When a midge lays her eggs in a willow, it triggers some bizarre genetic or epigenetic modification in the tree which then produces various flower-like formations - and even some actual flower-things.
A tree can be flora and a flower can be arbor. In nature, things are kind of fluid - given the right stimulus.
Over the past year, the use of the appropriate pronouns, in brackets, on email signatures and LinkedIn accounts has become more and more noticeable.
I've resisted as it felt like virtue signalling to put she/her. Maybe I'm wrong in that intuition... if everyone does it then those who have a strong personal need to put it will not feel 'othered', so I think I am wrong to resist.
But then, putting she/her feels... incomplete. I don't mind she/her at all. I was assigned female at birth (AFAB) and am not gender unconventional. But, here's the thing, I don't really identify as a woman. That seems.... weird. But nor as a man. Nor as gender-fluid or anything else. I identify as a person. I don't really identify with any concept of gender. They/them seems clumsy. I now appreciate the attraction of ze or some 'made-up' term.
So, should I go for they/them? That feels like a lie as I am so conventional - cis-woman, heterosexual, pretty conforming. Maybe that would seem even more of a virtue-signalling device.
It's very difficult.
I feel like I need to say, 'Look, she/her is fine - I'm used to it - but I don't identify with any gender category, I just feel like a person.'
I am neither flower not tree, just me.
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