For some reason every conversation about this simple rule gets way too toxic
There’s definitely some additional nuance (like a pronouns in bio/username situation) but this should cover the broad needs of anyone who is approaching this with good faith.
AND HOLY SHIT does it get toxic. for some reason there’s no will for even this basic level of nuance. currently watching an entire anti-blahaj hate crusade over a simple misunderstanding where the left and the right conclusions of the chart got conflated as though they are the same thing.
then i tried to help clarify and got called insults.
just… so sad :(
I think one of the issues is that several of the people involved in that crusade were also banned from blahaj.
People tend to not disclose their conflict of interest.
That’s a very probably true analysis :(
Relevant meme post of what brought on a lot of those bans for onlookers.
Dare I ask?
Edit 3: I've been trying to talk to her most of the day. It's not proving fruitful. I'm holding out hope for her but she's just continuing to tantrum.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37755294
Short version: elder queer makes post replies to a post on beehaw asking if it's actually okay to stick with they/them pronouns for everyone because OOP'w autistic brain discards gender as irrelevant information (like how you cant remember your dreams or what you had for breakfast last week), so she tends to forget people's pronouns. This caused OOP to accidentally misgender someone who thought she knew their pronouns, and she's worried about hurting other people's feelings. OP angrily insists that they/them is how you address people you don't know the gender of, full stop, and then goes on a rant about how kids these days are little babies etc. Then a mod saw that post, interpreted this as gatekeeping who gets to be nb, and banned her from all of blahaj.zone.
To be clear, she is being an ass there throwing a big tantrum over getting banned. I think she will calm down soon. This seems like the
BTW, I also have this problem, Ive just learned to do a better job of hiding it because for some fucking reason when transphobes (and traumatized trans friends) hear me ask "I forgot X's gender, what was it again?" they hear "Oh no, the trans-genderism and the pronouns is so confusing, they should stick with calling themselves by their peepee and vajoojay like the founding fathers intended" and then i wake up the next day with no friends. So I've just learned to not ask for help and correct myself when i fuck up. It was also hard to learn that the apology has to be through your immediate actions by immediately correcting yourself and moving on; it is so easy to panic and apologize like you just ran over their cat, but dramatic apology + autistic RBF = what looks like passive aggressive sarcasm.
I get why this happens, and I can't be mad at trans people for being traumatized by all the transphobes. After the 3rd or 4th time you find out someone you thought was your friend secretly wants to call you a slur, you start getting paranoid. And more importantly for this subject, if someone told me that our mutual friend X misgendered someone, I am immediately blocking X's number, passing the word on to my friends, and shunning X for the rest of their life, no questions asked because that's how transphobes should be treated.
Edit: forgot she said she is a lesbian. Changed the pronouns
Edit 2: thank you kind commenter for pointing out that OP was one of the commenters on the beehaw post, not the poster. Read the comments, she came across as an old yelling about how kids these days are too soft. Edited my summary to reflect this.
see my comment history if you are truly interested. fair warning: it’s fucken bad.
Also, if you mistakenly use the wrong pronouns, apologize and respect their wishes.
We’re humans after all, and mistakes happens. No one is asking you to be perfect. People just want you to be a decent person.
If only there were gender neutral pronouns in my language 😭
In arabic we don't even have neuter or non-gendered anythings, a table is a he or she.
Not even objects are safe 😔
My only issue is when apparently someone can choose that "they", a gender neutral pronoun, doesn't apply to someone. I saw it in a recent Elliot Page post. Someone was getting ripped to shreds for talking about Elliot and saying "they". "No it's him! You're trying to minimize his identity!" was basically the response. But the person was talking about Elliots work pre and post transition and you could tell they were taking great care to not offend, and yet it was still offensive apparently. Which was then made even funnier when others chimed in to point out that Elliot specifically asks to be referred to as "They/Him".
