As someone who is not an established author, I have certain benefits. I write whatever I want, having no responsibilities to anyone, and I say what I want, holding onto nothing which a publisher can take from me. This latter freedom is a dangerous one, and the more I exercise it, the less likely it seems I will ever become an established author in the traditional sense. Yet I keep running my mouth.
Searching around for possibilities to get my vampire story published, I came across a certain publisher of weird horror which seemed like a perfect fit. However, a certain snag appeared when I started the querying process, a last minute demand to provide “your pronouns.”
There is a soul crushing aspect to this inescapable ideology. Though it is completely inane and, at bottom, wholly incoherent, it is assumed wherever you go unless a publication is actively fighting against it. An indefensible position, it can only bully people into playing along.
I am reminded of a book I read when I was younger, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror. In it, if I am remembering correctly, the young heroes, all the children of monsters, must face off against a coordinated campaign between the school staff and the quislings within the student body to give them all new names, have them debase themselves into caricatures, and have them erase their ties with their heritage in an effort to fit in with the outside world.
I thought long and hard about how I should respond to this underhanded attempt to worm an ideological concession out of me. I could simply cut and run. I could just ignore the prompt and send my manuscript in anyway. Or, and a strange thought struck me, I could tell them off.
I sat down to write my little bio in which I was asked to bend over and pretend that reality was whatever the current ideological trend said it was with the full intent of calling fire down from heaven upon these demoniac cultists who, let us not forget, are participating in a phenomenologically religious movement that is currently castrating the next generation in its war against sexual difference, but felt a little tug, a quiet calling, to go another way.
Running felt wrong, ignoring felt wrong, but fighting too wasn’t right. Another option presented itself as I struggled with the muse, to reason, to try and touch the person behind this mad ideology. Dead for a sheep as a lamb, I’ve known reason and ridicule to be indistinguishable to those who hold this creed; anything but concession makes you an enemy, but I have been taught to love my enemies. So, I have made an audacious attempt at sincerity:
To start, I am a writer, or want to be one. I have been honing my craft for some years and am trying to get my work published. That is, really, the end of the matter. If the story pleases, let it please. As far as providing you with any pronouns, English has a serviceable amount, and they are free for your use. I, being a man and not a language, can offer you none.
With hope that we may move past this difference in our convictions, I, as a mere writer, offer you this story as a mere story.
Tale Told 