Pronoun Trouble? Not Here!

YET AGAIN I got an education where and when I least expected it.

We’ve just returned from Richmond, where we had a great time visiting our daughter Tori in sunny, above-freezing weather, a nice break from the gray blah we’ve had in Michigan. During a mandatory visit to Lamplighter Coffee Roasters, for which we share a preternatural love, I saw the following at the register:

I was bemused. If someone has a traditionally feminine name, and identifies as female, was there a need to specify the pronoun? It would be like introducing myself to someone by saying, “Hi, I’m Jeff. I’m a man.”

My daughter basically shrugged. Richmond has become increasingly progressive during the ten years she’s lived there, with a strong LGBTQ(*) community and actively inclusive attitude. We initially worried about how she’d be accepted, but she’s had no trouble. During our visit she and her wife held hands openly in public, as did many same-sex couples we saw.

Yet I wondered what more “mainstream” young people thought about the pronoun display. When our niece picked us up at the airport, I mentioned it to her. “Oh wow, that’s really neat,” she said. “It’s great that they want to be inclusive like that.” She wasn’t just accepting, she was fully supportive. So there you go. Please forgive me if I still find it unusual.

Just to be clear, it doesn’t matter to me which gender you identify with (or not), or how you’d like to be referred to. To me, it’s a sign of how far we’ve come. In 1961, when I was born, gay marriage wasn’t only illegal, it was unthinkable. Even interracial marriage wasn’t legal in Virginia until 1967. Yet here we were, walking in the capital of the Confederacy with our openly (and proud) gay daughter and her wife.

At last year’s WNBR Portland and Burning Man I experienced firsthand what happens when people let go of their biases and pre-judgments and accept others for who they are. I invite anyone who considers themselves progressive or accepting to go to one of those and then let me know if their minds didn’t open at least a little more.

And I’m also proud of the inclusiveness of the running community. Do you run? Welcome, runner! We respect anyone training for and achieving their goals, whether it’s your first 5K, or your fifty-seventh 100-miler, or you just want to get in a mile or two.

Of course, even the running world is not perfect. Coree Woltering, an ultrarunning champion who is African-American and gay, feels “discriminated against,” but not in the way you might expect. I look forward to when we overcome even this kind of prejudice, because it affects me, too!