The pronoun police
What it is like trending on Twitter for two equal and opposite crimes: “misgendering” and objecting to people who spend their days insisting that others must always misgender
The week before last was strange online for me, and I didn’t have time to process it, what with the frantic preparations for the debate in Westminster Hall on the Sex Matters petition, a lightning trip to Ireland and then another to Edinburgh. But things have since calmed down a little, and I’ve had a chance to reflect.
If you are not a subscriber to my weekly newsletter, you might like to sign up for free updates. I hope that in the future you might consider subscribing.
Two things happened simultaneously, each of which led to significant noise. Entertainingly, they involved me being criticised by different groups in pretty much diametrically opposite ways.
The first was that an interview with Jordan Peterson, which went live last year, was taken down from his YouTube channel.
My discussion with Helen Joyce has been banned by @YouTube all friendly-like on the grounds of hate speech and incitement to violence. Experience the evil for yourself here: https://t.co/LWou3CevWI
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 13, 2023
The notice informing him said it was because the video contained hate speech and incitement to violence. Needless to say, it didn’t—and it’s now back up on Twitter, so you can check for yourself. I think the issue was that we “misgendered” Ellen/Elliot Page, that is, that we called her a woman.
The second was a misleadingly cropped clip of my opening statement in a panel discussing “preferred pronouns” at the recent Genspect conference in Killarney. I explained, in ill-advisedly forthright terms, just how much I loathe the “pronoun police”—the people, almost all anonymous, who jump on absolutely any reference to a trans person that doesn’t specifically describe them as their actual sex. In the fuller statement—still less than three minutes; whoever made this clip really is a dishonest menace—I explain why, and also why I no longer use “preferred pronouns” myself.
Here is my uncropped opening statement:
There's a clip of @HJoyceGender going around that has been taken out of context. Please take the time to listen to what she actually said. The quoted tweet has the full 2min47sec intervention. You can also watch the entire discussion on YouTube: https://t.co/V7mgxLoVvv https://t.co/6UxpX0Ftcv
— Genspect (@genspect) June 11, 2023
The whole discussion was very interesting, and other panellists disagreed with me, including by defending the pronoun police. You can watch it all here.
I’m sure I’d have received a lot less criticism if I hadn’t been so rude. I usually manage to stay quite polite in public, and don’t usually forget how much more English people object to a bit of swearing than the Irish do. But I do, of course, complain to friends and family in private, and those complaints are often not at all polite. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of being among friends by speaking on a panel with two other Irish people, in front of a mostly Irish audience, in Ireland.
It was, of course, impolitic of me to say the pronoun police should “fuck off”, but put yourself in my shoes for a minute. I’ve been thinking and writing on this subject for five years, always in my own name and for most of that time employed in an industry where my words are career-threatening heresy. I put everything on the line to write my book, and like all authors except the self-published or hugely famous, I had to make some concessions to get into print.
One of those was not referring to named post-transition trans people by their sex. I called Lili Elbe, April Ashley and Renée Richards “she” post-transition. But I avoided using pronouns altogether for Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv, and managed to sneak in a few he/hims for murderers and rapists who transitioned in prison. To anyone who thinks that’s not good enough, I’d say—why don’t you try getting a book like mine published? I find it tiresome endlessly being told off by anonymous keyboard warriors for the concessions I made to get over the line—and to keep my Twitter account, when obviously I’m a target for mass reporting.
I fully understand why someone might decide to be anonymous on Twitter. And some anonymous accounts are really useful: I learned a lot from Dr Emma Hilton (@fondofbeetles) even before she “came out”. But others spend their days telling others off in bossy, unpleasant and counterproductive ways. One of those is popping up to have a go every time anyone uses preferred pronouns. I really resent anyone who tells other people, from the safety of anonymity, that they should put everything on the line.
As I said in my full opening statement, I used to use trans people’s preferred pronouns on occasion, but can no longer bear to, because when you talk about people as if they’re members of the opposite sex, nothing makes sense. But that’s been a journey, and I don’t see why I should insist other people arrive at that endpoint all in one go. I’m also unwilling to replicate the abusive speech- and thought-policing that is such a hallmark of transactivism.
I think it’s grossly unstrategic for opponents of transactivism to replicate its abusive dynamics. People don’t react well to bullying and hectoring; I know I don’t. It’s almost the only thing I see that makes me think there’s any justice to the “both sides” framing.
But my main objection to the pronoun police is that self-censorship on trans issues is our single biggest difficulty. Sometimes it’s motivated by fear, or at least caution. Those of us who speak in our own name have to think carefully about how our words land with squeamish or hostile audiences, which may include transactivist friends, family and employers.
