Pronouns

[triskellian]

I'm writing about a man who is physically made into a woman, a woman who thinks she's a man, and a man who lives as a woman, and having great problems with pronouns. And names, as two of the above possess both a male and a female name. If I try hard enough, I can make up my entire word count with 'his/her' and similar constructions.

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

In these cases, people reveal something about their own attitudes to gender definitions by what pronouns they use. Similarly, any kind of usage or style guide on the subject will depend on the attitudes of the author.

So - what are you giving away by your usage, and is it the impression you want to give to your examiners?

[triskellian]

:-)

I did think of that!

The whole point of this thing is that gender's one big grey area and it's not necessarily related to body or appearance, or at least, not in the ways we expect... So I'm aiming for the impression of open-mindedness, and most especially the impression of having paid attention in class and understood the problems with the grey areas ;-)

So what I'm doing is roughly this:
With the man-who-becomes-a-woman, I'm using 'he' for things that just apply before the op, 'she' for purely physical things after the op, 'she' for the very end (by which time (s)he has pretty much become a woman mentally as well), and male/female formations for everything else.

With the woman-who-thinks-she's-a-man, it's harder. For the very end, after the revelation has been revealed (since she accepts her female status pretty much immediately), I'm using 'she'. For bits relating to assertion of masculinity, I think I'm mostly using 'he', and otherwise going for male/female formations again.

With the man-living-as-a-woman, I'm mostly just using the name, cos this is the one with only one name, but, again, I'm going for male/female formations otherwise.

So. What does that tell you about my attitudes?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

In narrative or editorial mode, I'd use "she" for the man living as a woman, for the same reason that if someone told me he'd changed his name I'd generally use the new one.

For the woman-who-thinks-she's-a-man, I think if possible I'd deliberately copy the forms used by the author of the novel. But then if it's the novel I think it is, that might just be sarcasm on my part.

So. What does that tell you about my attitudes?

Well, comparing your usage to mine, I think it tells me that you're going out of your way to make it clear that you're undecided on the issue. ;-)