Don't change other people's pronouns!

Pro tip for editors: Don't change the pronouns in contributor bios. Your contributors almost certainly did not accidentally type the "wrong" pronoun for themselves several times and not notice.

— Alyssa (@yes_thattoo) November 25, 2017

I've been sitting on this for a while, waiting until the point where I'm ready to write about this. The tip  applies to more than just editors, and it's more than just editors who've changed my pronouns on me. I don't mean that I've told them my pronouns, and then they've written something about me using incorrect pronouns. That's a problem, and as another tip, don't do that either. I mean I've been asked to write an introduction or bio for myself, I've done so, I've sent the text in, and then the final posted text has been edited specifically to change my pronouns.

Maybe they think I accidentally typed the "wrong" pronouns for myself, with the "wrong" conjugation, throughout? I assure you, I am intentional enough about my word choices to avoid making this error consistently for the whole paragraph. I make typos, and sometimes words will be entirely missing, but I don't accidentally misgender myself in text. Discomfort with doing so is how I figured out that 1) I am nonbinary, and 2) my pronouns are they/them/theirs. (Sie/sier/siers is also acceptable in text, but sounds too much like "she" for my comfort when spoken.)

Maybe they think my pronouns are grammatically incorrect? Whenever someone tells me an introduction or bio I wrote for myself, or really, anything I wrote about myself in the third person, has grammatical issues, my first question is if they mean my pronouns. Never mind that singular "they" is older than they are, it's a common statement. I've heard it from people who don't know my pronouns ... and people who do. (Once, a professor pointed out a grammatical issue that had nothing to do with my pronouns or their conjugation. I fixed it, and I thanked him. He didn't say a word about my pronouns.)

Maybe they don't personally have an issue, but think my pronouns will confuse readers. I've been asked before if the plural might confuse a reader. Here's the thing: you can add a note about my pronouns! I've had people do this. It's OK. You can write Alyssa (they/them/theirs) in a text when you talk about me so readers explicitly know "they" is being used as a singular pronoun to refer to me. You can say "Alyssa uses they/them pronouns" in a footnote after my name. You can do both! I'd love it if this weren't needed. However, it's common for people to read text that just uses my pronouns without a note and then use the wrong pronouns to describe me. This note may both reduce any real confusion (as opposed to transphobia masquerading as confusion) and serve as a reminder for people who don't just don't really notice singular they pronouns in text.

Because here's the thing: When you edit text to change my pronouns, it is misgendering. The excuses people make don't hold up. Singular "they" is grammatically fine. Singular "you" is actually newer than singular "they." (Singular "you" and singular "they" get the same verb/adjective treatments because they have similar histories in terms of starting off plural and becoming singular at a later date. It's just that both these dates are long past.) Expressive difficulties are real, but they don't apply here because you didn't need to edit my already existing text.  Direct explanations are the way to avoid confusion without lying. Changing other people's pronouns is misgendering. Don't do it. This is a case where the no-effort option of not making changes is the correct option.

(If, after reading this, you're wondering if I'm talking about you: only if you've actually done this, and there's enough of you that I neither want nor need to single anyone out. I just want people to be aware of this as a thing to not do.)

I still exist!

 It's been a bit over 2 years since I've posted here. I doubt that I'm going to become super active here, but I do still exist. I'm fairly active on Twitter, though outside of hashtag chats like #AutChat and #ATChat I retweet more than I make new tweets. Some highlights from the past two years include:

• A pandemic, which is still ongoing.
  
  
• The chemistry labs I were teaching in Spring 2020 went online on very little notice, with an extended spring break followed by 'how to finish a lab online while most of the students can't get at the lab notebooks they left on campus.' It was an entire mess.
  
  
• My dissertation research went remote. Again. [Before, I specifically was remote because the office was full of sensory triggers. This time, everyone was remote.]
  
  
• I got covid. Mild case, no new cognitive weirdness, still not a fan.
  
  
• I finished my Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience. My dissertation was very much towards the engineering side of things, on one specific kind of brain computer interface as used by people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. My dissertation is also done, though I still need to turn the last chapter into a journal article or a conference paper or something of that sort.
  
