Xref: utzoo misc.legal:5566 news.admin:3190 soc.women:12291
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!killer!dcs!wnp
From: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,news.admin,soc.women
Subject: Re: A real sweetheart
Message-ID: <156@dcs.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jul 88 15:52:06 GMT
References: <12624@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1809@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <343@tekbspa.UUCP>
Reply-To: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Organization: DCS, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 36

In article <343@tekbspa.UUCP> mathon@tekbspa.UUCP (John D. Mathon ) writes:
>    3) however, calling somebody him when they are a her should not
>       be a punishable offense, because her/him are pronouns and 
>       refer to facts.  I imagine the only legal claim might be made
>       if somebody suffered damages after somebody else referred to
>       them as the wrong sex.
>
>		    mark is a he and cannot participate in the beauty pageant
>		    next week. when mark is actually a she.

I don't think Mark would suffer damages from this -- Mark wants to be considered
a man (otherwise, why would Mark wish to be referred to by a masculine pronoun),
and thus would presumably not be interested in participating in a beauty pageant
which would reveal to all the world the unpleasant fact that Mark is indeed not
a man but a woman.

The more I read of this discussion, the more it seems to me that the simplest
thing would be to avoid the use of pronouns altogether when referring to Mark --
we would not bend our proper use of the English language by referring to a 
female (if not feminine) person with a masculine pronoun, but neither would we
have to offend Mark by referring to Mark by the pronoun Mark so dislikes.

The use of the neuter pronoun when referring to Mark is of course just as wrong
gramatically as the use of the femal pronoun, so that the avoidance of all
pronouns when referring to Mark is the most correct solution, even though it
makes for rather clumsy-sounding sentences.



with a male pronoun, but neither would I


-- 
Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101
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