he him. He him. He, him. He, him. Beautiful. And what about someone named Lynn? What pronouns would you use for Lynn? You were like, I got I got Steve hardcore, but Lynn Lynn's the hard one. Would we use maybe she her she question mark she her? Yeah, we if we were existing in a world that was kind of gender blind and or really gender inclusive blind. So just gender exclusive perhaps we would assign Steve he him and Lynn she her. Now, if we change the names just slightly, but similarly, and we change Steve to Stevie and Lynn to Lindsay, we get some of the best music you'll ever listen to in your whole dang life. That's Fleetwood Mac, my good friends. That is Stevie Nick and Lindsay Buckingham. We cannot guess. And somebody in the chat did say Stevie her. And I saw you and I knew what you were doing and I wasn't going to let you win this. But we cannot guess based on people. We do not know their lives. We do not know what they look like. You may be looking for Stevie and Lindsy Buckingham shows up. You may be looking for Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nick shows up. We cannot anticipate. We just have to let people show up and believe them and understand them and welcome them however they are. If you use the wrong pronouns for somebody, a language practice that already exists is when you are corrected, you stop using the old information and you integrate new knowledge. Nothing new here, my friends. Absolutely nothing new. So, if you and I were talking and you said, "I spoke to Dr. Bing. He said this." Well, I've already said my pronouns are she, they, so not a he, him. I don't really enjoy he, him. So, I would say, "Oh, actually, I use she, they." And then you would say, "Oh, thank you." Because you did not know that before. And this is new knowledge. And now you will integrate it and you will just use she, they. Now I am a little bit tricky because I was socialized as a young girl and everybody used she her and so I do hear she her and I do respond to she her but then I also look like this and people started going they and I went oh I don't mind that. So I have two pronouns that you can use. It's actually a little bit harder to misgender me because I'm kind of filling up a couple of different cups. But there will be folks who are very specific and want you to use their pronouns in various ways. And the best way to do that is ask, "Hey, I see that you have she her pronouns. Um, do you care or do you have a preference if people go back and forth or do you care if people use one or the other? For me, Dr. Bing, uh, director of the Pride Center, if you do not have a they them in your life, let me be your they them. You, they, them, me all day long, and I'm cool with that. I'm great with that. That'll be so fun and good. If you don't have a she they in your life, I'll she for you all day long. You go back and forth. We'll do a nice little puzzle for you. But other people may have feelings and thoughts and their job isn't to be gay and their job isn't to give presentations. So, we'll let them show up as they want. And you just ask very politely, "How do I best respect you? How can I best help you show up in this space authentically?" Um, we also don't need to panic. A lot of times people are like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a friend who's trans." And we're like, "That's nice." What happens is a lot of times people are misgendered multiple times a day. If every single person gravels for forgiveness, my time in my life goes down. And so what we want to do is we want to be quick, we want to be concise, and we want to show that we're smart people. And we just say thank you and we move on. Um what we typically do if we do not know somebody, we do have not built up a rapport to ask them what their relationship to their pronouns is. The nicest thing that you can do is automatically go back and forth. I talked to Dr. Bing. She said this and they're coming on this day. We can very easily go back and forth. I used it once, I used it. Now, nobody is sitting there with a little red pen and going, "Well, you use she five times and you use they six times." That's silly. Nobody's nobody's that obsessed with themselves that way. But we'd ask you just to be considerate. This person feels good with both of those. I haven't asked them. I haven't had the privilege of asking them. Um I don't have the relationship to ask them. So, the best thing you can do is go back and forth. Many people in here, the muscle, the brain is a muscle. Work it. Use it. Stop doing word puzzles and start just gendering people appropriately. Um, if you do not know somebody's pronouns and you do not want to assign a gender to them that may or may not fit them as they as they enter into the workplace, there's this really beautiful genderneutral they them. And genderneutral they them is actually really helpful in a lot of situations, particularly with HR when we're hiring people because we have a history of assuming that certain people are