Gender nonconforming pronouns can make people uncomfortable — they often challenge the way many have come to understand the world. But that feeling is powerful, and more importantly, incredibly useful.

“If you give someone a sweater, and then it shrinks — it no longer encapsulates who they are — are you going to insist that person continues wearing that ill-fitting sweater?” Rhyse Curtis, a Ph.D. student and teaching associate at Syracuse University, said.

Even though engaging with discomfort is unnerving, facing questions head on could be the answer to most of our questions about new types of personal identity.

The discomfort that comes from our interactions with gender nonconforming, gender queer people in public bathrooms is a pertinent example.

“Bathrooms are one of those few spaces that may transgress significant social boundaries across class, race, ability, sexuality and nationality,” said Pedro DiPietro, an assistant professor in SU’s department of women’s and gender studies.

Nonbinary and atypical gender pronouns, they said, “contaminate, as it were, the public space. They make most cisgender folks question the nature of their own gender identification.”

Our desire to categorize — to assign labels that make day-to-day life easier for the collective —is ultimately an illusory practice. It promotes a discourse around issues of gender nonconformity that innately hinges on the confines of baseline cisgenderism.

Trading established precursors to masculinity or femininity for a more gradient view of gender allows us to look at the people around us in a new light. It allows us to see each other as individuals rather than abnormalities.

Communications professor Jennifer Grygiel noted the importance of honest dialogue in the discourse about pronouns.

“I think hearing from people helps people understand why this is important,” Grygiel said. “I’m working to create an inclusive and diverse environment. I think it’s important for people to start these discussions.”

Granted, conversations about gender, a principal facet of the way we’ve constructed our world, are loaded. It’s not easy to upend our thinking, and it’s equally hard to rationalize an accepting worldview while we still have questions about who people are and why they are that way.

There’s no shame in asking hard questions about the use of societally unconventional pronouns when it comes from a place of genuine interest. A simple desire to better understand our friends is commendable.

“Sometimes growth takes time,” Curtis said. “I expect people to amend harmful behaviors, but I understand that it takes time to come around.”

Recognizing there’s a way to respect and embrace people others still might not fully understand is important. We can ask questions — and we can even admit we don’t understand — without simultaneously denying someone’s humanity.

It’s never easy to learn, appreciate, accept or understand something new. It can be uncomfortable and difficult, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Michael Sessa is a newspaper and online journalism major. His column runs biweekly. He can be reached at msessa@syr.edu.

Published on October 8, 2018 at 11:16 pm