I really enjoyed the work I did on International Pronouns Day this year as a board member. The team was incredibly warm, our work together productive, and I think we got a lot done. There’s always more to do, of course, but in the face of rampant transphobia and queerphobia within American and international communities, I think we did an amazing job.
For IPD this year, I personally posted a number of blog posts about pronouns and trans-ness and nonbinary-ness in a couple of different areas of interest:
I wrote up a long blog post with tons of links about pronoun usage and nonbinary and genderqueer pronouns in a variety of languages. I’ve updated it several times this month (including today!), so even if you saw it when first posted, it’s worth checking out again.
I posted about a lot of stories, novels, and anthologies with trans and nonbinary characters and authors (primarily characters, as I want us to be able to see ourselves in what we read). This is primarily scifi, a little bit of fantasy, and a small bit of comics and nonfiction at the end. I’m always looking for more info and stories, and have been pointed to several more since posting it, so again, it’s been updated and is worth checking out even if you read it when initially posted.
There’s also this post about trans and nonbinary musicians, primarily folk and indie musicians. This is the least extensive of my posts, as I had the least research time for it. That said, there are a lot of musicians here, and a Spotify playlist, and I encourage you to check it all out! Also, feel free to add to it! 🙂
Working on IPD was a joy this year, and was also a lot of hard work. Twitter had a lot of exciting posts on the #PronounsDay, #PronounsDay19, and #InternationalPronounsDay hashtags. Folks posted useful resources and joyful announcements and helpful tips. There were also a lot of trolls and haters and abusers posting. I applaud everyone (including me, honestly) who dealt with this stuff, and super appreciate my colleagues in arms on this project.
What stuff had I done for pronoun activism prior to this year? The most-visited page on this website for quite a while, up until this year, was my blog post about gender-inclusive forms of address. I still recommend that page to folks who are struggling with how to address people (in English) in a way that isn’t othering or upsetting for nonbinary folks.
Got any thoughts about next year’s International Pronouns Day? It’s the third Wednesday in October! We are gonna have a debrief meeting next month, after we’ve all had a chance to catch up on sleep, but feel free to comment with your thoughts on what we can do. You’re definitely welcome to volunteer, as well! Drop me a note! 🙂
Crystal Huff 