Because... it's Grammar

[bcholmes]

From an article about a trans death. (That phrase is almost redundant. Articles about trans people in the mainstream media are almost always about our deaths):

The murder of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo Jr. has raised a question of grammar with serious implications for transgender people - should the slain teen who lived as a girl be referred to as he or she?

[...]

Others argued that allowing people to essentially self-declare their gender without undergoing a physical change is too subjective an approach to grammar.

Poor grammar. Taking a beating at the hands of trans people anywhere.

(Some days I think I live in a different world than most reporters).

Comments

[skylark-10.livejournal.com]

these idiots need to hang out a few more queens and butchies.

"he" and "she" have *always* been highly contingent.

friggin' heterosexist twerps.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

To me, this question is so clear that I'm amazed it's even an issue. I'll admit to finding "sie" and "hir" jarring and a pain to work into my own vocabulary and irritatingly contrived. But Gwen's made it easy for me. She's made her choice about how she wants to be, so she gets "She".

It's just too damn bad we get to worry about this in the context of some poor kid getting stabbed instead of (for example) winning a national pinball championship.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I wonder if these are the same reporters and pundits who would have argued, not so very long ago, that "he" is a gender-neutral pronoun.

Bozos.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I don't know how that could be a subjective approach to grammar. Grammar is structural. It's not about word meaning.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Respectfully, virtually all approaches to grammar are subjective. In France, one body lays down the grammatical rules (I would say subjectively, though perhaps they would not). Almost everywhere else, grammar rules are subject to argument, discussion, fluidity, regionalism, arbitrary whim, and leftovers from other languages (cf., the "reason" splitting infinitives is "wrong" in English is that Latin infinitives are single words).

Grammar isn't about word meaning, but that doesn't make it objective.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Okay, perhaps I should say, "I don't know how this particular issue makes grammar any more subjective than it would otherwise be."

[skylark-10.livejournal.com]

pronoun selection, like verb conjugation, is generally considered to be an exercise of grammar. it cannot be entirely separated from other factors of "meaning", such as semantics or etymology, and in fact directly relates to the latter.

all aspects of language contribute to the robustness of the channel.

as the dormouse said, "'i breathe when i sleep' is not the same as i 'sleep when i breathe.'"

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

At my work, we're publishing what should be an excellent book on Gwen Araujo's death (working title, Underneath It All by Yomi Wronge, a local newspaper reporter who covered the whole situation and who is extremely sharp. I don't anticipate pronoun trouble (and am grateful for that).

No Question - Gwen is 'She'

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

But since the US seems to be going through one of it's
periodic (and most unfortunate for me) Puritanical Phases,
they seem to be obsessed with sex. And that makes it nasty
for folks like Gwen....