What better time than pride month to finally paint the centerpiece of my pride theme Sisters of Battle series, Celestine the living saint!
Quite a tricky mini to paint with how fiddly she is, but her wings are the perfect canvas for the rainbow flag.
I hope you like her. pic.twitter.com/zBxhagdqt3
— CerberusXt (@CerberusXt) June 23, 2024
One year ago, the Equality Act was reintroduced in Congress.
As we celebrate Pride Month, we are reminded that the fight to codify civil rights protections for LGBTQI+ Americans is not over.
I call on Congress again to send this bill to my desk. pic.twitter.com/7jBV0vVbU7
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 21, 2024
The cast of @QueerEye joined me at the White House to discuss the hard-fought progress the LGBTQI+ community has made in the past 20 years.
Thank you for a meaningful conversation, for giving my office your stamp of approval, and for being fabulous. pic.twitter.com/L3pzaYpo1W
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) June 18, 2024
BREAKING: The shooter who killed five people and injured 19 others at a nightclub in Colorado Springs pleaded guilty to 50 federal hate crime charges. https://t.co/3N8UMtCgom
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 18, 2024
One thing to keep in mind is that while it’s scary to see conservative lunatics pulling shit like this, they’re doing it because *they’re losing*. They’re trying to assert a cultural authority that has already mostly slipped through their fingers on this issue.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) Jun 20, 2024 at 7:27 PM
Rome LGBTQ+ Pride parade celebrates 30th anniversary, makes fun of Pope Francis comments https://t.co/qFodI0gzdk
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 16, 2024
Thailand has a reputation for inclusivity but has struggled for decades to pass a marriage equality law — that’s until today.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, a first for Southeast Asia. pic.twitter.com/1C6PNxhnHN
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 18, 2024
Billy Porter takes center stage at Capital Pride https://t.co/QpMjMqQSq2
— Washington Blade (@WashBlade) June 5, 2024
Maura Healey, America's first lesbian governor, oversees raising of Pride flag at Statehouse https://t.co/jLMTaGolha
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 6, 2024
LGBTQ+ librarians grapple with attacks on books – and on themselves https://t.co/GH32GPuPDd
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 22, 2024
The art of drag has become a target. With Pride Month nigh, performers are organizing to fight back https://t.co/CgadtAx4Q3
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 29, 2024
Musical 'From Here' explores life before and after the Pulse nightclub massacre https://t.co/K43YOn79E7
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 21, 2024
Stores are more subdued in observing Pride Month. Some LGBTQ+ people see a silver lining in that https://t.co/e70bKRoHjB
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 16, 2024
Baud
AP seems to be on top of these stories. In general, it seems to have improved since that anti-Obama person left (whose name I can’t recall).
OzarkHillbilly
Hey! I left a comment when this first posted up! What happened to it??? Boy, the crosses I must bear. Anyway…
It’s been several months since I put the “Pride Ally” sticker on my truck. Still have all the glass.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Like so many people, I’m constantly amazed at where we are. I never thought outside of nationally known places like San Fran, that the acceptance we *generally* see would have happened in my lifetime.
50th Pride Parade in Denver yesterday: 100K+ raucously joyful people marched in and cheered on in the hot sun with temps hitting 90. Didn’t dampen the enthusiasm. The person who pulled the first parade permit was in a car and everybody went wild when he came by.
More sedately but more touching, one elderly gentleman marched alone, not part of any group. He held up a single sign “marching for gay rights since 1965”. It’s a wonder he made it down Colfax because *everybody* wanted to hug him enroute.
The corpratizataion of the event I’m sure is derided by some but it’s valuable indicator of broader acceptance.
And yet, this was posted in my neighborhood (adjacent to the parade route):
The timing of the first event came when the GQP asshole in the state made the inflammatory remarks. The rest around the Parade timing.
We’re not all there yet but if it’s basically little shit like this, we’re winning.
