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

[chagrined]

This may be my favorite pronoun post ever.

[hebinekohime]

Congrats on a new step in the journey.

[picklish]

This post is so amazing.

It is unfortunate that supporting the 2.0 reference API continues to be a requirement for current clients of the API. There definitely exist clients that have freed themselves from such backwards compatibility dependencies, although using them with a newer API may have hidden performance costs that are hard to measure.

[rax]

I'm customer-facing; that makes things Complicated. It wouldn't necessarily be impossible, but I am not ready to take that step yet.

[tixagon]

Now that I've finished falling out of my chair and giggling away all of my breath...

Thank you for requesting "they" over "ey" and "xie"- I've never been fond of the latter two, and while the former is sometimes challenging to remember in casual conversation, at least it doesn't require a three hour lecture when using it around those Not In The Know™.

[picklish]

I know. I just wanted to sympathize about that choice being far more constrained than it should be, if it happened to be something you wanted.

[sophie]

I've updated my codebase to use the 3.0 API, but if there turn out to be bugs in my update, please let me know so I can fix them! (I'll do my best to make sure they don't exist, though.)

[amadi]

Linked here via Twitter, but I just wanted to say that this is the most awesome, elegant, funny way of addressing this, and you rock. And congrats and best wishes on the "new release."

I Loled.

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

This LJ post wins +10 internets.

Also: I've been insisting on the use of They/Them/Their as gender-neutral singular pronouns for about twenty years now... you know, before it was cool. *ducks*

o7

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Update in progress.

Also one thing I like about 'they' pronouns over 'xie' and company - they rather force you to write and speak more clearly, to indicate with exactitude who it is that you're talking about. I am in favor of this, even though my marketer-brain says that "you can keep using your sloppy language habits just with a different word" is an adoption-rate advantage for xie/etc.

"Etc" would be a very difficult pronoun to live with.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Etc would in fact be very challenging. Although kind of awesome.

Re: I Loled.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Well aren't you a gender hipster! :)

[bossgoji.livejournal.com]

I will admit 'they' sounds far less constructed and cutesy than 'xie', which has always struck me as trying way, way too hard.

[kelkyag]

What courtesy titles are approved for use with these pronoun selections?

[rax.livejournal.com]

It's a thing that sometimes requires a lot of effort, so I understand why folks try hard! But I have trouble with it, too.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Mx. is preferred! (pronounced "Mix") Ms. is... tolerable. "The" is also acceptable, as in:

The Rachel Dillon
100 E Street Name
Tucson, AZ 85716

Because that's awesome.

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I hadn't thought of "The" before. I know Enne suggested "Rear Admiral" to a friend who wanted a title to use.

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

Good to know, thanks! =)

[redconverse.livejournal.com]

Brilliant pronoun-update post. Cheers!

I also love the use of "The" as an honorific (courtesy title). I always tell people "Nurse ::enterlastnamehere::" is just fine. HEY IF DOCTOR IS GOOD ENOUGH.

I also do prefer "they" as a whole; although of course I will use spivaks, et al, with those what prefer them and all.

Re: I Loled.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It was cool when Chaucer did it, it was cool when Shakespeare did it, so it's been good enough for me for the past eight years.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

This is not the only reason I have a doctorate, but it's one of the big beneficial side-effects thereof.

[identityfail.livejournal.com]

:)

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

I am also fond of "that" - America's only native title of nobility.

As in, "oh, you're THAT Judith Butler!"

[rax.livejournal.com]

I have also been "not THAT rax! the good one!"

Re: I Loled.

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd had that argument for when my teachers/editors took me to task for it all these years. :)