Semantics and

Pragmatics in and of
Transition

Sally McConnell-Ginet
smg9@cornell.edu
IGALA 9
City University, Hong Kong
May 2016
1

Joanne Leung Yan-win

Hong Kong transgender activist

Transition = Change
Gender
identitie
s

Linguisti
c
practice
s

Gender
order

Road Plan for this Talk

Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Elm

Beech

Beech

Elm

Defer to tree scientists on elm &

beech

Semantic division of
labor

Often use words without full

control over criteria
Cede ultimate authority to
communitys experts

Philosopher Hilary Putnam

Pragmatic maxims

Say enough!

Dont say
too much!

Pragmatic division of
labor

Speaker should: Give

necessary specification
Hearer should: Fill in what
goes without saying

Linguist Larry Horns Q vs R

Linguistic politics and

labor relations

Who/what regulates word

application?
What is necessary to
specify? What goes
without saying?

Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Gender 101

Identity considering
oneself female, male, or
neither
Expression/performance
presenting oneself as
female, male, or neither

Sex & sexual orientation

Embodiment: genitalia,
reproductive organs,
hormones, chromosomes
Desire: who if anyone one
wants to go to bed with

Somethings missing

Gender order
Links an individual person to
institutions
desire: norms & practices
divisions of labor
power relations
ideologies

Raewyn Connell
Gender Theorist
Political Scientist

Transitioning is relocating in
the gender order (Connell)

Nicole Maines college-age young woman, who

entered kindergarten as Wyatt, along with her
identical twin brother, Jonas
Caitlyn Jenner 65-year-old whose very open
and recent transition has been amply publicized
LaVerne Cox accomplished actress shown here
as Sophia in Orange is the New Black

Transitions transform
linguistic practices
For English speakers, well look specifically at

Gender/sex labels applying to people and

places: Regulate who goes where, gets what
Kin terms and proper names: Map family
ties, emotions, and histories
3rd person singular pronouns: Track
individuals in discourse
2

Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Kate Bornstein assigns authority to the

individual being labeled

Governmental institutions
assigning gender labels

47 of 50 US states will
change sex on birth
certificates but criteria for
doing so vary
Motor vehicle agencies,
State Dept, Social Security

And more

Social service agencies,

homeless shelters,
hospitals,
Colleges, universities, clubs,
prisons, armed forces, ...

No single biological or
legal definition

Biological markers dont cohere even at

birth and some shift with transitionnot a
binary split but a spectrum
US courts have varied criteria, appealed to
different authorities, and even ruled that
legal gender for one social function may
not hold for others
3

I do not suffer from gender

dysphoria. I suffer from bureaucratic
dysphoria. My ID does not match my
appearance. I worry every time I
apply for a job, every time I buy a
plane ticket, every time I buy a beer
at the corner deli. I have changed
my name, but my gender continues
to be officially and bureaucratically
M.
Quoted by Paisley Currah and colleagues from
testimony at NYC Council Meeting

On May 13, 2013, the Hong Kong

Court of Final Appeal declared that
the meaning of the words woman
and female of the Matrimonial
Causes Ordinance and of the
Marriage Ordinance should include
post-operative male-to-female
transsexuals with certificates issued
by medical authorities testifying
their change of gender as a result of
sex reassignment surgery.

Michael Vilner, lawyer representing W, Hong Kong

ransgender woman seeking to marry boy friend

Hysteria in Houston over bathrooms

created and exploited to defeat HERO
"Any man at any time could
enter a woman's bathroom
simply by claiming to be a
woman that day," the
narrator of a TV ad intoned
menacingly. 61% of voters
on November 3, 2015
bought the scare tactics
though its trans women
who need protection in
public toilets and dressing
rooms.
3

Bathroom safety issues continue

to drive discrimination in US

North Dakota legislature passed bill in mid-Feb

requiring students to use facilities corresponding to
their chromosomal sex but Gov. vetoed
North Carolina passed legislation in late March
outlawing ordinances forbidding discrimination
against LBGQT folks (like that the NC city of
Charlotte had passed and planned to put into effect
on 1 April) and requiring people to use facilities
matching sex on birth certificate
3

Gender-asymmetry in
label-policing

Kessler & McKenna 1978 noted that presence or

absence of a penis was major gender/sex signifier
Westbrook & Schilt 2014 see persisting belief in
ever-present threat of violence from those who
have or have had penises
Houston retiree Loyce Parker: anybody with a
penis, I dont want them in the ladies restroom.

ladybo

You dont
fool anyone,
SIR

Hey, youre
really a MAN

shim

e
l
a
m
e
sh

DUDES like
you cant
mansplain
away
biology

Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Changing Families
And Ways of Talking of Them

Reproductive technologies
help transgender families

Ishais ovaries produced an egg that was fertilized

and implanted into Ishais uterus, which was
delivered in 2009 as healthy (10-pound!) baby boy,
Stanley
Tina Montgomery, a Philadelphia transgender
woman, produced sperm that fertilized an egg
produced by her partner, a transgender man
named Junior Brainard, who also gestated and
vaginally delivered a healthy baby in October 2015.
Who is mother? Who is father?
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Bergmans take on multiple

possible family ties

Blood marks reproductive/biological connections

Marriage designates institutionalized pairings

Wine symbolizes close community ties, shared

meals and experiences
Glitter is Bergmans way of talking about caring
connections among gender outlaws, Bornsteins
term for those living lives outside gender binaries
and heteronormative sexual standards
4

Common English Kin Terms

Only cousin not sexed
my child/children, my parents and my siblings heard
but my parent, my sibling very rare
4

Even accepting families may

find shifts challenging

Hes my daughter, introducing transgender son.

