Life

[Nachimir]

The JWs are different to most because their processes are designed to exclude any flexibility in thinking or tolerance for other religions and ideas. They're a high control group.

 

Related to that, did a fair number of other people born into it also leave (or try to) as you did? One of the members speaking to me said they'd grown up in a JW family but wasn't aware of anyone being badly affected by the effects of shunning policies as described. I got the impression they had to do a little mental loop-de-loop at that point, but I could have misread things.

 

(some edits)

 

They're on the other end of the shunning, so don't have to deal with or even see the effects. I never quite got the full experience of shunning people, because the first person I knew to leave was my own brother, living in the same house. Their advice under those circumstances is "minimise contact", but of course I got to see the effects firsthand. They refer to non-JWs as "worldly people" and like to reinforce a stereotype that worldly people are materialistic sinful liars who'll mislead you for their own advantage. Not all JWs believe that wholesale, but the process of kicking someone out then shunning them pushes them over that mental boundary into "worldly" for the more ideologically conformist JWs. Ergo, "that person has forsaken Jehovah, so I don't have to feel guilty about shunning them. They're probably full of dangerous ideas and lies". The less conformist will exchange pleasantries, but that's it.

 

Leaving the JWs is hitting the eject button on an entire culture, and if you've been following its rules well, you won't have any friends outside of it. That's one of the things that makes leaving so terrifying and difficult. On top of that, you've been living under the idea of a vengeful, judgemental god presiding over an environment of rules that are impossible for most humans to live up to. Low self esteem and gossip tend to be endemic in JW congregations as a result (or at least, they were for the entire time I was involved), so when you've not long been out, are feeling vulnerable and isolated, and bump into some JWs in public, who avoid you but point and mutter things to each other, it doesn't have the best effects on your wellbeing.

 

Teenage years are usually the point people leave, due to discovering sex, drugs, booze and lots of other forbidden stuff. I wouldn't say it's exactly a mass exodus, because the conditioning is strong, but it's a steady rumble and at times would get more insistent in certain communities and areas. Most other teenagers I knew at least used to poke the boundaries and keep secrets. I only ever saw one shotgun wedding as a result of that.

 

(edit edit: Search this page for "Worldly people" (with quotes) to see some of their typical representations and opinions of non-JWs. I generally don't like ex-JW sites because they often have axes to grind, ranging from the very specific but mundane to really weird conspiracy theories. However, the quotes in that section are representative and not cherry picking. Judging by the more recent ones, nothing has changed since the 90's in respect of this: It's not a pendulum that swings, they aren't quotes from the JW leaders going through more conservative phases. Those are their consistent, cultivated opinions on non-believers and have been for many decades. I'll stop making this post longer now!)

[ratamero]

Some of my uncles from my father's side are JWs. One of them is a missionary, he travels around Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries as a "full-time employee". He's one of the kindest, most cultured and open-minded people I've ever known. Go figure.

 

On the other side of the coin, one of my JW uncles is the legal guardian of another of my uncles, who has Down Syndrome. Recently the latter had some terrible intestinal problem with internal bleeding and was basically dead save for a blood transfusion. My uncle wouldn't authorize that. You could see on his face that it was a terrible decision for him, but he was willing to let his brother die for a stupid belief. My father had to take over and overrule him. 

[Nachimir]

I think most of them are good people most of the time, but they exist in a bad organisation with rules that sometimes make them do crappy things and think they're doing good or pleasing their god. Also, that "worldly" thing is strong subtext for all of their interactions with non-believers. It was surprising when I left to find basically the same cross section of humanity outside.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Tonight, one of my coworkers came to me about her confusion with transgender folks (there's a lot of them here in this part of the city, I mean, relatively speaking, compared to my last few years in TEXAS). She wasn't sure about how to address them as far as pronouns go. I was really pleased that she was receptive and open-minded about it all, though it may have been less about the social issues and more of a language thing she was asking about (English is her second language but she speaks it fluently, the silly-billy).

 

My faith in people in general got a bump up.

 

So, uh... how do you address them? I genuinely wouldn't know how to answer that question. Maybe this shows my shortcomings more than anything.

[Griddlelol]

I keep reading "JWs" as "SJW" 

[Mawd]

So, uh... how do you address them? I genuinely wouldn't know how to answer that question. Maybe this shows my shortcomings more than anything.

 

Well this could be completely wrong but you could assume based on what type of gendered clothing they wear. I'm not sure if it would hurt to ask them directly. I know that can piss people off because they might feel challenged or even put down for having to re-affirm their gender constantly but the alternative of misgendering someone can be cruel at worst and equally irritating at best.

