In that case, each person chooses their pronouns for their own reasons, and even if we brought in another person who only uses it/its pronouns, they’d mean something different to it than they do to me, though there may be similarities.
If you want to figure out what pronouns you like best, I’d recommend imagining yourself in the third person, and describe yourself using different pronouns, and figure out which ones you like best, if any. Or have a friend or someone else you trust “test” pronouns with you – talking about you in the third person with different pronoun sets.
Or you can write a paragraph or so about yourself like someone else is writing it, then switch out the pronouns with other ones.
Sometimes you’ll know right away if the pronouns are right for you, sometimes it’ll take a while to find ones you like. And some people just have no preference at all, and will just go with “the path of least resistance” (aka, go along with what people call you), or will even accept all pronouns equally.
There’s no set “meaning” for it/its pronouns, or ze/hir, or xey/xem, or any other pronouns. You are the one who defines what they mean for you. Even if it’s something as simple as “I like how they sound” or “I think they look cool”, that’s good enough if they’re the ones (or multiple, there’s nothing stopping you from using more than one set) you choose!
To clear this up, there is no feature on Discourse that allows approval for every reply in a topic. There’s topic approval, and there’s slow mode (which limits the rate at which people can reply), but no per-reply approval. So no one approved each and every reply in this topic.
Also, those of us on staff who are involved in moderation have been following this thread closely today. It’s gotten a bit heated, and there are certainly some disagreements, but at least for me it’s also been informative. That said, we can’t devote this kind of attention to this topic while we’re not working over the long weekend, so we are temporarily closing it until May 30th.
Anyways I made free icons for allies to use anywhere you want. They’re public domain because I made them and I hate capitalism and I say so. You can download them here:
and request more flags / specific labels to ally with by PMing me here or just commenting on the web archive page if you have an account. You can buy a pre-made pin from my Threadless shop too, they’ll appear here when I’m done uploading them (which will take half an hour probably)
I also make a crap ton of pronoun pins which you can also use as icons anywhere you want:
I was gonna add image previews but then this would be giant.
Feel free to share the links / files on other social medias, anyone can use them!
Edit: For those who don’t know, autigender is a term created by and for autistic people to describe how autism affects our gender identity / the way we perceive and or understand (or don’t) gender. It doesn’t mean autism is a gender you can transition to lol.
I’m so sorry my friend, but in this case I think splitting hairs is warranted. