Why You Shouldn’t Declare Your Pronouns

After a lengthy pause in writing for this Substack, today I’m putting one up. I shared this post with a friend knowledgeable about these issues when I first wrote it. He told me that Colin Wright has written one similar in the Wall Street Journal all the way back in February of 2022. Having written this one, however, and having been pretty happy with it, I thought I would share it on this Substack all the same. Enjoy!

“Hello, my name is Mary and my pronouns are she and her.” You may have been bemused by such a proclamation by a colleague at a meeting. Perhaps you’ve noticed that people often have personal pronouns in their email signatures, on their social media profiles or even on their name tags at conferences. Upon noticing this, you might be tempted to do the same. Like so many trends of contemporary social interaction, this one can seem innocuous, but is in fact extremely insidious. If you’re tempted to do it yourself – don’t. Here’s why.

Declaring one’s pronouns has three primary building blocks: Existentialism (Sartre), High Postmodernism (i.e. the Postmodern triumvirate of Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard) and one of its derivative strains called Queer Theory.

Existentialism was first and most influentially articulated by Jean-Paul Sartre. The central claim of Existentialism was that “existence precedes essence.” This ultimately means that the way we are and how we behave is illegitimately imposed on us by culture and society. Existentialism therefore justifies and insists that we do not need to, and should not, accept such impositions. We are free to be ourselves.

The second building block is from the general postmodern notion that categorization or classification is always, and necessarily, an arbitrary exercise of power. That is, that no categories we use are meaningful. They are simply socially constructed, and socially constructed so as to reinforce existing structures of oppression. The idea is that, for example, male and female are categories created by men and used solely to, subjugate women to the benefit of men.

The third building block comes from Queer Theory. Queer Theory takes the High Postmodern understanding of categorization and applies it to gender and even sex. Gender is considered to be simply the socially constructed norms to which people adhere as members of different categories associated with male- and femaleness. E.g. women wear dresses and men wear suits. As with the High Postmodernists, these categories (men and women) are considered arbitrary and illegitimate and created solely to subjugate women to the benefit of men. Queer Theory even extends these notions to sex. That is, sexual categories (i.e. that women have XX chromosomes and men XY) are also merely an arbitrary and oppressive social construction.

These building blocks have the following implications for Queer Theory. First, since all gender/sex categories are arbitrary and meaningless, and since we are justified and free to be whatever we like, we are naturally free to choose any gender category we like. Moreover, since categories themselves are oppressive, we should even be able to dissolve categories and adopt non-categories – categories like non-binary (which implies neither male, nor female). Second, and in addition to just being able to choose different categories, because categories are oppressive you are actually under a moral obligation to choose categories for yourself that subvert “normal” societal categories for you. (This is actually what being queer means – intentionally not adhering to socially expected and constructed norms relating to gender and sexuality.) In other words, if you’re a woman, to subvert, reject, resist and overthrow our oppressive society, you should identify with another gender, like male. To do so, you can adopt typically male (heteronormative male) symbols such as short hair and suits – and of course, declare your pronouns as he/him.

As such, by declaring or including your pronouns, you are (whether you are conscious of it or not) agreeing with these principles. I.e. you are agreeing that categories are illegitimately imposed on you and society in order to uphold and maintain the oppressive nature of your society. Moreover, it implies you are participating in the subversion and overturning of our society. If, in fact, you don’t agree with these principles, don’t declare your pronouns.

Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels.