6 reasons the gender critical right and the woke left are both WRONG about pronouns

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

Dr. Taylor Jones dives into the controversy surrounding pronouns, challenging both the Gender Critical right and the Woke left. He refutes common misconceptions about pronouns, explains their complexities, and provides a nuanced understanding of cultural and linguistic elements. With a focus on inclusion and respect, Dr. Jones emphasizes the importance of navigating these conversations with empathy and understanding, acknowledging that pronouns are more than just a linguistic concern, but a societal one.

Highlights

Pronouns are a linguistic category, like mutable variables in coding. 🖥️
Dr. Jones explains the gap between gender in social sciences and linguistics. 🔍
He highlights how neopronouns arise and challenges their difficulty. 🚀
Discusses cultural implications and respect in pronoun usage. 🌎
Encourages respect and empathy in conversations about pronouns. 💙
Stresses the importance of understanding over forcing identities. 🔗

Key Takeaways

Pronouns are not as simple as many believe, reflecting deep cultural and linguistic complexities. 🤯
Both right and left are often wrong about pronouns due to misunderstanding their role and function. 😬
Using neopronouns can be challenging, but respecting each other's identities is crucial. 🙌
Cultural assumptions influence how we perceive pronouns and identity. 🧐
Communication is key, and we should prioritize empathy in pronoun usage. 💬
Navigating pronouns involves understanding linguistic, social, and cultural contexts. 🌐

Overview

In this enlightening video, Dr. Taylor Jones ventures into the fiery debate on pronouns, bringing fresh perspectives that will make both the Gender Critical right and the Woke left pause and reflect. As a linguist, Dr. Jones aims to deconstruct common misconceptions surrounding pronouns, making a case for a more informed and empathetic approach. His journey through the linguistic, cultural, and personal nuances of pronouns challenges everyone to rethink their assumptions.

Dr. Jones deftly explains the intricacies of pronouns, comparing them to mutable variables in coding and exploring how they differ across languages. His analysis extends beyond linguistics, delving into gender and cultural dynamics that often complicate pronoun discussions. With engaging examples, he illustrates the challenges and misconceptions people face, advocating for a more compassionate discourse around identity and language.

The video culminates in a call for kindness and understanding, urging viewers to respect individual identities while navigating the gray areas of language and culture. Dr. Jones highlights the need for communication and empathy, recognizing the societal dimensions of pronouns. His insights remind us that pronouns are not merely about grammar, but about recognizing and honoring the humanity in others.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The introduction discusses the polarizing debate between the Gender Critical right and the Woke left regarding pronoun usage. The speaker expresses apprehension about addressing this topic but emphasizes its importance. The video aims to highlight misconceptions propagated by both sides. Additionally, the speaker points out that while many are passionately vocal about pronouns, other parts of speech like verbs, adjectives, and nouns do not receive the same level of scrutiny. Despite being a subject matter for academic discourse, the public discussion often becomes chaotic, with some linguists unintentionally exacerbating the situation. The chapter sets the stage for exploring the intersection of language discussion and social issues.
00:30 - 01:00: Pronouns and Gender Components This chapter addresses the concept of gender, introducing an often overlooked 'cultural' component. The focus is on pronouns and neopronouns, exploring their meanings, the societal debate surrounding them, and offering guidance on how to approach these concepts in today's cultural context. Dr. Taylor Jones shares his perspectives as a straight, cisgender man.
01:00 - 02:30: What are Pronouns? The chapter titled 'What are Pronouns?' begins by discussing the common question 'What are your pronouns?' It mentions the various contexts in which people might encounter this question, such as in introductions, surveys, or questionnaires. The text emphasizes the increasing awareness and normalcy of asking for pronouns.
02:30 - 04:30: Understanding Gender in Language The chapter 'Understanding Gender in Language' discusses the societal shift in the Anglosphere towards inclusivity and recognition of gender diversity. This shift is reflected in how people designate their pronouns on platforms like Twitter, such as 'he/him' or 'she/they'. The change is fueled by the desire to be inclusive of those who are trans or gender non-conforming, challenging traditional binary sex categories like male/female or man/woman. The chapter highlights the importance of self-identification over others' categorization, although the actual percentage of those identifying outside traditional categories varies based on surveys.
04:30 - 05:00: Neopronouns Complexity In the chapter titled 'Neopronouns Complexity,' the discussion revolves around the differing opinions on the evolving use of pronouns. The text suggests that while a segment of the population is supportive, others oppose this change. However, it highlights that many people, regardless of their stance, often lack a complete understanding of the subject. The speaker emphasizes taking a stance that promotes kindness and inclusion, although acknowledging the challenges these values might face when juxtaposed with personal perceptions of truth and honesty. The chapter introduces six reasons explaining common misconceptions about pronouns.
05:00 - 06:30: Cultural Assumptions on Pronouns This chapter discusses the common misconceptions about pronouns, highlighting how many people are unclear about what pronouns actually are. It points out the lack of awareness of pronouns being present in historical texts, such as the Bible, emphasizing that pronouns have existed across languages and times. The chapter specifically notes how people often mistakenly claim there are no pronouns in the Bible while inadvertently using them, such as 'THOU' in commandments.
06:30 - 08:30: Issues with Inclusion The chapter 'Issues with Inclusion' discusses the difference between pronouns and terms of address. It points out that terms such as 'sir,' 'ma’am,' 'bro,' 'dude,' or 'guys' are gendered but are not pronouns. These terms are regular nouns and do not function as pronouns. The chapter explains that pronouns are a specific category of words that substitute for nouns, similar to mutable variables in coding. For example, once someone mentions a person like Chris, they can use a pronoun to refer back to him.
08:30 - 10:30: Conclusion In the concluding chapter, the text discusses the function of pronouns in language. Pronouns serve as pointers to nouns, allowing the listener to determine the subject through context. The variety among languages in handling pronouns is highlighted, particularly in terms of the information they encode; some languages require distinctions for singular, plural, and even dual forms, while others, like French, differentiate based on formality and social contexts. The example provided shows how 'him' refers to 'Chris' and 'it' refers to 'a pronoun', demonstrating the contextual nature of pronoun usage.