knowledge creators and leaders and other people are nurturers and social people. Um, sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. It's called stereotypes for a reason. So, what we could do is we could go, I'm not going to assign anything to anybody I don't know. I'm going to say them. I'm going to say they. I'm going to allow them to show up and be a human being, as we all should be in jobs. Um, and I'm going to allow them to make a space for themselves when they get here. They can share their pronouns when they get here. So, I can automatically do this. Now, interestingly enough, we do this automatically with babies. We they them a baby all the time. How's the baby doing? How are they doing? How big are they now? We have no problem. So we do actually understand that when we do not know somebody's gender, we use they them. Um well again what we see the issue is is when people are doing it because they do not identify with the gender or they identify with they them as an extension of their gender. We see people going like no unforgivable and you're like you do it for babies and you don't even like that baby. Let's get real with it. So we do this really naturally. It's already a gender practice that does exist. I'm just asking you to extend it to people who also like that word. It's nothing new. It's nothing out of the ordinary. All right, game time number two. I have selected for you six celebrities or activists, your choice. We have Marilyn Monroe. We have Whoopie Goldberg. We have JK Rrowling in here. And I'm really happy that this is thrilled in here because some of you are like, "Oh, I did not expect this." We have Rihanna. We have Bing Crosby because my name is Bing. Um, and we have Edie Windsor, LGBTQ activist who fought and struck down part of DOMA. So interesting. But using your chat function, what do we think these three six people have in common? Sorry, six people in common. They're notable. We know their names. But what else do we think exists? Use your chat function now. Famous. Beautiful. They change cultures. Oh, I love that one. They're superstars. I love that. We're doing great, Tanya. We're going to come back to your question, I promise. These are like notable people. They're impactful people. They're people we know. We might know their names. We might recognize them. Strong humans. Ooh, strong humans. I love this. I feel like Edy Windsor would really enjoy strong humans. Contribute to society, each in their own way. Oh, I love that. Challenge gender norms. Okay, Sherry, that would be interesting. I would love to talk about that. You all are doing really great. I'm going to give you the answer. Please welcome to the floor Norma Gene Mortonson, Karen Elaine Johnson, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, Robin Rihanna Fenty, Harry Lilis Crosby, and Edith Weiner. Um, these are people who use chosen names. This is a function that has always existed in society. People use childhood nicknames. They develop stage names that they then use not went on stage which means it's a chosen name. They changed their name legally because they wanted to. All kinds of things. These are all chosen names. Whoopy Goldberg named herself after the sound of a whoopy cushion. Bing Crosby was nicknamed by a neighbor cuz he was making like cowboy pew pew pew bing bing bing noises. Um, Edith Weiner, who is now known as Edie Windsor, married a man with the last name Weiner and went, "Absolutely not. I refuse." And she changed her last name and his hilarious. She was like, "We're Windsor now." It's beautiful. It's great. JK Rowling does not go by Joanne Kathleen. She uses a chosen name. The same person who says trans people should not exist in these spaces and do not have rights and are not welcome also uses a tool that queer and trans people often use for themselves, which is the chosen name. It's a beautiful thing. Sometimes their middle names, Robin Rihanna Fenty, she's using all of her names. She's making money off of all of those names. But she's doing a lot. It's incredible. It's great. But these are names that people use when they're in front of a camera, when they're on a stage, and when they're with their family and friends. This is a chosen name. Grandma, A lot of people's grandmas have chosen names. You may not know until you're at their funeral that you're like, "Grandma Bitsy had a real name." But yeah, Grandma Bitsy sometimes has a real name. And sometimes people aren't called what you think they're called until they pass away and somebody's telling you their business because that's what we do. But it's a really fascinating little piece. A chosen name is a name that can replace your first, middle, or last. It's different than one's legal name or given name. There's a million different reasons why people use these. Maybe you were named after a parent who hurt you and you're like, I don't want that person's name said in this room. Maybe you were named or marrying somebody with a bad last name that you thought