Nikki Hiltz identifies as transgender and non binary, but is biologically female, competing against females, and won US Olympic trials in the 1500m.
Great race!
Other than the Boomers in the comments being very offended, and confused, and then offended about being confused…
It is confusing to be honest.
The whole “transgender and non binary” thing seems a bit unnecessary since she’s a female competing against females but that’s just me. As far as I know, I don’t think the other two qualifiers need to be labeled “cisgender and binary”…
It’s mostly a pain in the ass for the announcers that have to tiptoe around her pronoun silliness.
Actually, the NBC/Peacock announcers have been calling Nikki’s races for a while now and are very comfortable using “they/them” ðŸ³ï¸â€âš§ï¸
I heard pronoun respect described this way
Suppose you meet someone who’s name is listed as “Frederick”
To be friendly, you call them “Fred”
“I prefer to be called ‘Rick’” he replies
You answer “Sorry Rick” and go on with the conversation, without a second thought
You don’t ask “Why?” or tell him “You should be ‘Fred’”
Pronouns should be the same way - just use what the person prefers/requests, and go on about your day
This may not be a perfect example, and I’m sure people will find fault with it, but it works for me
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It might seem silly to some people, but I think it’s kind of nice.
Remember Pat from SNL? Ambiguous or non-binary people have been around for a long time, and it’s nice to acknowledge that they exist without them being merely the butt of jokes.
Maybe in the future we simply won’t be so hung up on gender at all. Maybe we’ll accept people as whatever they are and treat them all to the same amount of respect and jokes.
It’s mostly a pain in the ass for the announcers that have to tiptoe around her pronoun silliness.
It’s really not that hard. Nowhere near as hard, for an Olympic announcer, as getting all the crazy foreign language names right. The American TdF announcers are still having issues with “Vingegaard” (he’s not going to be in the Olympics, just an example). Like with names, I think most L(lots of letters)+ people are generally tolerant of mistakes as long as they’re really mistakes and not intentional “mis-gendering.”
Maybe in the future we simply won’t be so hung up on gender at all. Maybe we’ll accept people as whatever they are and treat them all to the same amount of respect and jokes.
Sadly, I wouldn’t count on it; not as a whole, anyway
Not as long as there are people who think being respectful means taking an extra step, and making it uncomfortable for THEM (without thinking about how much MORE uncomfortable that ‘not making a big deal about it’ and having to ‘not be that way’ might be for the other person)
Maybe in the future we simply won’t be so hung up on gender at all. Maybe we’ll accept people as whatever they are and treat them all to the same amount of respect and jokes.
**Sadly, I wouldn’t count on it; not as a whole, anyway **
Not as long as there are people who think being respectful means taking an extra step, and making it uncomfortable for THEM (without thinking about how much MORE uncomfortable that ‘not making a big deal about it’ and having to ‘not be that way’ might be for the other person)
Why not? You know how Irish and Italians were treated in the USA a 100+ years ago? Today there is not even a hint of that attitude left in society. It will happen with race relations and gender and gender fluidity and eventually religion. The latter is probably going to be the hardest. Too many people live and think and act the way their elders taught them without thinking too much about what they are doing. It’s why it takes multiple generations to make any meaningful change.
It’s mostly a pain in the ass for the announcers that have to tiptoe around her pronoun silliness.
I remember when Nikki first came out three years ago there was some brief confusion, but I haven’t seen any recently. Here is the call from the trials.
It seems the only folks triggered by this are the usual folks searching something to be angry about. Nikki seems like a super cool person, which makes it hard to hate them.
It’s why it takes multiple generations to make any meaningful change.
Good point
By my count, we might be in Generation #3?
My dad saw the Civil Rights movement begin, taught me values about human rights and equality, which I saw put into action through Punk Rock and whatnot, and I furthered that teaching with my daughter - The Household Activist