OzarkHillbilly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Well, Fuck ’em.
RevRick
Our church, St. John’s UCC, Allentown will participate in both the Out&Proud event sponsored by the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown on June 30th and the Lehigh Valley PRIDE! event to be held at SteelStacks in Bethlehem on August 18th. We are one of twelve Open and Affirming churches in the Penn Northeast Conference of the United Church of Christ.
Yutsano
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They’re at the point where they think destroying our symbols will make us go back into the closets and cloisters so they don’t have to think about “those people” in their lives. It’s not working. Their frustration grows even more because now they can be PUNISHED for their acts, and their rage grows.
You can’t make people come to the light. Those that choose to see their wrongs are welcome. Those that don’t will continue to seethe in their rage, especially as they become less numerous.
Lyrebird
@Baud:
Rob Fournier maybe?
FWIW I read your mockery of the misogynist put-downs of Madame VP as biting (against the hataz NOT against Madame VP) but fitting. Obvs different people will hear things different ways.
Jay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
In Canada, tearing down, stealing, defacing or burning a Pride Flag is classed as a hate crime.
When I worked at the Orange, a few years ago, in Tool Rental, we put up the Pride Flag, the Ally Flag and the Trans flag on the wall.
One day, had some a-hole “demand” we take them down.
“Nope, Corporate Policy, don’t like it? Take your whiny assed bitch to Corporate”.
“Fine, then I will tear them down!”.
“That’s illegal and a hate crime, one, two three, so 15 years in jail for you, oh, and camera, camera, camera, and you already gave me your ID to try to do a rental”
“(shit talking) do my rental!!!!!!”
“We have the right to refuse service.”
“(more shit talking)”
“Security to Tool Rental please”.
sab
Nobody mangles pronouns as much as I do. I don’t understand non-binary at all, so I screw up all the time. They is mostly plural in my tiny mind. Singular in my old experience always had or chose a gender. That is what I understand. I realize my understanding is very short of the mark. So I try to choose a gender for them (what I think they want.) But non-binary can’t chose. That confuses me. My confusion isn’t rejecting them. It’s just me, comfortable on my cis binary world trying to understand, and failing.
But I am getting tired of being blasted for not keeping up. I am trying but I also am seventy years old. My high school boyfriend was closeted gay. I knew he was gay, but he didn’t know I knew. That was how things were then
ETA Okay for blasting me for being out of touch and/or out of date. Not okay to assume my mistake is malicious.
Leto
Love, love, love that figurine. Wish I could buy one.
Baud
@Lyrebird: That might be him.
@sab: Who’s blasting you?
Dan B
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m supposed to be in the second car/ contingent, currently, as one of the people who marched in the first Seattle Gay Liberation March in 1974. I believe it’s a contingent of GenPride and us because there are so few of us left. There were only 60 of us, or less, in ’74 and there may only be three of us in this year’s parade. The crowd is more than 300,000 these days.
There was an article in the Seattle Times about what people would tell their younger, uncertain, selves 25 – 52 year olds. The reporter told me that many of the people she interviewed reported that they felt LGBTQ+ rights could be rapidly rolled back. The frame ‘Pedophiles, Groomers, Perverts, etc.’ is potent.
I was in the first march in Chicago in 1970, one year after the Stonewall Inn riots. We were suffering similar persecution to New York except there were only four mafia run gay bars in Chicago after Daley closed (cleaned up the city) all the gay bars and posted the names of people arrested. A return to those times would likely be far more brutal. There are plenty of Christian Nationalists who feel that the existence of LGBTQ+ people is destroying America. I hope that normies get the message, and fast.
sab
@Baud: Months ago. I am still brooding. Very wary with this issue. Not at all in my family, but very much online where bad intentions are presumed
ETA Even in friendly venues. Invited newcomers attribute bad intentions to known regulars.
karen marie
@sab: People that get mad because I use the wrong pronoun exhaust me. I spoke to a new person in my apartment complex’s management office, and they were a complete fucking asshole. So then I spoke to their boss and referred to the new person as “she.” Instead of addressing the reason I was calling in the first place, the boss screamed at me for “misgendering” the new person.