6 reasons the gender critical right and the woke left are both WRONG about pronouns Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 6 reasons why the Gender Critical right and the Woke left are both WRONG about pronouns Ah, Pronouns. I’ve been a little afraid to make this video, honestly. But I guarantee you need to hear what I have to say. Everyone is talking – ok, yelling – about pronouns nowadays. Verbs, adjectives, even nouns don’t get this level of attention. But for those of us who actually study pronouns and even publish in academic journals about them – and there are dozens of us – it’s hard to watch the public conversation become increasingly unhinged. Unfortunately, plenty of well-meaning linguists add oil to the pronoun fire, too. Some of the confusion, anger, and vitriol is about language, and some of it is about
00:30 - 01:00 gender. But there’s also an overlooked third component, related to culture. Today I’m going to talk about pronouns and neopronouns. What they are, why people are so worked up, and what regular folks like you and me can do to navigate this cultural moment. Let’s get into it. I’m Dr. Taylor Jones, a straight, cis-gendered man, and this probably a mistake. Uh…this is Language Jones.
01:00 - 01:30 [Break] What are your pronouns? Many of you have asked or been asked this question. Maybe in person, maybe introducing yourself to a new group of people, maybe even on a survey or questionnaire. And if you haven’t asked or been asked this, you know that people do ask and answer it.
01:30 - 02:00 Profiles on Twitter might have “he/him” or “she/they” listed. Unquestionably, there’s a societal shift happening in the Anglosphere. It’s largely motivated by a desire to be inclusive and welcoming to the portion of the population that self-identifies as either trans or gender non-conforming, which all basically boils down to not self-identifying the same way other people might initially categorize you, especially around binary sex categories: male/female, man/woman, etc. Depending on who you ask and which surveys you trust, that’s either less than a percent
02:00 - 02:30 of people or like 20% of people. Some people are very supportive of this shift and others are VERY unhappy about it. But here’s the thing, the majority of people I’ve seen, on all sides, are wrong about most of what they’re talking about. I’ll always come down on the side of kindness and inclusion BUT a lot of us are going about THAT wrong. And sometimes kindness and inclusion are in – we’ll say *tension* -- with what we perceive to be truth, and honestly. So, here’s six reasons why YOU are wrong about pronouns.
02:30 - 03:00 1. You’re wrong about what pronouns even are. Many people arguing about pronouns have only the vaguest idea of what pronouns are. People are even worse at identifying pronouns than they are at identifying the passive voice. So you have people out here saying that there are no pronouns in the bible, and then turning around and saying “THOU SHALT NOT…” What do you think THOU is??? Spoiler: it’s a pronoun. Even the original language has pronouns in the nominative, and pronominal suffixes in other cases. (Pronouns in biblical Hebrew are a whole separate complicated thing).
03:00 - 03:30 You also have people saying “sir” or “ma’am” are pronouns. Or “bro,” “dude,” or “guys.” They are not. Those are gendered, yes, but they’re terms of address that are not pronouns and do not function as pronouns. Most of those terms of address are nouns. Regular old vanilla nouns. So pronouns are a category of word – and I’m being vague about what “word” means in linguistics – that stand in for a noun. They’re reusable, so they’re kind of like mutable variables in coding. If I talk about my friend Chris, after I’ve mentioned him, I can use a pronoun.
03:30 - 04:00 Like I just did. It was “him.” “Him” refers to Chris. And “it” referred to “a pronoun.” You might use “him” thousands of times a day, and it might refer to hundreds of different people. Pronouns are effectively a pointer to some noun the listener should be able to figure out from context. Across languages, pronouns differ in part by how much information they encode. Some languages make you choose a different pronoun depending on whether the thing referred to is singular or plural. Or if there are precisely two. Some make you specify formality and social distance, like French tu (informal) and vous
