immanence

As more people attach pronouns to their names (“she/her,” “they, their,” et al.), both in print and when speaking — intended as a way of respecting and “normalizing” pronoun preferences beyond the simple binary of “he” and “she” — I’ve come to recognize a certain awkwardness in one of the common variations: the use of the plural “they, them, their.” In my mother tongue, Ukrainian (and in a few other languages I know), the plural “they” (“ви, вам, вас, вони, їх, їм”) is reserved for respectful speech toward and in deference to elders, rather like the old-fashioned word “thou” in English. Asking to be referred to as an elder feels inappropriate, especially when the request comes from someone far from being an elder.

At the same time, I recognize that I (and I think I’m not alone here) do not necessarily want to have to announce my sexual identity whenever I speak. It’s my business, something to protect perhaps and to reveal selectively, but not to flaunt. My solution to this double dilemma, however, is not to do away with a respectful practice — respectful both to those who prefer neutral terminology and to elders and others deserving of respect. Instead, I would like to propose that we normalize the plural by making it available to everyone. We are all “they,” and we are all “we.” (After all, we also don’t want to reaffirm the dichotomy between “us” and “them,” do we?)

Coincidentally, this would allow us to respect the plurality of each of us — something a growing group of philosophers and psychologists have argued is naturally the case. Human individuality is singular in principle — a principle our highly individualistic society prizes — but in practice this individuality, and especially modern, neoliberal hyperindividuality, is both an achievement and, in a cross-cultural sense, something of an aberration. Most societies have traditionally valued harmony, belonging, togetherness, and solidarity at least as much as they have valued individuality.

In any case, I’ve decided to add a “they/their” line to the end of my emails, accompanied by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s second sentence from A Thousand Plateaus (Milles Plateaux): “Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd.” (Comme chacun de nous était plusieurs, ça faisait déjà beaucoup de monde; or etymologically, “there was already much of a world,” “many worlds,” or, my favorite, “a beautiful stroke of a world”).

* * * *

All of that said, I have to this point generally been addressed by male identifiers, and I’m fine with that. I’m also okay with being addressed, in writing, as “M.” (the gender-neutral variant of “mister,” “missus,” “miss,” “master,” “monsieur,” “madame,” et al.). I realize that asking for anything other than “he/him/his” can be a form of “cis privilege,” since there’s little at stake for me in all this when compared to some other people. My real preference is that we all be addressed respectfully.

A (not entirely tongue-in-cheek) side-note: I also considered asking to be addressed as “she/he/it,” or “s/he/it,” pronounced as in the word (in some dialects) for dung. This would have at least three notable advantages:

• It would highlight the social constructedness of our language about gender, which to my mind would be a good thing.
• It would emphasize my solidarity with everyone in all three traditional gender categories — she, he, and it (ordering them that way, as seems appropriate given the role of mothers in our lives) — and would include those persons of a nonhuman sort that are too often considered non-people or lesser people. Interiority and subjectivity, in my worldview, are in all things, not just in humans. This form of address would affirm my affinity and solidarity with all things in the universe. All, like me, shine in our moment of existence, and all pass into the dustheap of time, “like tears in rain” as a famous teacher put it, which neither gender nor subjectivity will alter.
• It would especially affirm my solidarity with even the most abjected, rejected, denied, and denigrated of all of us, or, in the words of an even more famous teacher, with “the least of my brothers” (or “of my people,” as is sung now). That “least” is after all not least but perhaps only last — it is the compost we leave behind. (See Shadowing the Anthropocene for more on that.) This would be flat ontology in practice.