Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
[ I posted <100> without reading <99> just to clear my post-box ... 
]
  

    <scribbled by af Tue 11 Feb 20 12:15>
  

    
<99> revisited.  

I'm still not sure whether a discussion of grammatical ways of
gender-related-neutrality in writing or speech is welcome here or
not. 
  

    
In my place of work we use our pronouns on the website, many of us
on our sigs, and mine runs in the newsletter I put out, which is for
folks who are 55+. 

I was recently asked by a reader / member,
"I am writing re a question about "she/her/hers" that is incuded
below your name and x's name. Can you please let me know the
significance of including that wording?"

I sent a longish reply but one aspect of it was has not been
addressed here. I have coworkers whose name does not lean one
towards any particular pronoun like, C.J, Taylor, and Cory. Both
those who use they/them and those who use he/him she/her appreciate
having their pronouns stated.

(af, emma, and gopod knows who else slipped me)  
  

    
<seanan> as requested, here's a little about Haus of QUOTA (whose
website I am working on and that's why there's nothing about us
online lol so stay tuned for that in the next few months) and what I
do with them/why I'm part of them: 

Haus of QUOTA is a multi-faceted community organization; we're a
drag house and an artists' collective, working to make safer spaces
for our local queer community to express themselves creatively. 
We do this by fostering an arts culture, promoting radical
self-expression, facilitating education, prioritizing
accountability, and centering marginalized voices. 

QUOTA's backstory is one I love to tell, so I'm glad you asked: In
June of 2018, Raye Raye Rivera, a 20-year-old trans woman in my
hometown of Lake Worth, decided she wanted to be a drag queen.
Unfortunately, much of the drag performance scene here in South
Florida (and honestly, everywhere) is catty, petty, largely
inaccessible, and often incredibly transphobic- for whatever reason
cis gay people are sometimes even less accepting of
trans*/non-binary people than cisheterosexual people. Not only that,
in order to be a drag queen, you have to be able to get into bars
(which creates a whole alcoholic culture in the queer world and we
can get into THAT another time), you have to have outfits and wigs,
there are a lot more prerequisites than most think. Plus, nine times
out of ten, the drag shows are competitions: so automatically,
performers are pinned against each other, often so much so that it
tears down the very community our queer ancestors fought so hard for
us to have. Raye Raye didn't feel comfortable trying to perform at
our local gay bars, and she'd had enough, so she and her brother (a
trans man) Naithe opened up their home (which became known as 'the
Haus') to our community and decided to throw a drag show on their
living room floor. And it was history. 

They started throwing monthly parties at their house, giving other
up-and-coming queens the opportunity to perform in front of a
supportive audience without having to go through the political
nonsense of the drag world. The parties outgrew the living room, and
after 150 local queers packed the backyard one month, they realized
it was time to move QUOTA out of the Haus and into the world. Now,
our (bi)monthly drag shows are held at rotating local venues and
aside from QUOTA produced shows, our drag performers are getting
bookings from here to Miami. We host a monthly Queer Open Mic at a
local book store/wine cellar, we do a Queer Book Club, we
participate in events and fundraisers for other organizations or for
local queers in need of financial assistance. Those very local bars
in which Raye Raye felt uncomfortable beginning her drag career have
hired us to host every Friday night (Friday night drag shows are big
deal in gay world FYI) during Palm Beach Pride month. The fact that
a living room drag show has grown into this incredible organization
blows my mind daily. 
  

    
I moved back to South Florida in August 2018 and I was NOT happy
about it. I moved away from here specifically because I didn't think
I would be able to find the sort of artistic, open-minded, queer
community that I was looking for. I spent my first six months here
largely self-isolating. Last March, I finally made myself come out
of my room and go out into the world, and I visited our local gay
bar for the first time. 
My second time there, I met someone who invited me to the QUOTA Open
Mic that Friday; I didn't know about QUOTA, I didn't even know there
were queer people my age here, let alone a collective of them that
threw events! I went to the Open Mic mainly to flirt with the girl I
met, but when I showed up and saw this giant group of people, so
many trans people (I hadn't met anyone else in SoFlo with
'they/them' pronouns till that night), so many artists, all around
my age, all local, all craving something we didn't have: community.
After that open mic, I never left. QUOTA made me believe that we
don't always have to move away to other places to create artistic,
safe(R) spaces: if like-minded people team up and refuse to be
ignored, we can make those space anywhere. QUOTA proves that fact,
because we still dont have a space of our own, aside from Raye and
Naithe's house, but people in our community feel our presence. They
know they can come to us when they don't feel safe at the bar, when
they see a problem in our community, when they have an idea for a
project and need encouragement. That sort of community was something
that was seriously lacking in my life before I met these folx, and
that's why I work so hard for this organization, I know from
personal experience just how vital it is that QUOTA exists. 
  