 

If you want to avoid that and assuming that you can tell they're transgender you could make a socially progressive nod with a gender neutral pronoun like ze and zir. It should let you come across as well meaning and the door is open for them to correct you if they wish to.

 

That said I don't know if that's the completely correct way to go because anything I can think of saying can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. If people are put down and harassed long enough they tend to take a second look at anything said to them to make sure they're not being disrespected so there still could be some confusion.

 

I'd be really glad if anyone else could jump in with their two sense so I can conduct myself better.

[dibs]

Oh please Nachamir, release everything you have said with JW replaced with SWJ. I want to see what happens.

[Griddlelol]

If you want to avoid that and assuming that you can tell they're transgender you could make a socially progressive nod with a gender neutral pronoun like ze and zir.

 

Is it necessary to make up words like that when English has gender neutral pronouns like "they" and "their"?

 

The words aren't perfect, but I think they can be used without confusion or misconstrued rudeness. If someone said "ze" near me, I'd be confused and think they were pretending to be French. 

[Mawd]

Is it necessary to make up words like that when English has gender neutral pronouns like "they" and "their"?

The words aren't perfect, but I think they can be used without confusion or misconstrued rudeness. If someone said "ze" near me, I'd be confused and think they were pretending to be French.

Well from what I understand "Ze" and "Zir" are words members of the transgender and genderqueer community have come up with. Granted that may only be from a small subset of the online community and some people might just look at you funny. But if they're a part of those online cultural spheres then they should have encountered the terms before and it would hopefully let you communicate that you're a Jehovah's Witness SJW.

As for "they" and "their" I just really couldn't imagine using those terms to directly address someone or talking about someone with their name in the sentence e.g. "Laura tied their shoes". Also I'd worry that using those terms would denigrate their sense of personhood because those words are used for talking about someone and not to them. I think it would translate into adding social distance in my interaction with the person in front of me.

You'd be better off taking the gamble that you've used the right gendered pronoun rather than use language that to me at least is a few steps away from 'it'.

Like I said I'd be really happy if someone who has more experience in addressing trans people were to step in and share their experience.

[Griddlelol]

As for "they" and "their" I just really couldn't imagine using those terms to directly address someone or talking about someone with their name in the sentence e.g. "Laura tied their shoes".

 

It does sound weird in that example, but in others I've said in my head, less so.

 

"Frank said they want to go home." Sounds like something I might actually say currently. 

 

If I met someone called "Laura" my instinct would immediately be to call that person "her" as they've chosen a traditionally gendered name. That might not be correct, but I feel that person can correct me quite easily. Then again, why not just take their and they as the de facto words, rather than resorting to new words? 

 

 

If it was "Sam" or "Nick" then I'd have a harder time, but I'd probably just avoid saying pronouns until I was sure, which is surprisingly easy. I've become pretty adept at avoiding saying people's names because I have a weird quirk where I find it incredibly embarrassing to say someone's name out loud when they're around me, so I'd probably do fine without saying he or she. 

[neonrev]

Is it necessary to make up words like that when English has gender neutral pronouns like "they" and "their"?

 

The words aren't perfect, but I think they can be used without confusion or misconstrued rudeness. If someone said "ze" near me, I'd be confused and think they were pretending to be French. 

Using 'they' really depends on your audience understanding that you're talking about a specific person and not a group of people, and that it's a word that's also used for people whose gender you don't know or who don't identify with one. It's small and seemingly obvious, but I've had to have some awkward explanations of friends' sexual identity with strangers before because it's a fairly small number of people in the real world who've ever even considered the pro-noun thing.

On Ze, Xe, and Zhe (the ones I've actually encountered in the world, I'm sure there are others.), I always wonder how much of an improvement that would be on a wide scale. I think it'd be pretty hard to divest people from their he/she worldview, and it seems like it only increases the otherification in the meantime to use a word that starts with a x or z. Both letters usually tend to suggest more exotic/weird things in english (Zebra, xeno, zeno, xylophone, x-ray, etc) and it feels a little scifi to refer to someone as xem or talk about xyr car or whatever. It feels a bit like an alien's name. Fortunately in normal speech they just sound like a weird pronunciation and are accepted a bit easier. Also, in my obviously limited experience, people are more likely to use them if they specifically do not identify with any gender, and don't use them for people whose gender is simply not known.

Me, I just use people's first or last name to refer to them. Saves on the entire debate, and it helps me actually remember names when I first meet them.

[Mawd]

It does sound weird in that example, but in others I've said in my head, less so.

 

"Frank said they want to go home." Sounds like something I might actually say currently. 