04:00 - 04:30 (formal or plural), or early modern English Thou (informal) and You (formal or plural). Some languages have inclusive and exclusive “we,” where they differentiate between us all together, and us but not you. Standard English doesn’t distinguish between second person singular and plural – they’re both “you” – but many informal varieties do, with everything from youse, to yinz to y’all. Some regions of the American South now have y’all as a semi-formal pronoun like vous, and all y’all is the true plural.
04:30 - 05:00 And some languages specify gender, some don’t. English splits the difference and ONLY specifies gender on third person pronouns. Not I or you, but a special THIRD person we’re talking about, you and I. Other languages have gendered versions of I and you, in addition to he, she, it, and so on. That brings us to another thing you’re wrong about. 2. You’re wrong about gender. Gender is a word related to the word “genre.” It literally just means type or category. Part of the reason we talk about gender in language is specifically that linguists were trying NOT to say “sex.”
05:00 - 05:30 We can get into a more detailed discussion, but sex is the physiological and biological reproductive categories for a species: humans are a sexually dimorphic species that reproduces by combining a small, mobile gamete, with a larger immobile gamete, and the developing new human is carried by the person with the larger gamete (unlike seahorses). This is a characterization of the species, not of individuals, who don’t ALL fall into those categories. This is how I imagine humans in the Federation in star trek explain human sexes to aliens.
05:30 - 06:00 Before they explain gender. Before they problematize that. Before they get it on. Gender, on the other hand, means something in the social sciences, and something totally different when we’re talking about language. In the social sciences, it can be thought of as all the ways we expect humans to act, speak, behave, and dress, based on socially constructed categories. These categories are often, but not always related to, but not determined by, sex distinctions. There are many cultures that famously have at least 3 social genders, from India, to
06:00 - 06:30 Thailand, to some Native American cultures. In linguistics, though, it’s categories for classes of nouns. English has masculine and feminine, basically on pronouns only, and we use those pronouns to talk about people so you basically have to categorize them as one or the other if the referent is known to the listener. If not, I can do what I just did and say “they” or “them” for a singular referent. But other languages don’t have genders that line up with biological sexual dimorphism.
06:30 - 07:00 The word for woman in German is feminine, and man is masculine, but girl is…neuter? In Dutch there are two genders but both man and woman are “common” gender and girl is neuter. In Zulu there are 14 genders, but 6 are different classes, another 6 are the plurals of the first six, and the last two make things into either verbs or abstract ideas. So umuntu is a person, abantu are people, isintu is a race or humankind, and ubuntu is the abstract concept of humanity. I have to use U- as the third person singular pronoun no matter who I’m talking about,
07:00 - 07:30 and nobody can identify as Si- instead, because it would just NOT be understood. And even in languages where they’re called “masculine and feminine” and man is masculine and woman is feminine, you still run into complications. In French, person is feminine. Une personne. And the word for female genitalia, what linguists call the hoo-ha, is masculine: Le vagin. Slang terms for the male member, like PIPE and BITE are feminine. Because it’s about linguistic categories, not social or biological categories.
07:30 - 08:00 By the way, if you speak other languages, now’s the perfect time to leave me a comment below with the most interesting grammatical gender or funniest mismatch you’ve come across. I’ve already discussed how in some other languages there’s a move toward gender neutral terms only for nouns and pronouns that refer to humans – which basically just makes an animate/inanimate distinction, which is…wait for it…another gender. Anyway, In English, there’s a trend toward using what people sometimes call neopronouns. That’s singular they for a named referent, or pronouns like xe or hir.
08:00 - 08:30 And you’re all wrong about those too. Doubly wrong. 3. You’re wrong about how hard neopronouns are. First, you’re wrong about how hard they are. In intro to linguistics, undergrads are often taught that pronouns are a “closed class.” This means that unlike verbs or adjectives, its’ really hard to add new ones. And yet, new ones organically arise all the time. Vosotros is relatively new in the history of Spanish. Portuguese has an impersonal a gente, and French has a generic on that can mean anything from third person to first person plural to even first person singular if you don’t