    
<af> grammar discussions are welcome. Thanks for revisiting the
topic. 

I am so thankful that Emma found QUOTA. First and foremost, it’s a
wonderful community. Second, it means they aren’t looking to move
away so fast. 
  

    
[ QUOTA is interesting ... but I've been re-reading this topic from
the beginning ... ]

<21> of 103: Seánan (seanan) 
...
The OED "traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the
medieval romance William and the Werewolf. 
<https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/>

‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where
William and his darling were lying together.’"

Hmmm ... sorry to disagree with the OED, but the singular-they is to
me rather blurred. 

In fact,
<https://books.google.com/books?id=cOUIG7cUt0cC&lpg=PA7&ots=JUOYRK3X1o&dq=%22mi
ddle%20english%22%20eche&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=%22middle%20english%22%20eche&f=fa
lse> page 6 

defines "ech" (and variants) as "each and every" ... so the modern
translation of the sentence is 

"Each and every man  hurried . . . till they [plural for every] drew
near . . . where William and his [gendered!] darling were lying
together."
  

    
The book is "Middle English Dictionary"
  

    
Side note: when I put "pronouns: she/hers" on my work signature,
several people came out to me. It functioned as a signal . 

 
  

    
*** <https://www.well.com>  *** 

Doesn't have THIS Topic highlighted ... only 
<inkwell.vue.508.>  : Jen Schradie: The Revolution That Wasn’t: How
Digital Activism Favors Conservatives
  

    <scribbled by aslan Tue 11 Feb 20 17:53>
  

    
Typos.  Trying again:

Okay, so I'm going to ask my grammar question, which is really more
of a semantics than strictly a grammar question.

There is obviously no grammatical issue with writing "They started
throwing monthly parties at their house..." as in a post up above.
However, there is ambiguity.  You do a good job of dispelling that
ambiguity in the previous sentence in the previous paragraph, so it
Naithe" but you *could* have meant just "Raye Raye", assuming that
"Raye Raye" uses "they" (I don't think that is clear from the post).

My problem is not that such ambiguity exists.  In traditional
pre-"they" English, sometimes there is such ambiguity and people
have to add who they are talking about in brackets ("David drove
Robert home but he [David] had forgotten his [Robert's] glasses at
the restaurant...").   There are obviously better ways to write it.

My problem is that people don't clarify.  I cannot tell you the
number of sentences I hear (or read, but it's worse in spoken
English) that involve the use of the singular "they" in which I have
to pause 15-20 seconds, try to figure out if I understood the
sentence, finally realize that it is completely ambiguous, and ask
for clarification -- or resign myself to an imperfect understanding
of who went where or did what, if it doesn't matter enough to
interrupt the flow of the conversation.

That just hardly ever happens with speakers when they are using
strictly male or female (or plural) pronouns, presumably because in
those cases they are used to -- and thus more ready to account for
-- any such ambiguities.

In other words, the use of the singular "they" grammatically (or
semantically) introduces additional ambiguity into language that
people tend not to notice.  Not a reason to abandon the use, of
course, but it does mean that everywhere, people need to adapt to
this additional ambiguity one way or another.

"Chris drove with Robin to the store and they bought some ice
cream."  Who bought the ice cream?  If it matters, you've got three
choices now, instead of just one or potentially two, and you need to
let me know which of the three it is without making me have to ask.

Maybe there wasn't a question in there, other than: "is the problem
just one of getting better at it?" For some reason this ambiguity
seems to arise in nearly every conversation in which the word "they"
is used singularly. Am I misunderstanding the speakers, or are they
not speaking clearly? Not that anyone here would necessarily know!
  

    
ACK. Without retyping again: my second paragraph should have said
"so it seems like you meant both Raye Raye and Naithe but you
*could* have meant just "Raye Raye" ..."
  

    <scribbled by seanan Tue 11 Feb 20 18:43>
  

    
The typo-unforgiving nature of the WELL... 

The partner of a friend works the drag competition circuit. It can
be fierce out there. 

