Gender Inclusive Pronouns

 
  My preferred pronouns are "hesh" and "herm"  My preferred honorific is "Myr"

 I was frequently involved in God discussions in the early 60's and found the effort of avoiding the Pronouns for God too much effort and found the shock of using Hesh and Herm in reference to God a useful result in my discussions. Typically it generated the assertion that God was male and that the proper pronouns were He and His. This generally derailed the discussion into a useful discussion of God's testosterone levels. 

  In response to the Feminist Movement's attempt to eliminate "men" as a gender inclusive reference to people I began using hesh and herm as a gender inclusive pronouns in much of my writing. When I discovered James Tiptree's "Myr" as a gender inclusive honorific I immediately adopted it.  When I began to see "hesh" and "Myr" or "herm" in the popular literature without explanation, (I admit to noticing each time) I quit linking to explanatory posts like this one except when it was obviously necessary.

  I also eliminated gender specific pronouns from my vocabulary as a general pronoun and use "hesh" and "herm" as my pronouns of choice whether the gender of the referent is known or not. This is particularly useful in calling attention to gender specific terms like "Actor," Waitress," or "Chairman." Traditionalists be damned. They need their consciousness raised. If it jars their reading or hearing of the term, they still need the consciousness raising. When referring to historical people I use standard pronouns as gender is usually significant.


 I also use the terms when the referent is of known gender but the gender is not relevant in context. Reference to the  gender of the author of a scientific paper with a pronoun was beat into my head by my first partner whose papers in a male chauvinist academic profession were referred to as "HER" papers as if they were therefore less important than "his" papers. They in fact were less important than "his" papers, even though in general they were significantly better. It is no accident that women in science generally publish with initials only. If men are offended by being referred to with gender inclusive pronouns, too bad. They need to get used to it. Particularly the sexist males. They can be sure I intended to insult them with the gender inclusive pronoun.  

 I find the use of "they, their" somewhat offensive in referring to gender queer people, in particular when gender specific pronouns are used for others.  I find the convention trend of using preferred pronoun ribbons more offensive.  It seems that many people are flaunting their cis or trans preference.  If only they  their were offered it would be less offensive.  Personally, I hand out and wear a "Myr - hesh herm" ribbon.  If anyone asks my gender preference I politely respond "Unless you are hitting on me, it is none of your business."

More at https://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2012/06/gender-inclusive-pronouns.html

Gender Inclusive Thinking and Reading

 I invented the gender inclusive pronouns "Hesh" and "Herm" very early in life, and discovered that they helped me think about a supernatural power in a sympathetic way that was impossible with the testosterone poisoned "He."  Even trying to insert God in place of the male pronoun every time didn't work too well.  The testosterone is frequently implied by context.  By college I had learned to think of everyone as hesh rather than he or she even when it was important to tell the difference.  It was the first step to radical humanism as once I began to think of people as hesh it was hard to create differences along any lines since the major pervasive division on gender lines carried over from the patriarchal social system we inherited from God was obliterated in my mind.  When you can't even think in gender terms, differentiation on other human variables is nearly impossible.  Try thinking about that "other" person without gender and note what it does to your mind.  

 For the record, I was a strictly heterosexual male as interested in the hormonal needs only satisfied by a heterosexual female as anybody else.  But thinking of a woman as hesh in spite of the obvious delightful differences did change the way I related to women from the first contact in class or on the street to very intense relationships.  Even my parenting partner was early on a partner with benefits rather than a sexual person.   

 When reading scientific literature I never noticed the scientist's name, by policy, until it was necessary for reference and even then as a footnote on the back of the index card.  Yep, I used them.  Any gender related references were automatically changed to hesh/herm mentally and on the card.   I learned a lot that way.  Some highly recommended papers turned to crap when the DWM was turned into hesh. Or LM for that matter. 

 I have since changed policy a bit as the cutting edge scientists in my family educated me that for a woman to succeed in any meritocracy they had to be twice as good as the average male.  It follows that an accepted paper by a woman has to have twice the chances of being worth reading as one by the average man.  Similarly for professional choices.  Even though I think of them as hesh in the interview I will give interview preference to a woman given a bunch of equivalent CVs or Resumes.   

 Applying the same thinking to reading and rereading fiction has been enlightening and fascinating.  I mentally reassign a gender ambiguous name to the major characters and thinking of all as hesh.  In the mandatory sex scenes some role reversals are needed but it is surprising how often they are not.  It is amusing to think of a sex partner as trans occasionally.