Whenever I hear people announce that their pronouns are something unusual: ze/ziem/ey/eir I'm drawn to think about the bigger problem as I see it. When someone insists that other people refer to them using recently invented terms, ones that bear no relation to their sex, reveals that their actual pronouns (the ones that inform their thinking most of all) are still really: me/my - and that's the real problem.
Whilst the instinct to alter ones pronouns comes from a place of pain and suffering, and ought to therefore be empathised with and dealt with sensitively surely the answer isn't to insist that the grain of reality is bent in your direction. All of us have a natural tendency to want the world to change to meet our needs, but maturity requires not that we change the world to suit us, but that we change to suit the world.
Of course it's entirely natural to prioritise oneself above others, after all, if I die I'll be of no use to anybody; "please put your own oxygen mask on before helping others." That makes sense. Keeping oneself alive is one thing, but living as if you're free from the demands or needs of others is a problem. When I hear my kids getting frustrated at someone on their football team who won't pass the ball I remember how that felt, when the worst thing you could ever say about someone was that they were "a ball hogger"!
All of us learn that life's precious commodities: attention, provision and protection are worth fighting for. We learn that living for these things is reasonable, particularly in a world as fraught with danger and insecurity as this one, "got to look out for number one." On the other hand we ought to all learn as well that the best way to secure those things is, rather counter-intuitively, to "look out for number two" as well. This ability, to think not only about oneself but also about ones community, and to live in such a way that at times suffers short term suffering for their sake is part of what turns a boy into a man. It's also this realisation that leads, on some rare occasions, to the laying down of ones own life for others and thus securing not passing attention but lasting significance in the form of legacy. Self-interest that's long sighted and communitarian isn't a problem.
The problem of our day isn't that we put self-interest ahead of other-interest, the problem is that we're too short sighted with our self-interest. We claim our freedoms and rights and, if we don't burn relational bridges in the process, we certainly neglect the essential strengthening of them.
We devour books and videos on the kind of self-improvement that focuses almost exclusively on the kind of personal goal setting that's devoid of relational depth. We want to be impressive people who've learnt to maximise our productivity and output, all whilst looking beautiful, strong and healthy at the same time. The impression this makes on others is, quite literally, 'impressive'; we seek to imprint ourselves on their egos, squeezing out a little of their own preoccupation with self to force ourselves on the sub-conscious. Like a chair cushion after we go, we want people to be left moved and moulded by their encounter with us; impressive ones that we are. We don't seek the strengthening and elevating of others but their readjustment by (and often into) our image.
Thinking along a similar track John Starke points out that this kind of life, one that pursues personal goals such as freedom and beauty has a devastating effect on the second half of life and brings with it terrible suffering: "In a society that dreads old age and death, ageing holds a special terror to those who fear dependence and whose self-esteem requires the admiration usually reserved for youth, beauty, celebrity or charm."
I'm born into the world as one built for survival: me and my. Along the way I learn that to achieve this effectively I must acknowledge they and them, but I must then resist the impulse that aims to turn others into tools in my service.
I understand maturity, becoming mature, to be: aligning with and learning to move along with the grain of reality. Although I initially discover the world as a me/my and am tempted to relate to others as they/them, I must mature to viewing myself and others as: we/us.
There's a reason that Jesus taught his followers to pray in the way that he did. The Lord's Prayer (found in Matthew 6 & Luke 11) begins with two radical ideas. On the one hand we're told to relate to God using the personal and intimate term 'Father' but, before that we're told to approach God as 'Our Father'.
Our. And the prayer then continues in this same way: Our Father, our bread, our sins, our deliverance. This is mature living, this is living like God as God intended us to.
May God help us become mature, people who don't impose our pronouns on others but who relate to others as co-equals and partners rather than commodities or nuisances.
May my pronouns be we/us.