If one looks at the history of the AIDS era (and even if one
doesn't), there are stories to be found about groups going to
straight (not that anyone had to label them "straight", but that's
another conversation) bars and settling in. It made the news, which
in itself says something about the culture. It made it possible for
more LGBT people to go hang out in mainstream bars and restaurants.
It was remarkably brave, given not only homophobia, but also all of
the misconceptions about AIDS and infection.

In the web of time, Haus of QUOTA connects with that
clearing/sharing/creation of space (in my mind, if no other), as
well as with House of Vogue. As I understand it, Haus of QUOTA has
plans and dreams that reach beyond the community of artists and
age-peers. 

As someone who plans, if financial stability ever returns to my
gig-economy fold, to foster or adopt an LGBT teenager -- teens being
unlikely to find foster or adoptive parents, and even less likely to
find good ones -- and whose work includes bridging generations,
cultures, and other barriers, I'd very much like to hear more about
Haus of QUOTA's long-term aims.

I shall let my typos rest on their pixels. 
  

    
<aslan> I think the issue is one of just getting better at it all.
It’s true that often the use of ‘they’ can result in ambiguity when
the speaker/writer doesn’t contextualize well enough to make clear
whether they’re talking/writing in the singular or plural. In the
case of the example you used from my comment about Haus of QUOTA, I
used ‘they’ to talk about both Naithe (he/him) and Raye Raye
(she/her), which could potentially be gleaned from my stating that
they’re both trans people and referring to them as brother/sister,
however if you don’t pay massive attention to those details it could
still be unclear. I think as we all get more used to using singular
‘they’ as a personal pronoun in one’s own speech/writing, we’ll all
get better at being less ambiguous 
  

    
<seanan> your comparison of QUOTA to the House of Vogue is on the
mark (and also incredibly flattering, I’m sure Raye Raye and our
haus queens would GAG to know that’s what we’ve been compared to),
we’re largely influenced by the ‘houses’ of NYC ballroom culture in
the 70’s/80’s (for those that are unfamiliar: watch Pose). The
influence of that culture pervades in our long-term goals as well,
to answer your other query, Seanan. Naithe and Raye Raye are
incredibly passionate about QUOTA one day occupying a space that’s
commercial and also residential so we can house homeless queer folx
and provide housing at a low cost for low income queer folx in our
area. There’s a local org here, Compass, that does a lot of clinical
work in the community: AIDS/HIV preventative care, support groups,
etc. QUOTA aims to fill the gap that exists between those clinical
settings and the bar. Not everyone needs support group, not everyone
wants to be at the bar, where do those people go to find community? 
  

    
QUOTA, long-term, would love to occupy a space similar to a
multi-family complex, where we could hold community events, house
people, and turn some of the units into artist studios
  

    
(aren't they awesome? Okay, mothering moment over)


<aslan> >>My problem is that people don't clarify......I...finally
realize that it is completely ambiguous, and ask
for clarification -- or resign myself to an imperfect understanding
of who went where or did what, if it doesn't matter enough to
interrupt the flow of the conversation.

>>That just hardly ever happens with speakers when they are using
strictly male or female (or plural) pronouns, presumably because in
those cases they are used to -- and thus more ready to account for
-- any such ambiguities.

You've answered your own question, haven't you? Just ask. Until
you're used to it. I've gotten used to asking, correcting, and
asking some more. It has gotten a lot easier for me to suss out
who's who now that I've practiced more. 

Now, admittedly, I live with Emma; Emma's friends hang out at my
house; I go to QUOTA's open mic night. My point is, I have a lot of
opportunities to practice and perhaps you don't have as many
opportunities in your life to practice. So each new time feels
awkward. It will get easier with time. 
  

    
Just to add to the spectrum of pronouns, some people choose more
than one. 

https://www.glaad.org/amp/6-glaad-campus-ambassadors-share-why-pronouns-are-im
portant-them
  

    
This quote from the article really hit me: 

>>It’s especially important for cisgender people to take the
initiative to set this standard in spaces because as people under
the trans umbrella, we don’t always know if it’s safe for us to do.

That's definitely the next step for me. I just updated all my email
signatures to include my pronouns. Should have done it sooner. 
  

    
I've had mine on my Facebook and Twitter and such for a year or two
now. Haven't gotten to everywhere I exist on the web yet. Making a
note to do an inventory. :) Thanks for the prompt, Lisa.
  

    
I have mine on Twitter, and started last year to write it on my con
badges. This is all still new to me, even though I've hung around
queer spaces a lot at different points in my life.
  

    <scribbled by magdalen Fri 14 Feb 20 09:27>