transenby_liberation

Some fun with pronouns (CW: transphobia)

For those of us who get a tinge of satisfaction whenever cis people desperately try to drown out the cognitive dissonance caused by their intuitive understanding that we are not men, by loudly misgendering us despite that necessarily being differential treatment on the basis of gender, I present:

ʜ̴ᴇ̶/ʜ̴ɪ̷ᴍ̸/ʜ̵ɪ̴ꜱ̷/ʜ̴ɪ̷ᴍ̷ꜱ̴ᴇ̷ʟ̴ꜰ̴

—That's right, he/him but it's written in small caps with zalgo diacritics. This pronoun set is pronounced like he/him but with a hateful emphatic snarl. So now the transphobes can only misgender you by referring to you as he/him without any emphasis at all. Can they actually manage to do that? Probably not! And on the contrary, you can also have some fun by making your supportive cis friends look like absolute assholes, when you show up presenting fem while they insist on calling you "ʜ̴ɪ̷ᴍ̸".

An example:

This is Erika. I met ʜ̴ɪ̷ᴍ̸ the other day: ʜ̴ᴇ̶ seems to be some sort of weird "angel-gender" commie, and ʜ̵ɪ̴ꜱ̷ interests include teaching ʜ̴ɪ̷ᴍ̷ꜱ̴ᴇ̷ʟ̴ꜰ̴ languages.


On the other hand, for those of us who've experienced some performative ally lib constantly using only they/them for us, despite us never going by they/them, clearly because that performative ally wants to erase our identities and distance thonself from the fact that thon actually knows a trans person and can no longer hide behind an idea that trans people are some sort of abstract concept, I present:

Tʜᴇʏ/Tʜᴇᴍ/Tʜᴇɪʀ/Tʜᴇɪʀꜱ/Tʜᴇᴍꜱᴇʟꜰ

—Yes, they/them in small caps with a big T. This pronoun set is pronounced like they/them with a devoiced "th", as in "thick and thin". It will sound clearly jarring and awkward every time it's used. So now if any cis lib is trying to degender you, you can loudly insist that it's pronounced /θej/ and not /ðej/.

An example:

This is Erika. I met Tʜᴇᴍ the other day: Tʜᴇʏ seem to be some sort of weird "angel-gender" commie, and Tʜᴇɪʀ interests include teaching Tʜᴇᴍꜱᴇʟꜰ languages.

13
2
Comments 2