Lesbilicious: Non-gendered Titles See Increased Recognition »

LGBT press coverage of gender neutral titles, with commentary on why this sort of visibility and activism is important:

practicalandrogyny:

practicalandrogyny:

UK-related news story covering the acceptance of Mx and Misc as gender neutral titles by official organisations.

I’ve seen some critique of this story elsewhere, so I felt I should clarify why I linked to it.

Yes, it’s questionable whether there is actually ‘increased recognition’ and whether these organisations have ‘begun’ to recognise alternative titles.

I’m aware of people who got Mx on their cards and correspondence years ago and I did the same with no title back in 2004 (around the time of the Gender Recognition Act).

People with ambiguous gender presentations (due to identity or ‘mid-transition’ status) have been successfully changing titles or removing titles on their bank cards, and on other forms of documentation that can be used as ID, for as long as I’ve been involved in transgender discussion groups (since the late 1990s) and I’m sure others were doing the same before that.

So no, there probably isn’t ‘increased recognition’ right now. What is increased though is visibility. In this case a non-binary blogger openly talked about everything that was attempted, what was achieved and what was rejected, and in sharing this information, others spoke up and shared their experiences of trying the same. This process was spotted by a non-trans-specific lesbian news site who ran the story, revealing the possibilities to an even larger group of people.

Right now, I’m aware of three different UK-based sites and fledgling organisations working to improve visibility of non-binary/genderqueer people, advocate for our needs and share information and resources. I’m aware of a fourth that’s in the works.

So no, there isn’t any real increase in recognition, but there is an increase in visibility of what has been achieved in the past. It seems likely that a clear, easily accessible list of organisations who have recognised alternative titles (and other aspects of non-binary presentation) will be of help to those of us who are advocating for other organisations to change their policies. If I can point to a dozen highly respected organisations and say they’re allowing something, it’s harder for another organisation to refuse to do the same.

This is one of the reasons why improving non-binary visibility and gathering non-binary resources is important and useful activism.