Six years ago, I remember discussing a pitch with a reporter. It was an LGBTQAI+ centred story that we were considering doing to commemorate Pride Month, in June. When it came in, she insisted that one of the people be referred to as “they”. Annoyed at the grammar challenge, I had shot back: “Tell them they (emphasising the word for sarcasm) need to decide to be one or the other.” I was woke enough, I believed. The reporter, discomfited perhaps at my tone and at the gender-identifying words, removed all pronouns. Today, I hope I am a better listener, not just to reporters, but also to people who have lived experiences different from mine.
A few months ago, I sat among a crowd of college-goers around the age of my son, at a day-long session by the collective Queer Chennai Chronicles and the media organisation The News Minute, supported by Google News Initiative, to understand how LGBTQAI+ people would like to see themselves represented in the media. There were a few things that really stood out: that this is not a single community but many communities; that in a formal setting, people who do not fall into the she-he ‘classification’ can be addressed as Mx. (pronounced mux); that clothes are now gender-neural.
In sentences, this is how these three would look: “The Pride parade is a gathering of LGBTQAI+ communities…”; “Mx. Krishna spoke about his work in astrophysics,” because we must quote professionals who are from these communities on subjects and identities other than their gender or sexual orientation, and not just in June; “Suhail wore a saree to the concert” and not “Suhail wore women’s clothes to the concert.”