 

If I met someone called "Laura" my instinct would immediately be to call that person "her" as they've chosen a traditionally gendered name. That might not be correct, but I feel that person can correct me quite easily. Then again, why not just take their and they as the de facto words, rather than resorting to new words? 

 

 

If it was "Sam" or "Nick" then I'd have a harder time, but I'd probably just avoid saying pronouns until I was sure, which is surprisingly easy. I've become pretty adept at avoiding saying people's names because I have a weird quirk where I find it incredibly embarrassing to say someone's name out loud when they're around me, so I'd probably do fine without saying he or she. 

 

The example I pulled came from a short article I glanced at on the subject. 

Most of the time someone's chosen name does imply their gender. My friend who was given the name Alan chose the name Allie because it better expressed herself. 

But the way I understand this conversation is that its advice on how to address people you either do not know very well or at all. If someone you do know well has informed you that they're trans then they have usually also told you what gender they are.

There are plenty of ways to avoid using names or pronouns even both at the same time. But I chose to react to the situation as one where the person would prefer to use a pronoun rather than skip past it.

 

Like neonrev implicates I guess the best advice would be to ask their name first . But there are still situations where interactions are short enough that knowing the person's name isn't usually expected e.g. working a till in a retail store. 

 

Gender neutral pronouns are not what I would prefer to open with as I would rather try to use the context I'm presented with or a direct question to figure things out. But I would think of it as handy to know them.

[Merus]

Also, that "worldly" thing is strong subtext for all of their interactions with non-believers.

 

From what I understand the fear of "worldly things" runs rampant amongst evangelicals as well. I forget whether there was important context missing from the line they're drawing from or whether it's one of those things that people should just be ignoring, like how there's two origin stories in the Bible that are mutually incompatible.

 

It's incredibly convenient for keeping people in line, though, being able to say that anything that makes you uncomfortable or question the faith should be shunned.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Well from what I understand "Ze" and "Zir" are words members of the transgender and genderqueer community have come up with.

 

Wow I didn't know that there were gender neutral terms. So are you meant to choose one and stick to it? I think it's confused me more actually.

[Mawd]

Wow I didn't know that there were gender neutral terms. So are you meant to choose one and stick to it? I think it's confused me more actually.

 

From what I can tell ze is used like 'he' or 'she' and zir is used like 'her' or 'his'.

[Bjorn]

Wow I didn't know that there were gender neutral terms. So are you meant to choose one and stick to it? I think it's confused me more actually.

 

I've seen it argued both that it represents a third gendered set of pronouns, or that it simply replace the existing pronouns, because we don't really need gendered pronouns in the first place.

[Nachimir]

From what I understand the fear of "worldly things" runs rampant amongst evangelicals as well. I forget whether there was important context missing from the line they're drawing from or whether it's one of those things that people should just be ignoring, like how there's two origin stories in the Bible that are mutually incompatible.

 

It's incredibly convenient for keeping people in line, though, being able to say that anything that makes you uncomfortable or question the faith should be shunned.

 

I think with the more unhinged belief systems, that layer of isolating fear is the main thing that stops them from crumbling away or becoming more tolerant and secular.

 

Oh please Nachamir, release everything you have said with JW replaced with SWJ. I want to see what happens.

 

Hah, GG would probably go nuts over there only being 144,000 of them or something (There are about 8 million of them… if you don't get the 144,000 reference, it's complicated and dull)

[Apple Cider]

I use they/their when it is someone's pronouns (quite a few non-binary people use they/their/them) or when their gender is unknown to me. A good way to get into this habit is to stop explicitly gendering people you don't know - random people you talk about who you assume their gender based on their appearance or name or manner. It is incredibly hard to do and takes me a moment every time of catching myself. But it's worth it as we should slowly be moving away from assuming someone's gender unless it is stated - obviously this is harder in person because there's no convenient social media profile with someone's pronouns. 

 

I have just gotten into the habit of asking people's pronouns if the situation calls for it, which is a pretty respectful thing to do. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

From what I can tell ze is used like 'he' or 'she' and zir is used like 'her' or 'his'.

 

But if you're doing that, how is that making it gender neutral? You're still distinguishing someone by their gender, but just replacing the first word with a 'z'...

 

Right? ._.

[Mawd]

But if you're doing that, how is that making it gender neutral? You're still distinguishing someone by their gender, but just replacing the first word with a 'z'...

Right? ._.

I think the point is that it means either neither or both pronouns. Depending on how someone wants to interpret the usage.

I guess there are people who view themselves as strictly gender neutral but usage in the way I initially presented was for the purpose of avoiding to misgender the person as explicitly he or she.

I guess thinking about it they and them isn't so bad of a term.

