PGPs

By Meg Dukes | Sep 10 2012 11:34PM

Recently I had to fill out a questionnaire for my statistics class that required for me to state my gender as either male or female, there was no third option. While this is one of the many complications of being genderqueer and identifying as neither gender it has caused me to question whether or not I am still comfortable using the female pronouns of she, her, hers, herself as my PGPs or preferred gender pronouns.

My first instinct to the question is to answer “I don’t know”. Then after giving it some more thought I think “why not?” This takes me even further down the rabbit hole to “Am I comfortable or just not uncomfortable? and if I am comfortable is it only because female pronouns are what I am used to using?”. Those questions take me even deeper.

Right now my internal consensus is that I am not uncomfortable with female pronouns just as I am not uncomfortable with male pronouns (he, his, him, himself). I am however uncomfortable with the idea of using gender neutral pronouns like ze or hir. I guess if it were possible I would like to be pronoun-less but I don’t know what that would mean on a daily basis. I can’t use person, that wouldn’t make any grammatical sense.

I really don’t know the answer to these questions and maybe just like the genderqueer thing, my PGPs will just hit me. But for now, until I figure it out what those are, I’ll still with what I’m not uncomfortable with, both female and male pronouns.

 
 
Meg in the City
Meg Dukes

Hi. I’m Meg Dukes, and made the move from rural Colorado to New York City in the fall of 2010. This is my story; the ongoing story of my experiences as a student at NYU. It will be honest, open, and more importantly, a place where you can follow and interact as I go from rural high school student, to a college student in New York. Oh, did I also mention that I am a lesbian?

The transition from high school to college is an emotionally difficult one, standing there and watching as the world around you changes, and the only thing you can do is hold on tight and see where the journey takes you. Added to the stress of being LGBT, in a new school, and in a new city surrounded by new people, you have to make the same silly decisions you did as a high school student – whether to come out to your friends or roommate, or to even be out on campus at all. For those of you who are currently going through this transition: don’t worry, I am also going through it. I will be right there with you; the scared freshman on the bottom of the totem pole ready to absorb all the wonders college has to offer. For those of you who are still in high school, this is what you have to look forward too.

I’m from a small town in rural Colorado; well, I guess town isn’t the right word. More like unincorporated county. For those who are scratching their heads wondering, “unincorporated county?” unincorporated county means no town government, no mayor, no town hall meetings, no town police or fire departments. The Board of County Commissioners administrates the area as a whole with the county sheriff’s office as the only law enforcement and, in the more rural areas, volunteer fire departments. I drove 20 minutes to school every morning, when the weather cooperated, and it was a 45-minute drive to go see a movie or hang out at the mall.

My high school consisted of less than 1,000 students total, my graduating class being 274, and now I am headed off to New York University, the largest private nonprofit institution of higher education in the country, with approximately 51,000 students split pretty evenly between undergraduate and graduate students. Located in Greenwich Village, one of the neighborhoods of Manhattan, it is in the heart of New York City and only distinguishable from the surrounding buildings by the purple flags with the NYU logo hanging from the university’s buildings.

This blog will not only chronicle my experience moving from rural Colorado to New York City and the new life I will be building. It will also chronicle what’s going on in your lives. I encourage you to leave comments or send me an email, because this is a journey we are taking together. So hold on tight and keep your hands and feet in the vehicle at all times – this is going to be a bumpy ride.

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