How the fuck am I supposed to know what a person’s preferred pronoun is when my only clue is their voice on the phone?
I am a respectful person and address people by the pronoun they prefer but getting mad at me because I have never seen you and have not been informed your preference is just bullshit.
It’s a very irritating situation because now I can’t go to the office when either the new person or the boss is there or risk getting into a fucking argument with the people who will decide whether I’m allowed to renew my lease.
Jay
@sab:
You know, if you use chosen names, one needs not make a gender reference at all.
It is an easy speech pattern to use, with practice.
The only place I use “they” is in job interviews. If I used names, the interviewer might decide that I have some “issues”, when in fact, I don’t.
Kay
I texed this yesterday – “What Republicans Plan to do to Labor” to four union members I know yesterday – it’s not a very good article but it’s kind of cool and hipsterish and I’m not so I was trying to appeal to them. Three were just “thanks!” or “hey!” but one who I know well (and who makes fun of me constantly) wrote “oh no! What will I do?” so I was then able to say “you know what to do – vote!”
I never text people things. I hope this isn’t a slippery slope. Is it too desperate? Maybe.
Baud
@Kay:
That should be a bumper sticker
ETA: Text them now so you don’t have to listen to them whine later if Trump wins.
Scout211
HuffPost just published an article that reveals some of the “secret” billionaires who are funding anti-trans legislation and lawsuits against equality laws and practices across the country. Hmmm, a familiar name . . .
These billionaires are disgustingly horrible people.
sab
@karen marie: That’s it. Expect you to guess and then get shrill when you guess wrong.
How does this help anything, other than assholes being performative?
Not all trans and non-binary people are performative. Mostly they aren’t. Just hoping to live their lives in peace. But the ones that are are obnoxious beyond belief
ETA Not helping the cause at all, but absolutely preening in the outrage they provoked. Attention hogs.
Leto
@Scout211: it’s the same group of ultra rich, funding the same things relentlessly. Tax them into oblivion. Tax their corporations into oblivion. Tax all their holdings into oblivion. And when we think we’ve taxed them enough, throw in an extra 10% just because.
Dan B
@sab: You’re too close to Wadsworth!!
You feel uncomfortable being awkward with pronouns. LGBTQ+ kids have to process this and so much more. I shut down my emotions and was very conscious of how I could easily be shunned by family and my town (Wadsworth, natch!). I still have strong signs if PTSD, partly because at the time, mid Sixties, the word gay did not exist and homosexual was only heard from Joe McCarthy and never in print, at least not in Ohio.
When I finally found gay people in Chicago their experiences of blatant persecution, electroshock, abandonment, arrest, job loss, etc. seemed much worse and then I was shunned by my professors in Cincinnati. More PTSD including periods of time in which I have total amnesia.
Don’t worry about pronouns. Saints and saviors are just as noble when they fumble. Your humanity shines brightly.
Ishiyama
@Leto: You forgot: Tax their offspring back to the gutter.
Baud
@sab:
Every group of people has its share of assholes. Part of believing in equality is learning to deal with a new set of assholes that were previously suppressed for the wrong reason.
geg6
@Leto:
This please.
Anne Laurie
I’m only a couple of years younger than you, and I’d always tended to use ‘they’ in situations where I wasn’t pointing to a particular individual — They said I could bring my bag into the stadium. So, I’ve tried to use ‘they’ as a default when I haven’t already been told someone’s preferred pronouns. I’m sure I still fall short too often, but it’s a small change and one I feel Miss Manners would approve.
satby
@sab: Then always use their given name if that’s easier. And practice saying “they” referring to people even in the singular. You can get there if you practice. And we’re the same age; it’s not age, it’s just habit.
