Outdated honours

The Queen’s Birthday honours list recognises those we admire and look up to. Photographs and interviews of dames and knights headline newspaper, radio and television as we cherish and acknowledge their significance and importance to our communities.

But what signals do ‘‘dame’’ and ‘‘knight’’ send to people who identify as non-binary? What sense of exclusion must they experience, faced with their impossibility of ever being a dame or a sir? Not to mention the daily confrontations and presumptions of Miss, Ms, Mrs and Mr; Sir and Madam?

The increasing use of Mx might be a compensatory Band-Aid on a flawed and anachronistic custom, but even the former Mr and Mrs Potato Head have apparently discarded these outdated descriptors. Perhaps we too should rethink the use of titles and their crude fixing of class, marital status and gender in these times celebrating diversity?

As for the English ‘‘dame’’ and ‘‘knight,’’ no doubt their time for us has gone. Let’s ensure that everyone in Aotearoa can see themselves represented in our honours system. Next year’s inaugural Matariki holiday might be a good opportunity to institute a new kaupapa and nomenclature that all of our diverse communities can feel included in.

Christine McCarthy, Karori