  
• I did a round on the academic job market. I'll be teaching one undergraduate neuroscience class at the University of Rhode Island this upcoming spring, but I didn't get a full time academic position. I've been applying again this round for jobs that start in academic year 2022-2023.
  
  
• I am currently doing a mix of teaching for the Art of Problem Solving, work for AssistiveWare, and other research, much of which is related to augmentative and alternative communication.
  
  

 

November 20, 2019 #ATChat: User Perspectives

I'll be moderating #ATChat, a Twitter Chat on Assistive Technology, on November 20. The chat is 8-9pm EST, and the topic is going to be user perspectives. If seeing the questions ahead of time is helpful for you, they are below. Please wait to tweet your responses until the relevant question is asked, though!

Some people here (like me!) may play multiple roles: AT user, professional, or researcher. If this describes you, feel free to answer from all your roles! #



Q1: Why would you want to include user perspectives? Why is this important?
#ATChat

Q2: What do you use user perspectives for currently? If you use AT yourself, what have you shared your perspectives for?
#ATChat

Q3: What might you want to use user perspectives for, that you currently don’t? If you use AT yourself, where would you like your perspective included better? #ATChat

Q4: How do you include the perspectives, goals, and desires of the users you work with? Or, how are your perspectives as an AT user included? #ATChat

Q5: Where do you look for additional user perspectives, or where do you share your perspective as an AT user?   #ATChat

Q6: What do you think about engagement with social media content by AT users, like blogs, twitter feeds, or transcripts from relevant Twitter chats?  #ATChat
Engagement could include reading and interacting with users and user communities on topics of interest, sharing our content, and other things you might think of. #ATChat

Q7: What work by AT users would you recommend to other participants? (Self-promotion is OK here, for those of us who use AT!)  #ATChat

Literally Speaking About Not-Always-Speaking on Autistics Speaking Day

This Autistics Speaking Day, I presented at the American EducationalStudies Association conference on my paper, “Am I the Curriculum?”

Given the origin of Autistics Speaking Day as a response to a Communication Shutdown event, telling neurotypicals to get off social media for the day to simulate and empathise with autistic communication difficulties, I think giving this literal speech on Autistics Speaking Day was fitting.

Autistic people often use tools like social media to support our communication. I believe that our doing so should be considered as the communication support it is, just as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) researchers do for people they recognize as needing AAC. (I also think speaking autistic people should be recognized as needing AAC. Heck, AAC for everyone. Let's not depend on speech language pathologists specifically, or outsiders in general, to recognize communication difficulties that AAC could help with.)

I use social media to support my communication. That's literally what I'm doing with my blog. That's literally what Autistics Speaking Day is. The Internet is, so often, our lifeline. I am no exception to my statement that speaking autistic people can benefit from AAC, or that social media is part of this.

So speaking about my experience as an AAC user, as someone who often has to use tools other than speech (like social media, but not only social media) to communicate, on Autistics Speaking Day, seems fitting. Advocating for AAC for everyone, which I've said before and will say again, on Autistics Speaking Day, seems fitting.

And speaking back to the awkwardness of entering professional spaces as an autistic AAC user, to advocate for these changes, to advocate for increased access to AAC for us? Yes, that's part of Autistics Speaking Day too.

Pronoun Information as a Design Problem

Trans people exist. People we are working with in a variety of contexts won't always guess our genders or pronouns correctly. Sometimes, guessing leads to misgendering people, which isn't good. Several ways of dealing with this have been proposed and sometimes used. None of them are perfect. When people are working in good faith, we can think of this as a design problem: solutions aren't static, we can improve them, and we can come up with new options. (When people are intentionally being anti-trans, handling that is a different question.)

Current solutions include:

• Adding pronouns to typical introduction circles
• Pronoun pins/pronouns on name tags
• Defaulting to gender-neutral pronouns unless and until you have specific information about the person you're talking about.

These solutions all have advantages and disadvantages. Considering them one at a time might help us think about better ways of doing this. (And no, we don't abandon the current solutions while we're trying to think of better ones. That just leaves us with no solutions. I'm keeping my they/them pins and noting my pronouns in introduction circles whether or not they were listed as part of what we "should" be saying about ourselves, thank you very much.)