and you decided to change it. There's a million different ways, but people use them all the time. And it's not a queer or trans thing. It's just something that we also use to make space for ourselves. and why we change our names may be different, maybe tied to our gender or our relationships to other people, but it's something that exists and we can easily use and make space for on our forms when talking to people. Um, this is a really beautiful thing. Basically, your legal name, aka your birth name, aka your given name, aka your nicknames. You have no choice in those most often. Most often, you have no choice. I was an Ashley in the 90s. It's a very useless name in the 90s. You might as well have had no name in the 90s. My sister is also named Amanda. I'm not saying my parents were particularly creative. Um, but they did create a real problem in our lives. So, people didn't call me my name because there were 12 of us in every room. They called me by my last name and we're lazy. So, they shortened it. So, when you get an email from me, you get an email from Bing Bingham. It's stupid sounding and I love it. Why? Because I know it's for me. I am the only Bing Bingham I know. And I rejoice in that. It's so fun. But you say Ashley in a room and about 12 white women and a couple of black folks go, "Yes." And that's about it. It's nuts. It's wild. There are hundred Ashley and nurses in the ED. Correct. It's everywhere. Ask an Ashley if that's the name they want. Somebody Somebody stop somebody be like, "Are you okay with this name?" I really enjoy it. It's stupid. It's fun. But so my chosen name I didn't really choose. Well, I chose because I chose to adopt it, but it was a nickname given to me and I loved it and I went fun. And I think Bing Crosby did the same. I think Whoopi Goldberg did the same. I think a lot of different people find ways to show up and take agency over how they exist in the world. And that's what's important is we recognize people's agency. We don't just let some arbitrary thing define us for the rest of our lives. Cool. All right. Six minutes. Using a lens of sensitivity, we're going to look at some historically gendered expression and terms. We've talked about a lot of things. You have not heard me say hermaphrodite. I've said interex. That's because when we talked to people who experienced and lived in these lives, they said, "We don't like that word. That makes us feel ancient. It makes us feel non-existent. It feels like we need to be fixed. We like the word interex." And so we said, "Great, that's your word. We'll use it." Um, now today, we don't say homosexual a lot. It's one of my favorite words. We say gay, you say gay a lot. This is something that has historically felt really, really stigma and biased, and now we kind of just don't use it anymore. Um, instead of saying born male or born female, we call it what it is. you were assigned male or assigned female based on the appearance of your body by a very lovely doctor who was trying their best. Instead of saying female-bodied or male-bodied, we would say assigned female at birth, assigned male at birth, because bodies look all different. My body and a man's body could be very, very similar. I kind of feel like I have a dad bod. I feel like I don't have a mom bod. I feel like I have a dad bod. And so, who's to say that I am female-bodied or male-bodied? You know, we all have different bodies and body shapes, and that's okay. Um, instead of saying trans people are normal people, we could say trans people and non-trans people, which are cis people, we could say asexual and alosexual, a-romantic, aloantmantic. All of these things kind of do have a counterpart. And a commuter that really fights against binary things, occasionally there is a a counterpoint. Um, instead of saying both set genders or opposite sexes, which automatically assumes that there are two, we could say all because there's an infinite amount because language is infinite. We can create new ones tomorrow and they're just as valid as the ones who have been here for ages. We didn't have the word lesbian for a really long time. And the word lesbian comes from the island of Lesbos. It doesn't come out of some like etmological like really great thing. It's just like there was once a poet on the island of Lesbos who loved women and now we just all are called lesbians. It's hilarious. It's funny, it's goofy, but we create new language and so let's use it. Instead of saying mailman, fireman, policeman, we know those jobs are carried by people of all genders. Um, so we would say male clerk, firefighter because they're fighting fires. Um, or police officer. We would use maybe even cop. That's a gender inclusive term. Um, we instead of saying ladies and gentlemen, we could say everyone, folks, honored guests. I really like um guys, gals, and non-binary pals. I think that one's cute. Um I like they gentle them as well. I think that's fun, too. Um but there's all these different ways. Some of the most