BTW, it’s not that non-binary people can’t choose a gender, it’s that they feel that our rigid gender roles don’t match them, so they choose to opt out of identifying as one or the other.
geg6
@Baud:
🤣🤣🤣 Exactly right!
Omnes Omnibus
My 82 year old mom has decided that she doesn’t understand nonbinary people, and she has decided to quit trying. She says her lack of understanding doesn’t change the fact that they exist and that they deserve equal rights, so she isn’t going to worry about it.
Jay
@sab:
Met lot’s of trans and non-binary people over the years. Lots in the BDSM and Poly communities.
Never met any that were “performative” about their pronouns.
Keep in mind, online, is not the “real world”, no more than “reality TV” is “reality”.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Plenty of binary people on Tinder.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I am not sure how my dad would feel about that.
Ishiyama
This is too funny not to share: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/24/hunter-biden-requests-new-trial
If this works, his lawyers played a very nasty trick on the judge!
Jay
@Ishiyama:
Tax their offspring into having to get day jobs, and not as nepo babies, but instead, retail, coal mining or construction.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
He doesn’t need to know.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: My conservative neighbor at the farmers market was always decent to the trans and non-binary customers, but confessed to me once she didn’t understand it at all. I told her that we (cis-het) people don’t understand because we’re not trans or non-binary, and that was fine. We don’t truly understand being the opposite sex either, but we consider that lack of understanding perfectly normal. We don’t need to understand, we need empathy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
She’d have to ask him to set up her account. She isn’t the most immensely online person.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re a bad son for not helping her out.
Omnes Omnibus
And that is exactly where my mom ended up. FWIW she also doesn’t understand manual transmissions, the offside rule in soccer, or the music of Joy Division.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: If only that were the only reason.
Quadrillipede
Singular they has been a legitimate construction since at least the 1750s, if not hundreds of years earlier than that. I am always surprised when people seem to think that it’s in any way a neologism…
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Thank you. Change is hard, for sure. And sometimes people who have taken a lot of shit in their lives might be a little tetchy when someone gets it “wrong.” However, as pointed out in this morning’s thread, most folks can differentiate when a “mistake” is accidental or out of malice, and are understanding if it’s just the former.
Most importantly, though, it’s not about you. Take whatever learning you can from the situation and move on.
ETA:
Exactly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Quadrillipede: Benjamin Dreyer says 1300s. I won’t fight him on grammar shit.
satby
I think, in almost every single instance of humans being unkind or worse to other humans, that it’s because we center everything on ourselves. What we think is proper, right, or just; and how we want the world to be. If we get very rigid about how things should be things get ugly fast. And here we all are today.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was unaware that “understanding” the music of Joy Division was any kind of requirement.
Is it some kind of exam essay question where you are?
Is math involved?
Geminid
When it comes to LGBTQ matters, Turkiye is 3 or 4 decades behind the US and they only have a Pride Week. July will be a sort of Pride Month though, because the Turkish women’s volleyball team will be playing in the Olympics and their two fearsome strikers, Ebrar Karakurt and Melissa Vargas*, are “out” Lesbians.
When the “Sultans of the Net” won the European championship last December, some conservative politicians groused that Karakurt and Vargas disgraced the nation and should be kicked off the team. Turks are very nationalistic though, and they are huge volleyball fans, so the general attitude towards the gripers was, “Shut the fvck up!”
* Melissa “Air” Vargas defected from Cuba a few years ago and plays in Turkiye’s professional volleyball league. She might be the world’s best woman player.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Sigh, true. It’s really really hard not to center ourselves, and it’s natural to try to fend off bad feelings from having done something wrong–or being perceived by someone else as having done something wrong. The defenses go up right quick and the rigidity you mention sets in. I have to work hard to keep an open heart when I find myself in that situation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Okay.
