I’m in this world, okay, and the people identify each other by sex. All the time. No kidding. It’s like ‘Female Person Jenkins ‘ and ‘Male Person Ellis’ or ‘Person-with-Uterus Jenkins’ and ‘Person-with-Penis Ellis’, I don’t know the exact translation. But sex-identity is a mandatory prefix. They distinguish males from females. Before they do anything else.
It bothers me. It irritates me. It pisses me off. I mean, what’s so damned special about my sex that it has to be part of my name? Surely my values, my interests, my abilities, my character – these aspects define my self more than my sex does.
And anyway shouldn’t I be the one to decide what parts of my self are important enough to be part of my name? Maybe I want to be identified by my uterus, but maybe I want to be identified by my occupation. Hell, maybe I want to identified by my blood type.
The thing is, they consider it polite. Polite! Continue reading
