{"id":51618,"date":"2015-09-15T15:30:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T15:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/mark_bauerlein-the_call_for_genderless_pronouns_takes_us_back_to_jacques_d\/"},"modified":"2015-09-15T15:30:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T15:30:45","slug":"mark_bauerlein-the_call_for_genderless_pronouns_takes_us_back_to_jacques_d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51618","title":{"rendered":"Mark Bauerlein&#8211;The Call for Genderless pronouns takes us back to Jacques Derrida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennessean.com\/story\/news\/education\/2015\/08\/30\/university-tennessee-gender-neutral-pronouns\/71416632\">this story<\/a> on the University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion asking students and teachers to stop imposing gendered pronouns on one another, I didn\u2019t think about the silliness of trying to create linguistic change by bureaucratic fiat. Or about one more exercise in social engineering by identity politicians. Or about the ironies of the self-proclaimed \u201ctolerant ones\u201d\u009d proscribing not only vile insults such as the n-word, but also some of the most common words in the language.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, I was carried back to 1981 to my first readings in literary theory and of the works of Jacques Derrida. The trigger was in the words of the author of the proposal, the head of Tennessee\u2019s Pride Center, Donna Braquet, who asked that teachers begin the semester by asking each student in the class which pronoun he or she prefers. If neither \u201che\u201d\u009d nor \u201cshe\u201d\u009d fits, the Office suggests the non-gendered \u201cze\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Braquet justifies the request:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Transgender people and people who do not identify within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity, rather than the pronouns of the sex they were assigned at birth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/web-exclusives\/2015\/09\/the-derridean-echo\">Read it all<\/a> from First Things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I read this story on the University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion asking students and teachers to stop imposing gendered pronouns on one another, I didn\u2019t think about the silliness of trying to create linguistic change by<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51618\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,50,209,175,111,168,133,117,129,34,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-americau-s-a","category-anthropology","category-education","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-history","category-philosophy","category-psychology","category-theology","category-young-adults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}