Eyeroller
@Quadrillipede: Yes, it’s been around for centuries, but historically it’s always referred to an unidentified person, not to a specific individual. An example from Wikipedia is “Somebody left their umbrella.” “They” refers one person, but it’s unspecified. Using it for a particular individual requires some adjustment for most speakers.
English has lost most of its gendering but we pack what remains into pronouns, which allows them to become political.
The ones that really confuse me are the ones I occasionally see whose pronouns are something like “they/her.” I don’t understand the point of that. It’s impossible for most other people to remember.
Baud
I always center myself.
Quadrillipede
@Omnes Omnibus: can’t access the bluesky tweet (bloot?) from my phone, but I feel validated in my use of “at least” in my initial observation.
satby
@Baud: offside!
Omnes Omnibus
@Quadrillipede: Dreyer.
Another Scott
@Eyeroller:
(repost from earlier today – with an excerpt this time) – OED.com – Singular They:
Hehe.
Language is weird.
[eta:] – I’m suddenly remembering increasing sizes of groups: y’all, all y’all, and [gestures widely with flailing arms] ALL Y’ALL!
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@Eyeroller: Can’t speak for anyone else, but I usually interpret those to mean they prefer the “they” pronoun, but are ok with the other one for whatever reason (family habit, appearance, former identity, whatever). Eddie Izzard is a good example, she’s rolled through all the pronouns and though she prefers “she/her” now, she states she’s ok with whatever people use because she’s used them all in the past
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Us old fucks have a lot of adjusting to do in this brave new world we live in. I do the best I can and fuck ’em if they can’t understand.
I expect i will soon be saying something along the lines of “I’m trying, if that ain’t good enough for you, just wait until you are 70 yrs old.”
Eyeroller
@Another Scott: The loss of a genuinely plural “you” actually had some practical consequences, resulting in “you all” and “you guys” and I guess “youse guys.”
Another thing some other languages have that I wish we had are different words for “we inclusive” (includes the person being addressed) and “we exclusive” (I and some others, not including you).
Baud
@Eyeroller:
Brings back memories of the Baud high school experience.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: if you’re trying most people I’ve known in that position don’t take offense. It’s when it doesn’t actually change that people get snippy, because that doesn’t seem to be trying too hard.
Eyeroller
@satby: I really only see it in Zoom and a few other places, where the way people usually write their pronouns is nominative/accusative. E.g. she/her. But if one uses she then her is normally the accusative so I’m not sure why we need to include it. Ditto they/them (which I’ve seen a few times). They/her combines the nominative plural with the singular (and gendered) accusative, which I didn’t understand. Maybe the rest of us are misunderstanding how we’re supposed to specify pronouns.
Manyakitty
@satby: right? I freely admit that the main thing I understand is that my role involves not being a jerk. It’s not my thing but I know a few trans people and have friends with trans kids. The very least I can do is stay out of the way and let them find their path, but I do try to make it easier when I see the opportunity.
UncleEbeneezer
@satby: THIS! I sometimes have students whose gender/identity I’m not sure of. Yet I may have to refer to them to the rest of my students. I find that you can easily just use their name to refer directly to them and just remove possessive, gendered pronouns altogether most of the time.
Example: A student named “Sam” who has long hair and could be a pre-pubescent Cisgender boy who just likes wearing long hair, or could be a Cisgender pre-pubescent girl who chooses not to dress real girlie or could be Transgender Boy (or girl) just taking some of the first steps of social transition or just exploring their gender presentation options.
Instead of saying “Watch how she takes her racket back before hitting” I’ll just say “Watch how SAM takes THE racket back before hitting.” With a little practice, it becomes pretty easy to do without even thinking about it.
satby
@Eyeroller: again, my guess is above. Plus 90% of the people aren’t thinking in “nominative/accusative” at all, they’re trying to help people address them in a way that they’re comfortable with.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:That has mostly been my experience, but there have been times…
Wapiti
@satby: We don’t truly understand being the opposite sex either…
Ain’t that the truth.
satby
@Manyakitty: I think that’s all anyone hopes to get from anyone else. Consideration.
