Official Rax Pronouns 3.0 Release Notes

[rax]

This document describes the proper procedures for referring to rax using third-person pronouns. It supersedes all previous such documentation.

The correct pronoun for referring to rax is now "they." This is true whether you are referring to them as rax , Rax, Rachel, Rach, Kitty-Fox, or any other approved appellation. The pronoun "she" from pronoun release 2.0 is deprecated but still supported; there are not currenly plans to cease supporting this pronoun because the tech industry vertical maintains support for the 2.0 reference API as a requirement. Calls to the 2.0 system may occasionally produce warning messages encouraging you to update your pronoun usage, depending on the context of your statement. Use of the 1.0 pronoun API is explicitly unsupported and may lead to erratic and unexpected results; it is not recommended. If you find old documentation or legacy code that refers to rax with legacy pronouns, please inform them so that the situation may be remedied.

rax offers limited support for other gender-neutral pronoun calls; while "ey" and "xie" are not explicitly supported, these pronouns have been successful in limited field testing. If there is interest, a patch release may be offered in the future supporting these alternate pronoun sets. Please contact your sales representative for more information.

This change to the pronoun API does not constitute a change in the core rax gender identities module; no such changes are planned, although all things are possible. For more information about the core gender identities module, please contact Customer Support.

Comments

[bluedaisy.livejournal.com]

(1) Brilliant. I love the way you write. The Rax is a rock star.

(2) Although you would still be a rock star if you had, thank you for not choosing "it" as your pronoun of choice. I can get past my indoctrination that one should use gender-specific pronouns, but I really can't get past the idea that "it" is dehumanizing. I try, but I end up simply avoiding pronouns for the friend who prefers "it", and the situation becomes linguistically stressful.

[rax.livejournal.com]

It's difficult! I know a couple of its and it has taken me a long time to get mostly used to using preferred pronouns --- partially because "it" shows up in all sorts of other contexts too, as demonstrated. Then again, so does they. "It" has gotten easier for me as I start to think of dehumanizing as not an (only) bad thing --- that the label of human may not necessarily always be a productive one, and that choosing to expressly challenge one's own humanity in certain places may be a productive move.

I would still not prefer "it" for myself. But it helps me be more comfortable with other folks for whom that is their preference.

[identityfail.livejournal.com]

i have seen a lot of people online be like I REFUSE TO RESPECT 'IT' AS A PRONOUN FOR ANYONE and it really makes me want to punch them in the face and go by 'it' just to spite them. i mean i've never met anyone who used "it" IRL but there seem to be at least a handful of 'em running around the interwebz.

on a somewhat note, i've been wondering about gender in tamil for a while just cuz that's what i speak with my family a lot and evvverything is gendered, like, verbs 'n' shit, so like:

(avan) ponaan = he went
(aval) ponaal = she went
pochu = it went

etc.

and like this weekend my mom referred to someone using 'it' conjugations and i was like WAIT WHAT YOU CAN DO THAT and she was like, yeah, you do sometimes, a lot of times with kids [not just infants], and sometimes with other ppl (although she couldn't really tell me when it is/isn't appropriate, i mean, native speakers aren't exactly always the best at like figuring out the linguistic rules governing their speech, which, fair enough). so now i've gotta figure that out, hm.

i guess it's just exciting to learn there are more gendered opportunities than you thought. linguistically.

[identityfail.livejournal.com]

*somewhat related

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to learn spanish now and it is similarly with the gender being in EVERYTHING and it is all confusing in terms of when all the other words get gender. Like apparently my white kitty isn't just a girl-kitty she's also girl-white (Ella es mi gata blanca). auros says that if I get gender agreement wrong people will still understand me so it's not a big deal. But I'm just like what the hell do you do if you live with a language like that and you don't have a gender?

[paxed.livejournal.com]

On the other end of the spectrum there's frex. Finnish, which is very much a gender neutral language. We don't even have a separate pronouns for he and she, just "hän" for both. Which can make translating prose a bit awkward...

Also, to refer to a person by using "se" (it) is perfectly valid in speech. If you use "hän" (he/she), it comes off as very stiff and formal.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

> The Rax is a rock star.

They is, isn't they?

[mindways]

...shouldn't the verb still match? eg: "I ran into an old friend yesterday; they were in town for a conference."

[Of course, it's 2 AM, so my grammar skills may simply be offline. :]

[lindseykuper]

Brilliant. I love the way you write.

Seconded. This post is great.