Call me "she", not "they"

 

by Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia

Non-binary people have a right to change their own pronouns, but not mine. I want to continue to be called by my gender specific pronouns, which are she/her.

I have faced various struggles and inequities as a woman, and I want my life work and life history to be acknowledged in the way that people speak about me and address me. In particular, I have triumphed and fought back, to achieve greater equality and respect for myself as a woman, and for others. This life history is being minimised and erased when people refer to me by gender neutral pronouns - it's as if we have all lived on a level playing field and gender hasn't entered into our identities or life chances. This is far from the truth.

I have struggled to bring up children alone for many years; custodial mothers are much more common than custodial fathers. I have taken time out of the workforce with young children, including taking a child to early intervention, which was almost exclusively a mother's domain, and thus lost many years of work experience and superannuation earnings, again, a very typical disadvantage facing women. Despite these disadvantages, I have educated my children, paid off my house and I am now a family matriarch. My identity as a family matriarch is not for sale; I am a matriarch and not parent-person. I birthed my children and I am still there for all my family members.

I have spent so much of my life breaking glass ceilings that I now have a very hard head and don't know any other way. I was one of very few girls to succeed in the maths-science stream at school and at uni. This was in the days when maths was considered unfeminine. I have also driven trams and been involved in politics. My daughter and I had very late Autism diagnoses because we are women. I have stared down honour-killing threats and refused to submit to feminine dress expectations. 

As someone who has struggled because of my gender, I respect the gender struggles of trans people. Let's make respect a two-way street. I'll use your pronouns if you use mine - my pronouns are she/her.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Autistics must oppose Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

Image
  By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Victoria, Australia In Victoria, we face the very real prospect of a One Nation – Liberal Coalition coming to power at this November’s state election. This will be a disaster for Autistics, First Nations people, immigrants, women, LGBTIQ people and the environment. One Nation is a notoriously discriminatory, anti-Autistic party, funded by billionaires, that wants to build nuclear power stations and abolish our climate change goals. Our State Labor Government has been in power for twelve years and it is un unusual for governments to remain in power for much longer. At the state election this November, we are bracing for a three-way contest between centre-left Labor, centre-right Liberals and the ascendant far right party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. (The Greens, which campaigned against cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, do not attract a large percentage of votes.) Because we have preferential voting, and because ri...
Read more

White Autistics, please discuss your sensory aversions to our foods respectfully

Image
  By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia I come from a multicultural family and I love all kinds of foods, but this is not the case for all Autistics. Some Autistics have strong sensitivities to the texture, taste or smell of certain foods and cannot eat them. They often self advocate for accommodations for their sensory sensitivities, or make special arrangments, to access food they can tolerate, when they go out to restaurants or travel overseas. As much as we need to respect the Autistic minority's sensory needs, Autistics with food sensitivities need to respect the sensitivities of migrants and second generation Australians from non-Anglo backgrounds, by not pulling faces or making expressions of disgust about our multicultural Melbourne restaurant food or the foods on sale in our countries of origin.  I once attended an Autistics only event, held in a pub because this food was deemed safer for those with food sensitivities, and a small number of indivduals ...
Read more

Does “Support at Home” meet the needs of Autistic elders?

Image
By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia In November 2025, the Australian government introduced a new system of providing care for elders who live in their own homes. Over the past month and a half, I have been comparing the “Support at Home” granted to my mother, who has just received aged care funding, with the services previously granted to my late father, who was funded under the old system of aged care packages.   As an older Autistic advocate, I have also been pondering how well these new services will meet the needs of Australian Autistic elders living in their own homes. I have attended online Autistic discussions and forums about the needs of elder neurokin, and even been an elder guest speaker. However, neither our speeches nor discussions addressed the specifics of government services provided to elder Autistics living in their own homes in Australia.    Elders to have more rights, less services and increased costs A few months ago, shortly before ...
Read more