But a bigger issue for many people—newbies to the debate, especially—is that when they try to work out what to say and how to say it, they feel paralysed. When people get hung up on the minutiae of communicating, they often cease to communicate at all.
Take a woman who has been watching silently for some time, and who finally plucks up the courage to tweet something like: “Of course trans women are women, and I would never deny that Lia Thomas is a woman, but I do wonder if it’s quite fair that she competes with cis women who don’t have the same physical advantages.” And then some anonymous account replies: HE’S A MAN, YOU’RE A SELLOUT, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS CIS. That woman, and anyone else who witnesses this interaction, may back off entirely.
I do a fair bit of writing coaching, and I always emphasise that when writing a first draft it’s best not to fret about trivia such as inapposite words, clunky phrasing and mixed metaphors. Perhaps the most useful bit of writing advice is “Don’t get it right; get it written.” Just get the damn thing on the page, and then make it better.
That’s partly a matter of productivity: writing quickly and editing efficiently is, for most of us, far quicker and easier than writing a polished first draft. But more than that, fussing about minor matters at the early, structural stage can bog you down, distracting you from the thrust of your argument and risking that you end up writing nothing. Especially on tricky subjects, it’s enormously more important that you shut up your inner censor and let your thoughts flow. And you can’t do this if you’re obsessing about expressing yourself in the best possible language.
To me, the takedown of the Peterson video and the pile-on over my criticism of the pronoun police were both motivated by exactly the same thing: my objection to language policing. And between them, they got me trending on Twitter. Numerically, that was probably mostly about Peterson: he has more than 4 million followers. But in terms of my notifications, DMs and emails, it was all about Genspect.
I got perhaps a half-dozen critical direct messages, and a couple of abusive ones. These were well outnumbered by people checking I was okay (I was and am fine; the mute button is my friend), and by people agreeing with me that pronoun policing is at best irritating and counterproductive, and at worst downright vicious.
Various anonymous Twitter accounts (some belonging to people I know either personally or through friends) had a fine old time criticising me to each other. Some said they disagreed with me, but actually didn’t. They said they used to use preferred pronouns but no longer will (same here, and why do you expect other women to make the same journey in one bound?), or that the manipulation of language has been key to driving the trans narrative (indeed).
But others really seemed to think that ever using preferred pronouns, in any situation, is the same as full capitulation to the trans agenda. I don’t understand how someone can take that position. Do they really think my book did nothing to help counter gender-identity ideology, or even that my contribution overall was to advance it? Because that is the logical conclusion of such absolutism.
One of the more thoughtful points was that absolute clarity about language is an important aspect of child safeguarding. When you call a man a woman or refer to him as “she”, you risk disarming instinctive defence mechanisms and thereby weakening risk assessment. This is probably true even if everyone in the discussion knows the person is a transwoman, and therefore male: even if you try really hard to hold in your mind that the “trans girl” or “trans woman” who is going to be sharing a changing-room or dormitory with girls is actually a boy, the words “girl”, “woman” and the pronouns “she/her” will lull you at least partly into a false sense of security.
Against that, I’d say that we are where we are. When people feel they can say nothing at all, whether for fear of losing their job or fear of seeming rude, or just out of sheer confusion, that too is a major safeguarding risk. Obviously I’d prefer they felt able to speak clearly and accurately in such situations, but if they don’t, I’d rather they tried to express their worries in whatever language they feel capable of using.
More generally, winning over the “be kind” brigade (whom I loathe far more than the pronoun police) inevitably involves careful language choices. I wish we didn’t have to pander to them, but when you want someone to hear what you’re saying, it’s up to you to craft a message that has a chance of landing. Another thing I say when coaching writers is that before they put pen to paper they need to be completely clear about their purpose, audience and message. And sometimes my purpose is to plant a seed of doubt about the mantra of “trans women are women” in an audience primed to dismiss anyone who doesn’t use preferred pronouns. I don’t get to dictate how others interpret my words; indeed, thinking that you have that right is another of the sins of transactivists.
It’s been really unpleasant to see how many people on “my side” think it’s their right to dictate how other people choose their words. They seem unable to distinguish between advocating for sex-based language and criticising government sources and the media when they don’t use it, and taking it upon themselves to tell other private citizens how to use their words. They only object to thought policing when they’re being policed, and can’t see that objecting when other people do it imposes an obligation not to do it yourself.
If you would like to become a paid subscriber and receive full access to my weekly newsletter, you can sign up here.