Trans Pronoun Practices and Digital Pronoun-Sharing Tools: An Infrastructural Perspective

• In Event: Monsters, Cyborgs, Humans: Trans STS and the Reassembly of Science and Technology II

Abstract

Pronoun sharing is an increasingly common collection of social practices in which people provide information to others about which personal pronouns (eg. ‘they,’ ‘she,’ or ‘he’) should be used to address them. Recently, several digital platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Zoom have considered or implemented tools for sharing personal pronouns as part of users’ digital profiles. For this paper, I conducted semi-structured interviews with transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender individuals about their experiences sharing their pronouns, as well as their expectations and desires around digital pronoun sharing tools. I analyzed the interview transcripts using grounded theory analysis.

I argue that pronouns traditionally operate as a part of gender infrastructure in English (as well as in many other languages that use gendered pronouns) by allowing people to easily and transparently gender others and communicate that gendering in conversation or in writing. However, trans people’s various uses of pronouns, including the singular ‘they,’ neopronouns, and using multiple pronouns simultaneously or over time, reduce the ease and transparency of pronouns. Trans people’s practices and expectations around communicating about pronouns can be messy and often resist simple, rote solutions. This messiness reflects the complicated nature of our gender identities, as well as the complicated relationship between our gender identities and our pronouns. Therefore, simplifying or easing communication about pronouns may operate to obscure or flatten trans people’s gender expression. Considering these findings, I ask: What are the explicit and implicit goals of software tools for sharing pronouns, and whose interests do they really serve?

Author

• Tristan Gohring, Indiana University - Bloomington