My whole point is that some people need to cool it when it comes to gender neutral pronouns. Lest we forget, "I'm a dude, he's a dude, she's a dude, we're all dudes!"
Use their name, if you know it.
They/them it is!
yuss!
Well my language does not have a neutral pronoun so this just does not work.
Yeah, it's an English-speaking majority platform, so English chart it is. Can't remember non-English pronouns being relevant in any recent discussion. This one solves the (most) relevant problem (for most users).
That said, we have a similar problem with language limitations here and all "solutions" sound ridiculous.
I'd say default should be to offer your own name/pronouns to encourage someone to share rather than asking.
Super fair! I guess I would categorize or lump that in as a tactful and warm way of “asking” but I absolutely am with you for that suggestion. 🤗
Or call them that human over there? I do that sometimes as a joke.
There's a lot of transphobes that use they/them to not acknowledge the pronouns of trans people, but also to skirt around anti-misgendering rules of social media. I call it "passive-aggressive misgendering".
Definitely :( and it’s a super hurtful thing.
But! of course! that only happens when the offending person knows the pronouns and uses they/them anyway (right side of the flowchart). I see you are already getting downvotes from people who are so riled up they assumed for ya you meant both cases. Ugh.
Thanks for being normal ❤️
Ask them, "why do you care so much about what genitals you think I have?"
And then i use they and they get offended that i didnt use their preffered pronoun(true both for stupid conservatives and for some trans people who just have to try to ruin 10 years of progress in gender neutral pronouns)
Calling someone they/them when you don't know their pronouns is fine, and them being upset doesn't ruin anything for anyone else. Neither you nor they are harming "10 years of progress in gender neutral pronouns" as you put it. What a strange narrative.
This is the way: Introduce yourself with your own pronouns, before assuming any for the other. This will trigger them to respond in kind and then you know.
This is the why: Calling someone they/them when you don't know or forgot, is ok but not best....because if someone is passing, and is called they/them, which aren't their pronouns, can raise suspicions that the person is nb, or trans, putting them in an unsafe position. If you call everyone they/them, that you think looks trans enough to have questionable pronouns, and label cis people as their gender, then this is othering. And unfortunately this is how it plays out in real life, hardly anyone "they/thems" everyone....99 percent quick scan and assign pronouns. And if they can't, they assign they/them othering many people.
If I don't get pronouns back on introduction, then I gender people based on how they look. if someone is obviously fem presenting or at least trying to, then those are the pronouns I use, and vice versa. And if someone looks androgynous guess what I use they/them.
As a binary trans woman I'd rather you guess than use they/them. Those aren't my pronouns and it's obvious that they're not.
Labels have meaning as do the pronouns that go with them
I like my gender alot, I worked hard and still do to get and keep myself passing. I would rather not to have my gender neutered by some everyone's included tucute bullshit.
They/theming everyone misgenders most people.
And the 10 years that this shit narrative has been pushed has been the false narrative that gender doesn't exist. Gender abolition is not a good thing, and idgaf about hurting the feelings of identities that have co-opted a medical condition and turned it into a fashion statement of who can have more colors in their hair, piercings in their face, dumpier clothing, and shit takes on gender theory while loudly proclaiming to be the experts shouting down actual transex people accusing them falsely of transphobia.
This is why the right loves to pushback against us. Pretty soon I'm not going to have access to life-saving medication because men with beards can claim womanhood and normalize the bulge. Or that men's rooms need tampons. That trans men can be lesbians, and that men can get pregnant. Absolutely delusional and made this community a cesspool of support for shit causes that obfuscated the need for our protection pushing binary transex persons out of the trans umbrella.
This is so rubbish. Almost everyone is a he or she, so just use that. On the very very very rare instance you get it wrong, say sorry and use the correct one from then on. Unless you forget, the appologise again when corrected. Yes I am imply it is on the person who got called the wrong pronoun to correct the one who made the mistake.
