With Mahmud Burton, Rabbi Shifrah Tobacman, Peaches Gillette and Eric Clay
Please note that this conversation moves at a spiritual pace, with silences of 15 to 30 seconds, at times.
With Mahmud Burton, Rabbi Shifrah Tobacman, Peaches Gillette and Eric Clay
Please note that this conversation moves at a spiritual pace, with silences of 15 to 30 seconds, at times.
Dear Eric and Peaches,
This discussion of identities made me think of a recent uncomfortable conversation. A new person came into a group meeting, told us a name [let’s say it was “Kim”], asked us to use “they and them” pronouns, and mentioned being an LGBTQ activist. This was all fine with me. I asked for further information about their choice of pronouns: how would I use it in a sentence? For example, “Kim came in and saw …. in a mirror”: themself? themselves? How? I didn’t get a clear answer, and Kim later wrote to bawl me out for denying their identity. It certainly seemed to me that I was asking how to go along with their choice of identity, not denying anything.