WaterGirl
@Lyrebird: Ron Fournier, yes! He used to annoy the hell out of me.
AP stories with a bias, repeated everywhere.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: and just like any other time, we have no idea how many straws landed on that back that day before we came along. Which applies to all of us.
Manyakitty
@satby: a friend in grad school said his personal ethos is ‘don’t be a dick.’ A decent goal, certainly, and while I often miss the mark, I try every day.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Being understanding goes both ways.
Eyeroller
@satby: Nearly all the people I have seen with pronouns like he/him I know to be cis (though not necessarily het) so that is they way they/we think they are supposed to specify pronouns, but now I am not sure it’s the most appropriate way.
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
Every nonprofit should have to reveal its donors, at least its large ones, and it pisses me off that it’s not already so. If I’m considering getting involved with or contributing to a nonprofit, I should have the opportunity to know who’s pulling the strings.
If it were up to me, the contributions of anyone who contributed either more than $10,000 in a year or more than 20% of the organization’s revenue for the year would have to be published. ‘Dark money’ just shouldn’t be a thing.
GregMulka
@Leto:
Painted like that or in general?
I’m stealing Cerberus’ trans pride scheme for my Drukhari.
satby
@Eyeroller: I really suspect you’re overthinking it.
There’s a young woman at the UU church who insists on being addressed as “Dr. —-“. She has a PhD, and so do about half of the congregation; none of whom expect to be addressed that way, and some are pretty peeved about it. I just told one I pretend “Dr” is her pronoun. It got a laugh, but I think it made my point. We call people what they want to be called…
and sometimes what their behavior cries out to be called, since I’ve been known to call folks all sorts of names if they’re jerks.
It’s SITUATIONAL.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Trivial but honest question: if one is using ‘they’ to refer to an individual, is it ‘they are’ or ‘they is’?
The former is proper subject-verb agreement with respect to the word as it’s generally been used, but the latter is correct subject-verb agreement with respect to the actual reality.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: they are
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: True, and we can only take responsibility for one person’s behavior, namely our own.
UncleEbeneezer
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: Yes, it’s the same rule as the “you are” which can be either singular or plural. Though I’ve heard or read “you is” occasionally.
O. Felix Culpa
@UncleEbeneezer: Lovely story, thanks.
Thank you, AL, for this thread. Seeing the happiness of the folks in Thailand after the law passed legalizing same-sex marriage was especially sweet.
satby
@zhena gogolia: omigod, thank you!
Cannot get over the deep attachment to proper grammer here, in situations where it matters not a whit. Everyone knows what you mean (edit) when speaking about a single person.
Sister Honoria isn’t waiting to rap anyone’s knuckles with a ruler over this.
UncleEbeneezer
AL, this is for your Covid posts (in case you haven’t seen it yet):
Leto
@GregMulka: late response but in general I really enjoy the creativity behind painted figures; this one, specifically, is rad as hell!
Sister Golden Bear
My annual re-upping of Joe.My.God’s epic essay/rant about why Pride is important. Summed up as:
hotshoe
@lowtechcyclist:
Naw, the precedent of never using “you is” for singular-you shows pointlessness of claiming that “they is” should be used as actual-reality for singular-they. It is what it is, and “they are” is the correct answer.
Is there some kind of problem with simply giving the 100% consensus “they are” ?
Okay, it’s not fully 100%. Google ngram viewer shows “they is” used about 1,000 times more rarely than “they are”. So that’s, umm, 99.99%?
Correct word usage is simply whatever 99.99% of folks think is correct word usage. There are no other “higher” authorities to which one can appeal. (Generations of prescriptive grammarians cry out in horror, and never win.) There is no reason to expect or demand that language as used should conform to “reality” as one sees it.
eversor
Yo that 40k figure is a pure fascist who sucks in combat and is only worth at damn because her chastity keeps respawning her. Liberals are bad at culture.
