I see a lot of people talking about #ElliotPage and the retroactive application of pronouns and names. I know takes have been few and far between, cishet takes even more so, so here's mine. I'll approach it not as a genitals-haver, but as someone to whom the written word is life.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

It's okay to be wrong. Especially when admitting your error means the difference between alienation and acceptance to some desperately oppressed people. Take it from a guy who looked at Singular They Hill and thought, "yep, that's the one. That's where ol' Edpool's going to die."

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

It's a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that seems almost unique to the trans experience. I kind of love that we're feeling our way around it in real time as a communicating species. I love being here to see it happen and I feel I'd be neglecting my calling if I didn't weigh in.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

It's counter-intuitive and odd, I know. The nature of corrective reality is a complicated topic for monkeys who only just recently figured out clothes, we're not designed to do this shit. We're not designed at all, our entire biological history is just a long list of workarounds.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

And I acknowledge that this take, this framing of the issue as "fascinating," is a luxury I have – a privilege. I know it's insensitive to say it this way, when for so many people it is life or death. But here's a couple of ways I reckon we can explain the issue to heel-draggers:

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

1) Simply, think: even back when playing the lead in a movie like Juno, Elliot was a guy. No no, I see you getting ready to say "but he wasn't…," *BUT HE WAS*, that's the thought exercise. I'm not going to get into his physiology and psychology, but that fact is the core of it.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

2) Start your sentence with, "back before his transition, he…," then use the right pronouns even if talking about the past. Even if talking about when he had female genitalia. He might still have now. People's genitals, I can't stress this enough, are none of our damn business.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

We still say "he" now, don't we? So, what's changed, aside from him coming out? Nothing as far as we need to be concerned. He's a person now, he was a person then.

This is one of those cases where it's just plain counter-productive to apply an old linguistic or thought standard.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

Nothing practical is served by making the distinction. You're not being "technically accurate." You're being lazy and applying an inappropriate outdated standard that's comfortable to you. This is a new thing we have to wrap our heads around. And there will be LOTS of resistance.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

You might consider painful elements of your past to be an important part of you. A valuable series of lessons learned. That's awesome. It's a privilege, but it's a perfectly fine privilege to have. And it is going to be the case for some affected LGBT+ folks, too. But not always.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

So, for those rare cases you run into, a conversation will probably be needed each time to find out what the person in question finds a comfortable approach. That's okay. We've trained for this. We're God damn talking monkeys. We can do anything – amazing or unthinkably horrible.

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020

Every day, every interaction you have with your fellow travellers on this hapless spinning rock, you decide which it's going to be – will you be amazing, or will you be unthinkably horrible?

You're not going to be amazing every time. You are still just a monkey. But you can try. pic.twitter.com/I6sVHTg6aW

— Edpool (@St_EdPool) December 5, 2020