Gender and Relationship Naming Preferences
Hello there!
I am writing this post to request discussion and people's opinions on how they identify their gender and relationships. The way in which we describe our relationships is obviously gendered, as we can see in the words 'boy-' or 'girl-' friend and these conventional ways of referring to relationships are sometimes problematic if the individuals involved do not identify within the categories of man/woman or boy/girl. Others may just not identify their partners in such ways - in fact, some languages are not gendered in the way that English is and refer to both men and women by using the same pronoun and so it does not feel natural to refer to their partners in these ways.
Two questions of relevance are:
1. When thinking about your gender identity, how do you refer to yourself?
2. How do you refer to your significant other?
I'd love to hear any other related experiences too!
Thanks!
__________________________________________________ ________________
It is important to specify that my understanding of these things, as a social scientist/researcher, is that they are categories to describe what we perceive as our social 'realities' and so it is impossible to do justice to the complexities that are associated with identity categories, but we must try our best to account for as much complexity as is possible and feasible. You may or may not share this view - they may mean something quite different to you and that is entirely fine.
I am writing this post to request discussion and people's opinions on how they identify their gender and relationships. The way in which we describe our relationships is obviously gendered, as we can see in the words 'boy-' or 'girl-' friend and these conventional ways of referring to relationships are sometimes problematic if the individuals involved do not identify within the categories of man/woman or boy/girl. Others may just not identify their partners in such ways - in fact, some languages are not gendered in the way that English is and refer to both men and women by using the same pronoun and so it does not feel natural to refer to their partners in these ways.
Two questions of relevance are:
1. When thinking about your gender identity, how do you refer to yourself?
2. How do you refer to your significant other?
I'd love to hear any other related experiences too!
Thanks!
__________________________________________________ ________________
It is important to specify that my understanding of these things, as a social scientist/researcher, is that they are categories to describe what we perceive as our social 'realities' and so it is impossible to do justice to the complexities that are associated with identity categories, but we must try our best to account for as much complexity as is possible and feasible. You may or may not share this view - they may mean something quite different to you and that is entirely fine.
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