08:30 - 09:00 want to take personal responsibility for what you’re talking about. I’ve even coauthored work on how some forms of the n-word, yes that one, meet the syntactic requirements for pronounhood in African American English, and that’s definitely a new development. And if it were so hard for us to learn new pronouns, I shouldn’t be able to understand who “youse” refers to or use it myself with youse guys. Besides, many of us learn foreign languages, and somehow do fine learning new pronouns
09:00 - 09:30 in different languages. So saying “This is Bex, they go by ‘they’”is not as impossible as people make it out to be. BUT it’s also not as easy as some people claim, which brings me to: 4. You’re wrong about how easy neopronouns are. There are plenty of studies that indicate that ambiguity in pronouns in sentences like “he hit him” incur a processing cost. That is, they are annoying and make your brain tired. It’s a higher cost when there’s a perceived mismatch, like in “Alice didn’t like what Bob said so he hit them.”
09:30 - 10:00 And lots of experimental evidence from psycholinguistics shows that singular they for a named referent is harder to follow. There are trans linguists who research pronoun use, and even they find that some people have an easier time and some people have a harder time with new, unusual, or unexpected pronoun use. It’s harder to figure out who ze refers to, and it’s harder to consistently remember to map a person to a new category like ze, when we have a lifetime of practice mapping that person to “she,” for instance. There’s a higher level of cognitive stress when we are in a social situation where we’re
10:00 - 10:30 expected to use pronouns we’re not comfortable with—it’s like all the stress of practicing a foreign language, with the additional element that you might deeply offend your listeners at literally any new sentence. And don’t even think about just avoiding pronouns. If you say Alice saw Alice in the mirror and Alice liked how Alice looked, you sound like an absolute basketcase. Plus, remember how I said that pronouns are like pointers in code? Well the consensus in psycholinguistics is that as I said that sentence, you were instantiating
10:30 - 11:00 new Alices all over the place, and then had to rectify that they all referred to the same Alice after the fact. The default is to make new conceptual objects you have to track, and that’s fatiguing for everybody. Both speaker and listener. So just as the people saying it’s impossible to learn new pronouns are wrong, the people acting like it’s the easiest thing in the world are also very wrong. But all of that ignores the bigger, deeper issue. 5. You’re wrong about culture. A huge, overlooked part of the pronoun debates is that both sides have unspoken culturally
11:00 - 11:30 informed assumptions that dramatically influence how we think about this conversation. Advocates used to refer to so-and-so’s “preferred pronouns.” Now people will say “my pronouns are…”. Here’s the thing: this is one cultural approach among many. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I AM saying it’s not universal. In English, we talk about third person pronouns. Literally, how someone talks ABOUT us when they’re NOT talking TO us. To say that I, as an individual, can determine how I am spoken ABOUT by others, even when
11:30 - 12:00 I’m not around, is on the extreme individualist end of the individualist/collectivist continuum. And the extreme individualists on the other side will predictably say “you can’t tell me what words are supposed to come out of MY MOUTH.” We don’t have to go into a deep dive on thinking about dimensions of culture, like Geert Hofstede’s classic “Culture’s Consequences” to see that there are other ways of thinking about this. In a highly collectivist or community oriented culture, I might simply assume that the categories that already exist in my culture are what I can choose from – this raises the question
12:00 - 12:30 of how new categories emerge – and that if I want to be referred to in a certain way, it is up to OTHERS to choose to refer to me that way. So my appearance, behavior, and so on, can INFLUENCE that, but I don’t get to determine it, any more than I get to determine my adjectives (handsome, intelligent) or what nouns are used to refer to me (zaddy). I’ll reiterate that I’m on the side of inclusion and kindness, so when someone tells
