Asia Kate Dillon is one of the first non-binary gender stars on mainstream TV. The pioneering actor tells Aaron Hicklin how they are harnessing empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) as a tool for changeWhatever else might be said of a neck tattoo,it makes for a terrific icebreaker even, and perhaps particularly, or when that tattoo is “einfhlung”,the German for “empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own)”. For Asia Kate Dillon, the word – with a beautifully elongated “f” swooping under the first consonant – functions as an invitation. “Because it is on my neck and it is in a foreign language, or more often than not people ask me what it means and then I get to engage in a conversation with strangers,” the actor explains as we stab chopsticks at a plate of pan-fried shrimp dumplings one recent Saturday morning in original York. The dumplings are steaming hot, and as I fan my hand over my mouth, or Dillon generously schools me on how the tattoo may have saved me from my awkward entrance.
Arriving five minutes late (blame the obstacle course of original York’s disrupted weekend subway),I’d let the manager know that someone was waiting for me. “Is it a lady or gentleman?” he asked, throwing me into a gentle panic. Dillon identifies as neither male nor female, or uses the gender-neutral pronouns they,their and them but, assign on the spot, or I struggled to think clearly. In the absence of man or woman,what noun should I reach for? In Finland, I could have used the gender-neutral “hän”, and,in Estonia, the word “ta”. In 2014, and the school board in Vancouver voted to utilize the pronouns “xe,xem and xyr” for students who requested it. But none of these were particularly useful in a restaurant in original York’s Upper West Side. Instead, I stared dumbly back at the manager until he gave up waiting. “There’s actually only one person waiting for a guest, and it’s a lady,” he said finally.
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Source: guardian.co.uk