interesting language that comes from this area, y'all. Everybody's included in y'all. Folks, everybody's included in folks. These are gender practices that have always existed that we're just asking you to use thoughtfully in today's world. and you were working and living in Appalachia. What a good excuse to use folks and y'all. I take it up. I'm from the Midwest, but I'm always saying folks. Now, this last one's interesting um because we used to think it was really offensive to call somebody it. And the only time when it is not offensive to call somebody it is when they ask you to because it is not something that has been historically gendered. It has been objective. It's been something different. So some folks and as we're realizing um some folks go actually like it. And to conjugate it, it's it and its two of them the exact same. So you're doing really great. But when people say I use it, that's respectful. We use it. We don't say it when we're trying to make fun of somebody or we're trying to make somebody feel small. Um there's a million different examples. I see you in the chat. Hey guys. You guys. Guys. Guys is a word. Now, I will say that my students, my trans students in particular, also use guys. So, I don't think for them it's particularly offensive, but it is something to be mindful about. Hi all you folks. Parental and maternity leave, parent leave, parent time off, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, where we're trying to like guess who the other person's plus one is. You could just say partner, spouse, significant other. What are your preferred pronouns? We use preference a lot when we're talking about the queer folks. Everybody's got pronouns. Ideally, you would like someone to use a pronoun consistent with yours. So, it's not a preference. That's just a right. So, what are your pronouns? Bride and groom, married couple, newlyweds, sexual preference. Again, we like to think it's a preference, and we're like, try and force somebody to have a different sexual identity. It's really difficult. Um, it almost always fails. Transwoman, trans man, white list. This is where you get into other words that have been historically like really biasy. White list, blacklist, allow list, deny list. I think that one's black and white. I think we got that one. Master and slave. We'll say leader and follower, primary, replica. We see a lot more folks in housing say this is the primary suite rather than this is the master suite because that language means something to somebody somewhere maybe often here. But there's a lot of different words that we've used that have a bunch of bias built behind them. And the idea is that you just develop a length where you go hm you know what I bet that word means something to somebody. I should maybe use a different word. Doesn't mean you can't use that word. It just means that the words that you use will impact people. Um legacy state instead of grandfathered. So we do basically have no time. Um but I will go back to Tanya's question. So if you if two pronouns like she they explaining don't assume it follows grammatical rules like substituting they for her and um she they instead of she her. From your explanation it means you use either interchangeably or depending on the environment. Is that correct? The hard part for me sometimes is throwing out grammar rules embedded. Beautiful question and I apologize because you are a grammar person and there's nothing wrong with you. There's wrong with grammar. Um grammar is not consistent. It's not terribly helpful in a lot of times, but what I'm saying is when you have the opportunity to get to know somebody and ask them how they like to be best respected, ask them. And they'll say, "I don't care." Or, "I like both." Or, "I was socialized as she, but I actually really feel seen by they, but I put both of them as kind of a compromise." Everybody's going to have a different relationship with me. You use whatever you don't have in your life. If you don't have a she, they in your life, you she they me all day long. if you don't have a they them they them they them they them they them they them they them they them they them they them they them they me all day long but don't assume that everybody is as open and willing as them. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, this is me on a good hair day. Please reach out. My email is drbing@vt.edu. It couldn't be more simple. All right, we are right at time. We are and that was a fantastic presentation, Dr. Bing. It's always a joy to have you with us and I always learn so much. No other questions have come through in the chat, but as Dr. being said, you know, shoot us an email if you want us to pass something along. Use the email on the screen. Um or in our um slides will be available online as well as a video recording of this presentation on our website. So, thank you all for spending your lunchtime hour with us and uh we look forward to seeing you all soon. Have a wonderful rest of your