A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns
⭐⭐⭐⭐
So if we’re being totally honest I mostly picked this up because it’s skinny and I was wildly behind on my reading goal for the year. I’m going to have to go back and get more copies to give away. Pronouns can feel like an especially fraught topic - they show up in everyday conversation in a way that sexual ortientation or gender identity generally don’t, and for the folks who don’t have a gender nonconforming person in their lives (trans or nonbinary) it can feel like the rules are constantly changing. The people for whom this is their lived experience get stuck in the unwilling role of teacher, and we end up with the tense discussions where both sides feel attacked - trans and nonbinary folk are tired of having the same conversation over and over and over and feel disrespected that the rest of us can’t get our shit together on a fairly simple language update.
Well meaning cis people (People whose gender identity matches the doctor’s judgement at birth. If you’ve started the learning process for this, you might recognize the term AMAB or AFAB. These mean Assigned Male/Female At Birth and are used by nonbinary/trans folk to indicate what the doc said when they popped out.) have the luxury of being comfortably oblivious to the whole thing until they actually meet a trans/nonbinary person. Then they’re suddenly playing catch up in an emotionally loaded topic and often well-intended questions come across as jabs or purposeful slights. (There are obviously also the people who are rude on purpose. This book would be great for them but my review will not be. I’m not going to waste words explaining why everyone has a right to feel safe and comfortable. Just don’t be an ass, it’s not that hard.)
Archie and Tristan have put this comic together specifically for the people who have figured out that the pronoun conversation isn’t going away, and want to get themselves up to date so that they can be a good friend/relative/colleague. It’s very basic, and careful not to assume the reader is coming in with any familiarity on how it all works. But it’s also comfortably conversational, with one character explaining how it all works to the other as the second asks every question you’ve always wanted to but felt weird about.
I could see this or a similar book becoming required reading for people during onboarding at any organization that cares about making sure everyone feels safe and respected, and as a primer in school to start these conversations. I’m just not sure what age - I needed this in high school because we knew nothing, but the younger generations are miles ahead of where we were. Honestly this might be a perfect example of ‘age-appropriate’ LGBT education that could be worked in for very young students to start introducing the idea that everyone is different and that's awesome.
I paired this with a La Croix because its got some sparkle and its a super fast read. Also because I will shamelessly judge anyone who says they don’t like either. No recipe because if you don’t know how to open a can I can’t help you.
