They.
Can a pronoun hold the key to greater self actualization and acceptance of non conforming identity within contemporary society?
I was always shit at rules and remembering details. That included the rules of grammar. I don’t share this often, mostly due to shame and for fear of being thought of as a poor writer but I’m a communicator and copywriter by trade, not an English teacher. Any time I think too hard and too long about the use of pronouns I get paralyzed in dialogue. I begin to see my thoughts become letters to text to words, they float in ether outside my head and like that childhood game of Red Rover, the words link together to become sentences. It feels like a fluid pattern and the moment someone says “pronoun” or “past participle” I freeze and then I am in a middle school classroom staring blankly at a page of math problems. I ask the question, the memory replays again. “But I don’t understand why,” I say. “You don’t need to understand why,” retorts the Mrs. Whatever math teacher. I see her face. I read her irritation. I never recall her name. “Just do the problem,” with the subtext of leave me alone punctuated with an exasperated sigh. Her disappointment, and my understood failure, breaks the spell. The memory floats away and I am staring back at the page, this page and wondering what my life could have been like if I confronted my trauma then. Would I be better at totaling and dividing a large bill at a restaurant for instance? Would I be better at problem solving? Would I be better at taking risks? Would I be more free if I wasn’t always waiting for permission? If my eleven year old self could have pushed against authority and said, “No, I will not be quiet until I am heard!” What then? So strange how one event and one seemingly small interaction can set in motion a list of likes and dislikes and push us in one direction or another. Anyway, who the fuck cares if I’m shit at math. I communicate deeply in many other ways. I understand the pronoun. I innately know two plus two equals four. Thank you United States of America public school system.
I grew up English speaking only, in the suburbs of Washington, DC, our nation’s capital. I learned the linguistic trick of numbering nouns. I learned from my parents that everyone is equal and to treat everyone with respect, dignity and to live by the golden rule. I learned at school that the language you spoke at home determined the way you were perceived at school. The institution of education taught me difference. It was strange, in the cafeteria multiple flags from all over the world hung proudly to celebrate the diversity at our school. Yet in the halls and in classrooms difference was not celebrated. In 1997, you learned quickly to keep differences hidden.
Read the complete essay published in An Injustice! linked here.
