Intersexual/gender-neutral pronouns

[Kate Daly]

>What I _will_ do is pass the question on to a friend who might know
>if anything is being used in transsexual circles, in which he travels
>much more widely than I.

A close friend of mine is a male-to-female transsexual.  I've known her since she was biologically male and for several years post-surgery, and am (like some of you) fascinated by the pronoun issue as it applies to her.  Her solution is to refer to herself and all her m-to-f friends as "she", regardless of where on the transition continuum they happen to be at the moment.  My friend occasionally refers to her past self in the third person (slightly disingenuous, IMHO, but there it is) and when she does so, she refers to her pre-transition self as "he."

A different problem arose when I needed to refer to my friend when speaking to her daughter. It seemed absurd to refer to the extremely feminine Maura as "your Dad", although that would be accurate; but neither is Maura the girl's mother. I finally just said "your parent" and then just "Maura."  What a coil.

-Kate

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