McKenzie Levett
Beyond he and she Britt Coker takes a look at the rise of non-binary pronouns. Tess Jaine
G
ender pronouns are a hot topic these days, partly because we find the traditional ones hard to avoid when describing someone in a sentence (he says, she says) and we don’t know when we should replace them with something else. As more and more people acknowledge that they don’t identify with the constraints of the common pronouns, those of us that do use them are finding ourselves in a new paradigm. New gender identities. You can roll your eyes and say how ridiculous it seems. It’s no one you know. Why are a minority being so precious? But it’s also important to acknowledge that you are dismissing other people’s feelings as you stubbornly express your own. Like a lot of people who are transitioning genders, McKenzie has a dead name. The Christian name given to her at birth has been replaced by the aforementioned, though there are people in her life who haven’t buried the dead as successfully as she has.
20
August 2022
“Half of my family is supportive and the other half isn't, so the half that isn't normally uses my deadname when referring to me, unless they are explicitly told that they need to use the other one.” Perhaps they forget because they can’t fully embrace the new life she has. It’s an additional challenge common for many people who feel uncomfortable with the gender assigned to them at birth. Not just an unease with who they are, but the knowledge that the people who love them aren’t comfortable with the alternative. But ultimately, you choose what is best for you and hope both sides successfully navigate a personal transformation. At age 19, McKenzie uses she/her pronouns as she navigates her journey as a trans woman. Assigned male at birth, McKenzie says that she always had underlying feelings of being uncomfortable in her own skin and not feeling like she was fitting in to society. “It’s a very interesting and nuanced thing because for me personally, I was very uncomfortable with the human body hair I had, and how people treated me, mainly in the ways that I was expected
