Rhetorical Analysis Of Transgentral Bathrooms

Have you ever not felt accepted in society? What about in your family? Jalia Fischer’s dialogue is an intimate depiction of a fight for acceptance between a mother and child. When Laik tells their mother, Jill, that they plan to go by they/them pronouns in college, a disagreement ensues. Jill argues that “[a]s a society, we’ve made up words to refer to a singular person and those pronouns are not one of those words” (Fischer). Not only does Laik in the dialogue successfully convince their mother to try her hardest to use the proper pronouns, but the dialogue effectively fights for greater acceptance of non-binary individuals in readers as well. Fischer achieves this by skillfully utilizing good awareness of the rhetorical situation, all three

When discussing gender-neutral bathrooms, Laik references the copious amount of search results with the keywords “Transgender Teens, Bathrooms, Sexual Assault Risk, Higher Rates” in order to make the point to Jill that having bathrooms that they feel comfortable in is a necessity (Fischer). Jill analyzes the issue through the lens of her cisgender privilege, while Laik opens up another perspective by using the articles as evidence to prove to Jill that non-binary people are more unsafe in bathrooms. Another example of Fischer utilizing logos is when Laik explains how difficult it is to navigate life outside of what is typically accepted by society: “Like, if gender was a choice I would stick with the gender I was assigned at birth” (Fischer). Throughout their argument, Jill argues that “[t]he LGBTQ community needs to come up with better words than they/them. Find words that don’t already have meaning” (Fischer). But through Laik’s logical argument, they convey that they can not simply choose different pronouns, and if they could, they would have many fewer struggles in their lifetime. They go by they/them pronouns because that is what they identify with and what is well established in the LGBTQ community. Fischer continues this thread through specifically an ethical evaluation argument that Laik

Laik employs an ethical evaluation argument that identifying as non-binary makes them no less deserving of respect from their mother than when they didn’t identify that way. Laik also uses a proposal argument, since Laik is asking Jill to use they/them pronouns to refer to them. Jill’s main argument is a definitional one that states that they/them pronouns must refer to more than one person. Jill’s definitional argument is not disproved but instead, it is rendered effectively useless in favor of the happiness of her child. Jill is convinced by Laik’s points paired with the different forms of rhetorical appeals that Laik demonstrates throughout the disagreement. Although Laik does not pick apart Jill’s point, it is still proven to the audience how Jill held a flawed mindset through Laik’s arguments, so this dialogue successfully argues Fischer’s