Journalists must keep pace with language changes that match current expectations of the social order in which they live and work.
Several decades ago mailmen became mail carriers, firemen became fire fighters and policemen became police officers. We debated about how to refer to non-white people, people of various religious beliefs and more recently about a person’s sexual orientation.
Some non-binary people now identify as a blend of male and female; others identify as a gender different from male or female; some do not identify with any gender.
That creates a bit of a problem because “they” is a plural pronoun, and it may be difficult to think of a person possessing something other than a single personality.
In any event, “they” is the accepted pronoun to use when referring to a non-binary person whose gender identity and gender expression fall outside of the traditional binary gender categories of “man” or “woman.”
Recently a federal judge in Eugene, where I reside, awarded $317,353 in damages on grounds that a nearby school district had discriminated against a third grade student because the district had failed to respond adequately to harassment and bullying.
The student, who was born in Paris, France, and is now 15, apparently began to identify as being non-binary while an 8-year-old.
I must confess that I wasn’t well acquainted with the changing binary world in which I live, but this incident prompted me to wonder how a girl or boy or would question his or her sexual identity.
So, I began to review my life with that question in mind:
My father loved my mother and his two sons. I recall that as a farmer he often quit work early in the day to “play with” my brother and me when we were kids.
We were always first in his life, including “awards day” during my senior year in college. I was one of a few students who weren’t called onto the stage to be honored, but I was the only student seated with a parent, my father, who had skipped work to be present.
My father was a violinist who played every night to please my mother until the day he died.
My mother, who often accompanied him on the piano, questioned everything and expected my brother and me to do the same. The three of us often would be seated after a meal critiquing the construction of a sentence and the world in which we lived. My father preferred to skip such sessions and to play the violin.
After my brother and I graduated from high school, my mother became a teacher. Her former students often would show up years later to visit with “Mom, Rea.”
As a farm boy, I observed the interaction of horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chickens, turkeys, cats and dogs, who apparently never questioned whether they were male or female.
On the school grounds, boys and girls used different bathrooms and often were subject to teasing about their interest in someone of a different sex. Girls often could outshoot us in marble games but usually declined to join the boys during informal football games.
I was teased unmercifully during the third and fourth grades because I wore a cap equipped with ears that tied beneath my chin to keep me warm. So, during winter months I was known as “flop.”
Later, my binary thoughts had no problem selecting the person who became my wife, and eventually the mother of our four children.
So, if this short thesis on how I figured out whether I am a she, a he or a they is of any help, blame it on a guy who was reared on a farm by loving parents, on a guy who learned early in life that the word, “flop,” is singular.
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