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Citer cette ressource :
EMMA. (2024, 18 octobre). ““What’s a she/they?”: An (auto)ethnographic exploration of epistemic justice and the double bind of split pronoun display”, Brittney O’Neill, York University, Canada , in What are your pronouns and why does it matter?. [Vidéo]. Canal-U. https://www.canal-u.tv/157712. (Consultée le 17 janvier 2025)
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““What’s a she/they?”: An (auto)ethnographic exploration of epistemic justice and the double bind of split pronoun display”, Brittney O’Neill, York University, Canada

Réalisation : 18 octobre 2024 - Mise en ligne : 6 novembre 2024
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Descriptif

While language and gender researchers and activists have emphasized that declared pronouns are not the same as gender identity (e.g. Conrod, 2022; Olsen, 2022), many laypeople, even those who support individual semantic authority (McConnell-Ginet, 2008) over pronouns, continue to treat pronouns as a proxy for gender. In my experience of wearing a she/they button in a public-facing role, members of the public have often responded to my button with confusion and some form of the question “what’s a she/they?” or “how can you be a she and a they?” While typically framed with an awareness of pronoun declaration as a legitimate practice and a desire to avoid offense, such questions suggest that pronouns are understood to indicate a particular type (gender), such that a “she” and a “they” cannot be the same person.

In this paper, I combine autoethnographic reflections with an exploration of epistemic injustice (e.g. Berenstain, 2016; Davis, 2016; Fricker, 2007; Pohlhaus, 2014) to consider how this persistent conflation of pronouns with gender identity positions split-pronoun users as non-legible in public space and leaves them vulnerable to epistemic exploitation (Berenstain, 2016), as the public display of such seemingly confounding pronouns marks the wearer (or declarer) as available to be questioned about pronoun practices in general. I argue that, in addition to unsettling models of gender which map pronouns directly onto gender identities (i.e. she—woman, he—man, and they—nonbinary), the public display of split pronouns can lead to credibility excess and resulting compulsory representation (Davis, 2016), a form of epistemic injustice requiring individuals to “speak for” a minority community (in this case “the” queer community) as a whole, thus exceeding their own experiences and expertise. Further, such presumptions of the split pronoun user as spokesperson, can also make individuals vulnerable to microaggressions (Sue, 2010) even from well-meaning, but confused, interlocutors. Thus, even as the display of split pronouns may provide a catalyst for unsettling existing language and gender ideologies and encourage the use of appropriate terms of reference, such display also makes the individual vulnerable to novel epistemic injustices.

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