Screenshot of Google Image search results for “womxn,” captured by author At Best, Performative Spellings Are Confusing “Inclusive” spellings have a long, meaningful history, but the current usage, especially replacing certain vowels in words with an “x,” leaves much to be desired – and might actually be actively harmful. This is only one aspect of the language-based performative allyship that’s suffused social discourse over the last few years (acronyms can also be head-scratchers – see our roundtable “What Do We Mean When We Say BIPOC”). Putting the x in “womxn,” for example, just reinforces to me that I’m not a “woman” – I’m a “womxn.” And is “womxn” inclusive of non-binary people? I have my doubts. It’s easy, and is typically as useful as you’d expect from an effort that requires essentially no effort. The cultural discourse version of defaulting to bathrooms is performatively “inclusive” spelling. Then the pandemic started and I never heard from them again. Tweet from and IG post from gently informed them that it was actually neither, and that there were clearly more foundational conversations that needed to happen before we got to the Slack channel question. One of the top-of-line, most important questions for me to weigh in on: was changing their “women’s” Slack channel to a “womxn’s” Slack channel a powerful move toward inclusion, as some members of the leadership team believed, or a disrespectful encroachment on cis womens’ spaces? Would making a Slack channel specifically for trans and non-binary people be a better move? In early 2020, I was asked to consult a San Francisco startup – they wanted the company to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people. Absent from actual culture shift at an organization, a gender-neutral bathroom is essentially a ghetto. But it’s hardly “inclusive” to create separate spaces for the weirdos to go pee, separate from everyone else, with the concomitant outing that frequently entails. Gender-neutral bathrooms are fine, especially if all bathrooms are gender-neutral. It would be miles more transformative if a workplace’s culture meant trans people could use whatever bathroom worked best for them without fearing harassment, for example. It’s one of the easiest, and one of the least significant, “inclusion” initiatives an organization can make. And every time – literally every single time – the cis people in the room would focus on gender-neutral bathrooms. During these trainings I would discuss a range of initiatives, strategies, and proposed policies organizations could undertake. I used to frequently facilitate trainings for corporations, organizations, and non-profits on how to be more inclusive to queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people. The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.
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