12:30 - 13:00 me how they feel they should be referred to, I respect that. But it also means that when people ask me MY pronouns, I don’t have a satisfying answer. Call me whatever you want when you’re talking about me, just so long as it ain’t “late for supper.” Other straight guys might be LIVID at being called “she” but I don’t get that. And there’s plenty of aspects of my identity that are important to me that some other people fail or refuse to acknowledge. Out of prejudice, malice, disagreement, or sheer ignorance. Both my self-conception (handsome, intelligent) and group memberships (AAE speaker, Jew).
13:00 - 13:30 Of course some of those have established norms and boundaries, so you can’t just claim to be a PhD or a Jew based on vibes alone. And some are gradient: I can get certified at C2 in French, but not African American English. And what would it mean to be a certified man or woman??? Dare I ask you to leave a comment below? AND if we’re talking about my group memberships and multiple identities – I am large, I contain multitudes -- maybe I don’t always want to have that discussion with every damn
13:30 - 14:00 body. That’s why: 6. You’re wrong about inclusion. Choosing to share what pronouns correspond to your gender identity as a way of normalizing open discussion and acceptance of what people sometimes call “nontraditional genders” (it’s not a perfect phrase, I know), makes sense as a reasonable way of normalizing inclusion. But sometimes in the spirit of inclusion, we go a little far. REQUIRING people to share their pronouns means that you either force people to out themselves (not great) or to choose to be in the closet (not great).
14:00 - 14:30 It means that people who can’t identify a pronoun, remember that’s MOST people, are put on the spot, and they know it’s a question that will affect how people think of them as moral beings in the world, but they don’t quite grok the question in the first place. Bad vibes, all around. It also might put different social pressures in conflict with one another. I was at a conference a few years back, and one of my colleagues who is an expert on the n-word, yes, that one (he’s got a book about it coming out soon), put the n-word – no
14:30 - 15:00 r -- as his pronoun on the write-in part of his name tag. Yes, it can function as a pronoun, and yes, it’s literally an important part of his identity. But also, it’s a social taboo for anyone who is not black – that’s 98% of the conference – to say that word, let alone in addressing a Black man. He was highlighting the tensions around identity, speech community, self-determination, and respect. If you truly respect him, you’ll respect his chosen pronoun. But you also socially CANNOT call him that. It was a provocative move that got people talking, and thinking, about all of these
15:00 - 15:30 levels of language. And yes, it was at a linguistics conference, basically the only place that would land. And it’s not just that word. People who may want, prefer, demand, or expect other pronouns may do so for a variety of reasons. I’ve come across a few people who take delight in causing others confusion and watching them work it out in real time. That’s a tiny minority of a group that’s already a tiny minority, it’s also a real phenomenon.
15:30 - 16:00 Another issue is that people who don’t respect you are going to find a way to show it anyway. Even the people who think that there are only two genders and you can’t change them, will intentionally misgender straight, cisgender people, for social reasons. So your best case scenario is that you at least can sort people into those who try to be respectful and those who don’t behave like civilized adults. Which is not nothing. So what do we do with all this information? Well, if you believe there’s a global trafficking ring being run by one political party out of the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn’t even have a basement, and you’re waiting
16:00 - 16:30 for your orders from JFK, then I’m not sure I can say anything useful. And if you’re changing your pronouns every third hour or so just to mess with people, you get what you get. But for the rest of us, if you just want to be a decent person who respects others’ identities, even if you don’t fully understand them, here’s three ideas. The third is contentious, and you may not agree with me, so take it with a grain of salt. 1. Don’t force people to categorize themselves for your gratification.
