GOSSIP Galway

Pronouns and Honorifics get a new addition

Justin Bond has come out as transgender, and via
Mx Justin Vivian Bond: A User’s Guide has introduced further additions to the pronoun and honorific family:

“When I was younger I used to refer to myself as a ‘non-op transexual,’” writes the singer-songwriter Justin Bond, “meaning I was a transexual who didn’t need to have surgery to assert what I was. But I was wrong because without assertions people can only make assumptions and I no longer wish to indulge or refute the assumptions or labels other people choose to place on me, I simply want to inhabit my very clear vision of myself.” Which means Bond, in addition to beginning a hormone regimen, is adding the name “Vivian” and assuming the prefix “Mx.” And so: Mx. Justin Vivian Bond is neither male nor female, but transgender, and you may refer to Bond as neither a he nor a she, but a v.

- [via Queerty]

I’ve not seen “Mx” before, nor had I seen the use of “v” instead of he/she. But we can add that to the many other proposed gender neutral pronouns for the english language, like “ze” and “xe”.

Although I’m sure if everyone decided to have a personal pronoun applicable to just themselves, we would have a very messy language, but I do like the reasoning behind choosing “v” as a third pronoun option:

Pronoun: V

[...] after introducing two of the other panelists I heard my name followed by “they” and I began looking around to find out who the other people were he was talking about, then I remembered that “they” was me. I got a good chuckle out of it but my pronoun quandary was clearly NOT solved.

So what I’ve come up with is “v”. Since my name is Justin Vivian Bond and since Vivian begins with a V and visually a V is two even sides which meet in the middle I would like v to be my pronoun.

For example:

Justin Vivian Bond was described in The New Yorker as “a bar of gold in the new depression”. V’s latest eponymous show at Joe’s Pub will be Saturday January 8th at 11:30

or

“Have you seen Justin Vivian?”

“Yes, V ran to the store to pick up the dress v is having altered .”

V covers it all.

In the future if I see or hear the words he or she, her or him, hers or his, in reference to me, I will take it either as a personal insult, a weak mind (easily forgivable), or (worst case scenario) sloppy journalism.

The reasoning behind “Mx” in place of Mr / Ms / Miss / Mrs is similarly thought provoking:

Prefix: Mx.

I don’t like any of the prefixes currently in common usage as none of them seem to apply… check one: _Mr. _Mrs. _Ms. _Miss. None of these work so I have adopted Mx because it implies a mix which is the least offensive and most general way I’ve been able to come up with to find a prefix that clearly states a trans identity without amplifying a binary gender preference, or even acknowledging the gender binary at all.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Mx Justin Vivian Bond before, here’s a video of v’s Tony Award nominated, drag cabaret act “Kiki and Herb”:

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