More Baking! Now with Gender!

[eredien]

I made some vegan Genderbread cookies for badoingdoing's excellent coming-out party yesterday--had a lot of fun and some good discussions with friends old and new. It was really interesting, and refreshing, to be asked what pronoun I preferred to use; it puts you in a different headspace. I eventually went with "she," but I had to think about it/got to think about it. I wish there were a gender-neutral pronoun in English that didn't obscure/dismiss gender altogether ("it"), or didn't sound ridiculous to my ear (any of these solutions).

I feel like using an invented gender-neutral pronoun in a non-explicitly gender-safe space is problematic in that people may either mishear you (deliberately or non-deliberately), or that you will be asked to explain your pronoun. I don't want to have to explain my pronouns, or my gender, to others, every time I talk to them--partially because I don't always understand how to explain it to myself.

Other people--what do you think? Does anyone have thoughts or experiences to share?

Here is the recipie for the cookies--they were not traditional gingerbread, but sugar. The next time I make these, I should remember to add the food coloring with the liquid ingredients so it mixes better into the dough; adding it after the dough is made resulted in a lot of needless kneading. I replaced the butter with soy margarine, and replaced the cream with soy milk. It worked fine.

Comments

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

To the best of my knowledge, xe and xie are both pronounced "zee."

[salamandream.livejournal.com]

Thirding xe.

Although. I use xe/xer in writing, but pronounce them as "zay/zir". Inconsistent, but more euphonic to my ears.