Wouldn't it be much easier to use the grammatically well established singular they/them. That way you never run into an issue. Surely you'd do that when you encounter a name that can be used as both a female and a male name (Jessie, Les etc)
grammatically well established singular they/them
I mean, historically it's well established, but you can't deny that language has evolved in many places (at least in America) that they/them feels plural. I'm not saying they/them shouldn't be gender neutral singular pronouns, but in the dialect I was raised, it only feels correct in indeterminate situations, like "whoever stole my bike, I hope they get arrested."
Obviously language can continue to evolve where singular-they feels correct in any scenario, but if you're talking about "much easier" then that includes the random rules people collectively hallucinate.
This implies you can not tell the person's gender, which for most people is perfectly obvious. So often can cause offence. I realize not using they/them can also cause offence, but just much less often.
If were going from whats «grammatically well established» i would argue he/she is a lot more established
I've never met a person in real life who got upset because someone used the wrong pronoun once. Assuming people's gender is fine, as long as you don't double down on your assumption when someone corrects you
I tend to agree, but I do get where the other viewpoint comes from. I'm from a country where I don't believe this is a major point of contention, as long as we're respectful with each other I don't think people feel the need to make a big deal out of this, but I'm aware I'm speaking from a bubble here, others may disagree.
I do work in an international company with many anglophones from the UK and USA, and it's a much bigger point there, to the point certain expressions are banned, e.g. addressing a group as guys. I speculate that it's a bit of a cultural thing, and a language thing. As others mention, a lot of languages are Ill suited to naturally use gender neutrality. English is quite malleable that way.
I have a really hard time recognizing people's gender so I usually go along with the same pronouns others use and then inevitably feel really bad about it because of how often it's wrong. In languages without an accepted they/them equivalent I just flip flop but in English I really don't understand the need to use he/she unless it's ambiguous whether there are one or more people being spoken about.
I hate "he or she" so much. JUST SAY THEY. It sounds so clunky.
I don’t understand why this is so difficult for some people. It’s not like a whole lot has changed right?. Most everyone have already been using they/them for quite some time. The only different being is now, it’s best not to assume gender and default to they/them until asked otherwise.
The way I see it is If these people are able to make the incredibly mind-bogglingly difficult transition from who they once were, to who they are now- including not just facing, but overcoming the emotional, physical, and social challenges- in comparison, it’s should take very little effort for anyone to transition their use of pronouns to properly accommodate them.
Most everyone have already been using they/them for quite some time.
For singular when speaking about someone who is cis? I think you might be in a bubble.
It's been done for centuries
From what I know, Shakespeare did that, so it might be you who is in a bubble.
I told a friend that you had said this, and they want to know what you mean by “bubble.”
If the above example of a gender neutral sentence made sense to you- then it’s safe to say that using they/them in the singular is common enough that it would be considered a completely natural part of our lexicon.
People don't walk around with "cis" tattooed on their foreheads.
And then there are some languages where using pronouns for the secondary person is considered rude/weird in some conditions and you are supposed to use the name directly.
That's fun stuff.
Can we just start misgendering republicans?
no that is the tool of the enemy we have no need of it
I actually prefer it as the neutral singular, but everyone decided that was dehumanizing. To me it feels natural because if you don't know an animal's or a baby's gender, you call it it.
People didn’t so much “decide” that, as it was used that way by bigots specifically because it was historically only used for animals and objects. They used it as a slur to hurt folks in our community, and like any attempt to reclaim a slur, even though the reclamation is an act of power, there are going to be people who were targetted by the slur who struggle with the concept of reclamation.
use "Ms or Mrs"
And your main point, degender the male pronouns, it wouldn't work. "Man" used to mean people, male men and female men and child men – boys and girls – had different words, some of which are still around. That's why people say there's nothing gendered in "chairman" (which 50 years ago was logically equal to "chairperson", unless you count other species as people).
How to choose the correct pronouns
I followed this one chart and was instantly promoted to CFO.
We really did great work designing this fantastic flowchart.