Really down deep, its my daughter. When I look
at him, I still see her.
I use the word child because I cannot wrap my
mind around daughter, even though I am fine
calling my child Elaine.

Quotes from Andrew Solomon 2012, Far from the

Tree, interviews with parents of transgender people
4

Others accommodate
readily, sometimes creatively

Jenny Boylans children, 6 and 8, decided they couldnt

call her Daddy after she transitioned but already having
a Mommy created Maddy
Where relations are non-standard find neologisms like
Spuncle Jacob used in the Bergman family for the
sperm donor for son Stanley and Grandspuncle and
Grandsparkle for Jacobs parents
Trans men becoming parents have been dubbed
bearing father or seahorse papa
4

Whats in a name?

Most English first names

are sex-typed and thus
trans people typically
change their first name
Changing a surname is
more variable

Our son Stanley is named for

two of his grandfathers ... and if
he ever wants to change his
name, Ill cry for sure ... I
adored my grandfather
Stanley ... and there are days
that I am so glad to have
another Stanley Bergman in the
world that it stills me. ... [But if
my child transitioned and took
a new name I would] have to get
on board. Its just too hard
hearing a name that no longer
feels like it describes you.

And there are many stories from

those whove transitioned

Being asked by courts to present evidence of

permanent and irreversible sex change
Being outed by someone using unchanged last
name to uncover pre-transition history
More happily, having parents who wanted to help in
the choice process or, unusually, being able to live
successfully with ones supremely rare birth name
(Paisley Currah, transgender scholar & activist who
has lived as a man for several decades)
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Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

3rd-person pronouns:
Whats your PGP?
Standard English 3rd p pronouns for reference to a single
individual, she and he, both presuppose sex of the
referent though there are expressive uses in certain
contexts (e.g., among some gay men)
Someone who has transitioned from birth-assigned male
sex usually expects she whereas most who have
transitioned from female sex expect he; some people
want to avoid the binary pronoun split altogether
Some US colleges & universities have begun to ask
students for their Preferred Gender Pronoun
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Some 3rd person singular pronoun

possibilities
e/ey/ze
zie
she
he
they

em
zim
her
him
them

eir
zir
her
his
their

eirs
zirs
hers
his
theirs

eirself
zirself
herself
himself
themsel
f

How do gender-neutral choices

work?
When I saw zim, Kim told me zie had coded all zir
data zirself [neologisms can be good for shaking up
predominant complacency]
?When I saw them, Kim told me they had coded all
their data themself [still a bit difficult]
Remember that UCSD prof? When I saw them, they
told me they had coded all their data themself
[better]
5

Some pronoun problems

Proper name option is unworkable because

Hardly possible in some cases to interpret

repeated instances as co-referring (?#Kim told me
Kim had coded Kims own data)
Often speak of people for whom no proper name
is available to speakerneed default option
Preferred pronoun option works only if preference
known, so here too default is needed
5

And pseudo-problems
Pronouns are immune to social pressures

You (plural) replaced thou (singular) with spread

of egalitarian ideologies around the 18th century
But they is plural

They already refers to single persons in many

contexts
And you takes plural V agreement even if only
one is being addressed (alongside singular
yourself)where is outcry?
5

Plugs from activists for

extending singular
they

58

They seems set to take over

as default

Facebook offered it as a pronoun choice in 2014

and now regularly sends notices like Kim has
changed their profile

The Washington Posts Ken Walsh in 2015 called

it the only sensible solution to Englishs lack of a
gender-neutral pronoun and changed its
stylebook; other papers began to use it in some
contexts
The ADS chose singular they as 2015s word of
the year
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Labor
Relations

Gender
101

Semanti
c
Authorit
y

Challenging
Expectation
s

Linguistic
Conclusio
Constrain
n
ts

Transitions breed conflict

over linguistic authority

Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, looks to Gods

definition of marriage, not that established in her state and
country
TSA agents can decide male-looking genitals trump the F
designation and the female name on a womans identity
documents and keep a passenger from catching her flight
Auto-Correct changes my themself to themselves (latter
form produced by typing first form, which was then
corrected to second)

What goes without saying is

also in transition

Marriage is between a woman and a man

An adult is readily identifiable as either a woman or
a man
A woman was once a girl, a man was once a boy
A son cant become a daughter, an aunt cant
become an uncle, a husband cant become a wife
A woman does not have and never has had a penis
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What needs specification is

transitioning as well

That my partner in marriage is a man

That Im cisgender (assigned female sex at birth, living
as a girl and then as a woman with no excursions into
male sex)*
That I am accustomed to and comfortable with being
referred to as she though I also dont mind they
Which pronouns others want me to use in referring to
them

*The Latin prefix cis on the same side is used as antonym

to trans in chemistry and some other contexts
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Life and linguistic practice

are in transition
We were coming out of one of the baby stores, and
two womenwe were a few feet in front of them
and they were looking and laughing and saying
something. And I turned around and said, Yes, its a
pregnant man. Catch up with the times, people.
Tina Montgomery, woman whose sperm
contributed to making child that man Junior Brainard
is carrying; quote and preceding picture of Junior
from article on newsworks.com, 2/10/2016
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