Gender (not so) neutral

I can’t think of a time when the definition of a word has been so elastic. The word in question is “essential” – as in “only leave your house for essential reasons”.

Clearly the definition varies from person to person, and I have made decisions as to what I see as essential.

However, a recent incident with a fellow dog walker got me rethinking my essentials, which then led to me considering the issue of gender for pets and for ourselves…

Wrong sex

I know we will all have been in a situation with a pet owner where we have mis-gendered the pet. This is usually one of the quickest things they will tell you to alter. You may be able to get a name slightly wrong, but don’t call Fluffy a “he” when “he” is “she”.

I’ve often wondered at this very ingrained view of gender, despite that many aspects of pets’ personalities tend to be gender neutral. In fact, we routinely operate to remove gendered behaviours from our pets, yet gender-specific dog and cat clothing is available.

I’m never quite sure what this says about us as a species.

Interchangeable identities

So there I was in the park walking Gerry, sporting his pale lavender fleece coat and a pink floral collar that used to belong to Ebony.

The collar has an identity tag on it, so I decided to use it for Gerry as I don’t believe buying a new collar and tag in a potentially more “gender appropriate” colour is essential right now. As for the pale lavender fleece, it was the only colour in his size, and as it was winter, it was a necessity that we got one. I also bought it online so I wasn’t making an unnecessary trip to a shop.

So I’ve gone for necessity over gender prejudice in the colour choices. Yet, when somebody called him a “she” in the park, I was very quick to correct them.

Preferred pronouns

Gerry didn’t care, so I’m not quite sure why I was so keen to ensure he wasn’t mis-gendered.

This got me thinking about all the news we see about gender, and the many negative reactions to people wanting others to use pronouns they feel more comfortable with. When so many people get upset when you misgender their pet, why do they then have such an issue with people who wish not to be misgendered?

I don’t have any answers for this conundrum, but I thought sharing my ideas with you might make us consider that, if we all treat each other with the respect and dignity we wish for our animals, quite a few of us might be a little bit happier.