16:30 - 17:00 It’s the same with gender as it is for genetic ancestry and ethnicity. It’s never great to demand “what are you?” To someone. And it’s hardly ever actually relevant. When they’re ready for you to know, they’ll share what they want to share. I might be in the minority here, but I always felt like Pat was not the butt of the joke on SNL’s “it’s Pat.” Pat just shows up to work and shares birthday cake and lives their? Life. 2. When people do share, if you respect them, you’ll respect what they share. If that means pronouns that are hard for you, then doing that brain-tiring work of learning
17:00 - 17:30 and using new pronouns is behavior that demonstrates that respect. And it’s about as hard as talking to someone who just keeps using pronouns the normal way but ambiguously. “Did you hear about Fred and Steve? He told him he’d see him tomorrow, but he didn’t see him, but it turned out he was there but he just wasn’t looking in the right place.” 3. This one is the contentious one. Linguists talk about something called audience design, meaning choosing HOW you talk to someone
17:30 - 18:00 based on WHO you’re talking to. I’ve seen instances where people intentionally use pronouns the KNOW won’t be understood, without clarification, to refer to someone who is not present. That sends the signal to the listener that you don’t actually care about communicating with them, and you are prioritizing someone who isn’t even there over treating the listener with respect. To me that feels kind of shitty. If your goal is to show your commitment to a social movement or ideal, at the expense
18:00 - 18:30 of your relationship with the listener, then that’s a fine strategy. I generally fall on the side of audience design and showing respect for the people you’re actually talking with, and in some cases this might mean using pronouns the listener will understand rather than the pronouns the absent third party would insist on. You may disagree about what the tradeoff is there, and where to draw the line. If it’s clear it’s not malice, I’m definitely fine with listening for what people are trying to say, rather than what they actually do say. Things are rarely black and white, and we have to figure out how to navigate the grey in ways that respect each other.
18:30 - 19:00 I guess another way to say things aren’t always black and white is to say that sometimes things aren’t…binary? One thing is for sure: arguing with people about their identity is never effective, and always a waste of time, and having to defend your own identity is always exhausting. And to make things worse, the entire discussion is predicated on a mix of ignorance of linguistics, biology, sociology, and culture, and the places where those don’t line up. So everybody should maybe just take a few deep breaths.
19:00 - 19:30 Not everybody has to agree. The problem is when this goes from abstract philosophical differences to trying to take people’s rights away, or threatening them harm. And part of why I wanted to make this video is to point out that basically everything people are saying about pronouns is wrong, in part because it’s not really about pronouns. It’s about societal acceptance of different sexual orientations and social genders, and it’s about the tension between self-determination: “This is who I am” and other people’s
19:30 - 20:00 self determination: I choose how I speak and you can’t impose your view of the world on me. Socially and politically I work to expand people’s rights and the protection of those rights, and in my work life, I work to help people interact effectively across these kinds of differences. Personally, I’m working on navigating that tension around audience design, and I’m trying to just accept people where they are: If that means using a pronoun that doesn’t click for me because it’s upsetting when I don’t, that’s fine. Especially when it’s only a theoretical or philosophical question for me, but for
20:00 - 20:30 the other person, it’s their life. In some cases, it’s related to a struggle that is literally life-or-death. But also, if that means recognizing that someone’s not up-to-date with the newest terminology, but is approaching an interaction out of mutual respect, I’m going to respect THAT as well. Gotta live with that tension. To quote Gene Kelly, I’ve had one motto which I’ve always lived by: dignity. Always dignity. I promised this one would be spicy, and I’d love to know your thoughts on neopronouns and who gets to decide how we refer to one another, so leave me a comment!
20:30 - 21:00 If you like what I’m doing with the channel, please like and subscribe! I want to give a big thanks to all of my patrons on patreon: Bek S, Spanish Input, Peter Kolb, Sarah Shaw Tatoun, blake, Dillon, Hartwig, Anders Torgerson, My all access patron David Hayter, and special thanks to my VIP Patrons Johnny Childress and Paul H! Until next time, be excellent to each other.