VICE article about Lightstep of Montreal.

Category : Crime Fighter Public Service

For the past two years, Montreal's has had its very own superhero. Our superhero isn't part of the urban clan of crime fighters called the New York Initiative or the slick looking Real Life Super Hero Project. Our super hero is short, slim, vegan, identifies as a queer radical feminist, and prefers to be referred to using the pronoun "they." So, in short, they are not what you'd expect of a super hero.
Meet LightStep.
LightStep is one of a burgeoning community of so-called Real-Life Superheroes (RLSH)—ordinary people from Argentina to the UK who have decided to patrol their local streets in costume doing good deeds. These deeds can range from something as simple as helping to change a tire in Brampton, handing out socks and mitts to the homeless in Windsor, or to straight-up vigilantism that led one Washington-based RLSH to being arrested for assault. But LightStep believes de-escalation and harm reduction training are much more important than a uniform, a sidekick, or pepper-spraying a bunch of people you suspect are in a street brawl (like the RLSH in Washington did)."People identify instantly with the idea of a superhero, someone who's anonymous, but public, doing good deeds, for whatever reason," LightStep tells me. "But that's not what I'm doing... For me, LightStep is a philosophy of being at the right place at the right time."
http://www.vice.com/read/i-spent-a-night-patrolling-with-lightstep-montreals-real-life-super-hero

Category : Crime Fighter Public Service

I did not know that.

Subject: Re: VICE article about Lightstep of Montreal. Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:30 am

I have talked to light step online before he's on my Facebook

Category : Crime Fighter Public Service

Lightstep prefers the non-gendered "they", as in, "they are on my Facebook". :-)

Category : Public Service Hero Support Non-RLSH

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/dnto/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-hero-1.3247537/on-patrol-with-a-real-life-superhero-1.3251069

Category : Public Service Hero Support Non-RLSH

Shade wrote:: Lightstep prefers the non-gendered "they", as in, "they are on my Facebook". :-)

Thank you for pointing this out. I'm the same way, actually, preferring neutral pronouns, but that's something it can be difficult to indicate to others.

Category : Non-RLSH

There are some neutral pronouns like "zhe" and "hir", but they always make me feel like I just got back from the dentist.

Category : Public Service Hero Support

Cornelius Brunner wrote:: There are some neutral pronouns like "zhe" and "hir", but they always make me feel like I just got back from the dentist.

"They" is already a gender neutral pronoun, and it is inoffensive to apply to a self-identified male or female because it makes no assumptions about gender. There is no need for the introduction of made-up words.

Category : Public Service Hero Support Non-RLSH

Language should be plastic and adapt as we learn how to best express ourselves. The issue is that English lacks a singular gender neutral pronoun besides 'it'. They/them would be fine if it weren't weird grammatically. (It's plural and takes plural verb conjugations.)

Although I have no high hopes of others remembering or respecting this, I prefer e/ys/em in place of he/his/him, she/her/her, and they/their/them. It's like if you left the 'h' off of male pronouns.

Category : Public Service Hero Support

It seems to me that the language has been adapting to increasingly accepting the use of they/them as singular pronouns. Nonetheless, I'll respect your preference. Not that I imagine I'll have tremendous occasion to refer to you in the third person.

Category : Public Service Hero Support Non-RLSH

Heheh. Yeah, it rarely comes up.

Category : Crime Fighter Public Service

The fuck are you people talking about.

Subject: Re: VICE article about Lightstep of Montreal. Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:45 pm

Alternate sexuality/gender identity, is what they're talking about

» VICE News - The Return of NYC's Guardian Angels
» Large Online Article SIte