Sister Golden Bear
@Quadrillipede: If singular they was good enough for Shakespeare…
I’ll just note that we use singular they routinely when referring to an unknown person, e.g. “Someone forgot their wallet, another see who they were? Let’s give it to the bartender in case they come back for it.”
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
The problems come when you’re the listener. You don’t get to choose whether you hear the name or an ambiguous pronoun.
It’s like “time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana” which is funny because you think you’re being told one thing, and at the end you find out that the earlier words meant something else entirely, and you’ve got to go back and replay (but fortunately, replay only a few words) to make sense of it. But in a conversation where you find out the equivalent of several paragraphs later that ‘they’ refers to a single person rather than some group, you’ve got to do a lot more backtracking, and probably have to ask the speaker to re-tell their story to you so your mental picture can match their meaning from the get-go.
Which is why I’d argue for ‘they is’ if ‘they’ refers to one person. Let the verb counteract the ambiguity of the pronoun.
hotshoe
@Eyeroller:
Far as I can recollect, I’ve never heard “you is” in conversation; I might have seen it in something written to make fun of folks who don’t talk right. Like “you iz dum”.
Google ngram shows that “you is” does get used sometimes — in 0.00056% of the books which google has sampled as of 2018.
lowtechcyclist
@Sister Golden Bear:
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: Thanks for sharing. It’s a great illustration about how the “standard narrative” of trans people — which was liter required to get trans healthcare in earlier years — was that you experienced massive gender dysphoria, i.e. hating the sex and gender you were assigned at birth (“ideally” from an early age). Not confirming to that narrative could, and did, cause people to be declared by doctors to not be “truly trans” and denied trans healthcare.
The reality is far more nuanced, but this narrative is one reason for me to fully recognize that I was a trans woman. Because while I never entire comfortable being male and living as a man, it was never “transition or die (of suicide)” for me. Rather it was the gender euphoria I felt presenting as woman that made me feel fully alive when I was able to do so. tl;dr I didn’t hate being a man, but I loved being a woman.
hotshoe
@lowtechcyclist:
“You is” does not get used for singular-you. Basically never. See the ngram’s paltry 0.00056% usage.
And yet somehow in your lifetime you have not gotten up on your high horse about how we all should use “you is” to avoid causing you frustration with not being able to hear the difference between singular-you and plural-you.
Why now, why are you trying to press the point about the accepted usage of “they are” when it’s the exact same situation as the usage of “you are” as singular?
I smell a rat.
Sister Golden Bear
@lowtechcyclist: You don’t have to be pedantic about arguing using for “they is” to refer to singular person because that’s is exactly how it’s used in real life by real people. That’s also how it’s been used historically for centuries. Ain’t nobody using “they are” to refer to singular person.
Besides language purists have better things to argue about, like “the data is” vs. “the data are.” /s
hotshoe
Umm, no, the opposite. “They are” is the historical, common, accepted usage for singular-they.
I am not arguing with your personal experience, with your friends, with any real people you know.
Cited source #24 is as clear as can be:
If that doesn’t match your experience … then don’t let Merriam-Webster tell you how to use “they are”. Language changes. You could be part of the change. I won’t live long enough to see the changes, but … some folks could.
Marmot
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed. It creates enough ambiguity that English will eventually develop a new feature to clear it up better, possibly “is.”
wjca
It’s true that I have encountered “they is” multiple times over the years. It is also true that it was consistently being used to indicate that the character speaking was dumb, uneducated, and/or low class. That is, they didn’t know better.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Yes, the downright euphoria that people experience from transitioning is something that needs to be highlighted more often. It’s literal “living their best lives” :)
like a metaphor
@Baud
@Baud:
I always center myself.
really?
The Lodger
@satby: Does anyone know of any military NB alternative to sir/ma’am?
wjca
@The Lodger: Long before that happens, the military will decide to simplify everybody’s life and got with “sir” universally.