So, first: Adding pronouns to typical introduction circles. The advantages include:

• Introduction circles already exist.
• In theory, we can get everyone's pronouns this way, thereby avoiding misgendering people by guessing incorrectly. 

The disadvantages include:

• Introduction circles were already a clunky, awkward, unnatural front-loading cram of personal information. Adding pronouns to them does not fix any of ways introduction circles were already awkward, and most people will still forget most of what they "learned" from this cram session.
• If pronouns are a required part of the introduction, people who aren't out may need to choose between lying and coming out. That's not cool.
• Only including pronouns in these introduction circles when you think there's a trans person in the room draws attention to whoever it is you think is trans (not cool), as well as to the gender of everyone in the room.
• Only including pronouns in these introduction circles when you think there's a trans person in the room can lead to not including pronouns when there's an out trans person who would be misgendered without a chance to state their pronouns.

Making pronouns an optional part of all introduction circles might help address some of these disadvantages. It won't do anything about the fact that these introduction circles were awkward to begin with.


Second: Pronoun pins/pronouns on name tags. The advantages include:

• Name tags are already in common use at certain kinds of events.
• If the person is present, so is a visible reminder of their pronouns.

The disadvantages include:

• If there's no name tag, the pronoun pin could be just about anywhere. Where do we look for it?
• If pronoun pins/pronouns on nametags are required, people who aren't out may need to choose between lying and coming out. 
• If this is done in a computer system without a fill in the blank option, people may be forced to lie because their actual pronouns aren't on the list of options.
• When the person isn't present and you need to talk about them, there's no visible reminder. 
• Blind people may not be able to use this system effectively, so there is an access issue.

Making pronouns an optional part of name tags when name tags are in use can address some of these issues. So can letting people put whatever pronouns they want on their name tags, not limited by a list organizers came up with.

Third: Defaulting to gender-neutral pronouns unless and until you have specific information about the person you're talking about. The advantages include:

• Not gendering people who prefer not to be gendered.

The disadvantages include:

• Not all languages have gender-neutral pronouns.
• Languages that have gender-neutral pronouns may not have a single set of gender-neutral pronouns.
• Gender-neutral pronouns are also used to de-gender binary trans people, and that's not OK. 

I don't really have any suggestions for tweaking this option.


One idea I have, which I haven't seen discussed as a way of introducing pronouns before (though it could have been -- I obviously don't see everything), is the third person bio. It's a context-dependent option, in that it won't always make sense to include third person bios for people, but some conferences already have presenter bios. So do some meetings. By writing these introductions in third person, we aren't announcing "my pronouns are X," but we are choosing pronouns (or choosing to avoid pronouns.)

As an example, many presenters for AAC in the Cloud wrote introductions in third person. (A few used "I." I used "they.") People generally weren't leading into their presentations with their pronouns. I might have (I don't remember), but it wasn't generally a thing. We could get good information about how to talk about people, though: Dr. Kathy Howery starts with her title, indicating we should use it, and uses she/her pronouns in her introduction. I just use my first name (Alyssa), indicating I don't need an honorific (if you want to use one, it's Mx. until I finish my PhD, but I don't need one) and they/them pronouns in mine. Ms. Helland tells me that "Ms. Lastname" is the right format to use for her, and she uses she/her pronouns. And no, I wasn't the only presenter to use they/them pronouns in my bio.

The advantages of this option include:

• The information about our pronoun preferences is there -- avoiding pronouns is also a choice.
• This can hold additional information about us, including additional information about how to refer to us!
• Bios can be referred back to in a way introduction circles can't be.
• It's a comparatively implicit cue, which may feel more natural for people.

The disadvantages of this option include:

• Ok, where are we putting all these third person bios anyways? (For conferences and meetings that have programs, the program makes sense, but that's not everywhere. The site where I teach math has them posted to the online classroom on the first day of class, and also on the teachers page.)
• There can still be a choice between coming out, lying, and avoiding pronouns for trans people who aren't out. I don't think any of those are ideal.
• Do people actually read these, even when they're present? I'm not certain.

Are any of these perfect solutions? Obviously not. They're imperfect and context-dependent. Besides, I'm an engineer. I don't actually believe in perfect solutions -- just better ones, and continued improvement. So, you know, keep thinking?