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Nonbinary Teacher in Florida Fired for Using Mx. Title
(www.advocate.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Mx. is a confusing title. How is it pronounced? "X" is an obnoxious letter choice to try to genericize gender.
But the article shows this teacher tried several other reasonable titles, like "professor" and "teacher" that were also denied. That's ridiculous, and clearly just targeting them.
Please explain how you'd know how to pronounce Mrs as missus\mizzes without someone explaining it? It's no more confusing than that archaic bullshit.
They're abbreviations for master and mistress. Of course those are archaic etymologies, but that's how they evolved into abbreviations.
The strange thing is that Mx is an abbreviation that doesn't have a basis in a word as far as I know. It's literally conforming to those heteronormative traditions and adapting them with an "X" bandaid.
The point is that the teacher is non binary and forced to choose an honorific. They wanted to use a neologism because there isn't an established term and they were fired because of bigotry. It doesn't really matter if the term makes sense to you or anyone else, it was their choice.
Your comments reek of the same smug shittiness of people who throw a fit about they\them pronouns not being "grammatically correct" when singular they has been in use for ages.
Non binary people exist, and if they are required by their job to use a formal title, they should have one that recognizes who they are.
Your knee-jerk reaction is that any criticism of the word is a criticism of non-binary people. I explicitly made a point to explain that's not the case. And I used "they" in my first comment, so I have no idea where you're coming from.
Treating any discussion as black and white and immediately becoming defensive isn't helping as much as you think.
There are plenty of titles they could use. The issue is this school rejected those other titles too, and that's not right.
You sound like you're the type of person who gets offended for other people when in fact, those other people aren't offended in the first place. I wish I could downvote you more than once
I don't want to send me kids to a school where the teachers intentionally try to impose their made up beliefs on them. Is it too much to ask for teachers to stick to the subjects they are supposed to teach?
Their comment doesn't read this way at all. You're just arguing past them.
Lol, you westerners
Or should I say, westernxs
I kinda feel the same about Xe/Xim. I think the reasoning is just "they have to abide by the same conventions or people won't get it." It would be a lot cooler to just fully break away from those traditions and have something more eloquent, but language keeps taking the path of least resistance.
Sounds like a first world problem if I have ever heard of it. I think you can survive going as Ms or Mr.
Mr./Mrs. are evolutions of language, like you said. They don't really refer to the original words for the most part. Mx. is an evolution of the same language and just as easy to pronounce. Sure, it's a "bandaid" if you want to call it that, but the English language is 90% bandaids. To rule out this one when there isn't a good alternative for general use (prof. or teacher would be fine for this person, but not for someone who's not a teacher) is pretty narrow minded.
Mr/Ms/Mrs all makes sense.
Mr -> You are a male
Ms -> You are a female
Mrs -> You are a married female
Mx -> You uhh feel like you are neither male or female or something. keyword being "feel". The 3 above all are objective characteristics. The latter is not.
An adult should be able to teach kids without feeling the need to impose their own wacky views on them. Just use mr or ms. You are an adult, you can handle it.
You not knowing how to pronounce something isn't reason enough for it not to exist.
I'm not saying it is, but it should be enough to start a discussion on whether there's a better, more easily pronouncable term while we're in a discussion about titles.
If I really think about it, what makes Mr. Or Ms. any easier to pronounce? They are actually a bit less intuitive because they are abbreviations.
As far as two letters go, I feel like Mx. is just one step removed from Mix, so it seems easy to me. Perhaps Mr. and Ms. are just easier to accept because we have lived with them our whole life. A lot of the English language seems weird when we step outside of it.
Mr. is derived from master and Ms. is derived from mistress. Their pronunciation is derived from their etymology.
I agree though that common usage plays a part.
This dang language keeps evolving, doesn't it?
Master and Mr are different in usage, the former for young people (under 18).
Ms is pronounced with the /z/ sound, not the 's' in mistress.
Ms. Mrs. And Miss are all from mistress apparently, and Ms. (MIZ) was used to address a woman regardless of marital status.
Today I learned.
I'm all for the "Ey", "em", "eir" pronouns, but I don't have a stake in the game.
For example,
English needs gender neutral pronouns because they can be useful in a situation such as needing to refer to a person named Smith, but don't know their gender. ("They, them, their" should be reserved for groups, imo).
"Mey." Or "Mer." could be the solution for a title in this situation.
Seems a hell of a lot easier to just use “they/them” as we already do. If it were too confusing, it would evolve into something else naturally anyway. German gets by just fine with “they” and the formal form of “you” being the same. I think we’ll be fine.
Singular they has existed for centuries, and been used that way for centuries. In normal usage, it should be obvious from context whether you're using singular or plural.
First time studying American English?
To me a professor teaches at a college or university but teacher should 100% have been an option.
I live in MA and have an X marker. I really like it? It’s a common variable, and I like the relationship.
I usually say Mixter, but it’s English so it’s all made up.
Better to get rid of the others than add one.
Mx is pronounced like "Mex", but a touch quicker.
Isn't that like, short for Mexican. Like in texmex restaurants.
mix