I didn't put it as the primary way to go about things more as a supplementary thing to consider.

But if it is incorrect usage then I won't use/advocate for it.

[Zeusthecat]

Hah, GG would probably go nuts over there only being 144,000 of them or something (There are about 8 million of them… if you don't get the 144,000 reference, it's complicated and dull)

I think I know what you're talking about, but only in the context of what I was taught growing up as a seventh day adventist. Is that a reference to Ellen White or a different thing? I'm always curious to know if the stuff I was taught growing up was unique to seventh day adventism or if it shared a lot of elements with other faiths that followed supposed modern prophets.

[Nachimir]

144,000 is a number in the book of Revelation, which as you probably know is thought to be written by apostle John, probably while tripping balls. For the JWs, they interpret it that 144,000 of them will be the chosen few who go to heaven and form a government for the Earth with Jesus as its monarch. They believe the rest will either live through some kind of armageddon in which all the unbelievers are killed or, if they die before it, will later be resurrected to a paradise on Earth.

 

(They also have a history of fucking up by proclaiming or heavily implying when armageddon will come. My favourite two instances of this are 1: some of the very early ones filing out onto a bridge in 1878 wearing white robes and expecting a rapture. 2: Lots of JWs getting loans and credit cards in the run up to 1975, fully expecting the world to end and to never ever have to pay anything for those sports cars, etc.)

 

They tend not to talk about the armageddon thing on the doorstep anymore, and I think have shied away from their old iconography of that and paradise, but here's a good example of the former, and of the latter. They've apparently stopped using so much imagery like that, but it relied very heavily on verdant images in which people pick fruit, build barns, pet formerly predatory animals, and inexplicably wear their national dress.

[Zeusthecat]

Ah cool thanks. I looked it up a bit and I think my confusion came from the fact that when I was taught about Ellen White having her hallucinations about people going to New Jerusalem on a giant staircase after the second coming, it was layered on top of the stuff mentioned in Revelations. So the conclusion that I remember being taught in adventist schools growing up was that only 144,000 people would make it to the top of that staircase and make it into heaven while the rest would remain on earth and burn for thousands of years. And of course, those 144,000 were entirely comprised of seventh day adventists because that was the "correct" religion. Those were pretty shitty odds either way and I spent most of my childhood figuring I wouldn't make it into that exclusive group because everyone around me seemed impossibly more pious than I was. Nothing like being depressed through large portions of childhood all because of a big game of pretend with impossible rules.

 

It's hard to keep this stuff straight too because I never know if what I was being taught was what the religion officially believed or if it was just the interpretation of whatever batshit teacher I had at the time or whatever crazy pastor was running whatever church we were attending. That shit was all over the place and even in the adventist community, there were multiple fringe groups and "crazy" churches. Like churches where they considered it a sin to beat a drum in the church because music with drums was offensive.

 

Also, random funny thing. I was taught growing up that during the second coming, Jesus would come down and save us but that there would also be fake Jesuses everywhere that were really satan in disguise tricking people to follow him. However, all of the fake Jesuses would stand on the ground while the real Jesus would levitate because he would be too pure to touch the ground of the sinful earth. So as long as you made sure to follow floating Jesus during the second coming, you were one step closer to getting to that big staircase that you would have to walk up to make it to heaven. I am not exaggerating here either, these are literally all things I was told by various religious folk as I grew up in seventh day adventist towns.

[Ben X]

But if you're doing that, how is that making it gender neutral? You're still distinguishing someone by their gender, but just replacing the first word with a 'z'...

 

Right? ._.

 

You mean replacing the first letter with a "z"? No, that's not what's happening. It's a bit confusing because "zir" seems to map phonetically to "her" rather than "his", but actually it stands alone from either (or represents both). "Ze" works better" because it rhymes with both, although I suppose one could see it as mapping closer either closer to "he" because it only has two letters or "she" because the z sounds similar to the z, but again it's intended to be an alternative to or umbrella term for both. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

But if you're doing that, how is that making it gender neutral? You're still distinguishing someone by their gender, but just replacing the first word with a 'z'...

 

Right? ._.

 

ze = he/she

zir = his/her

 

This isn't really selling the particular words well.

 

I usually use 'they' to refer to a person that I don't know and thus can't be aware of their gender. It does feel distancing though (I'd argue less so than an exotice fabricated word but that's just my gut reaction) so I usually try to avoid gendered pronouns. I'm generally pretty good at it? I learned long ago to not say people's names that much so it's less conspicuous when I don't remember and intentionally avoid saying it so I think I just adapted that practice to pronouns too. I could stand to be more conscious of it though.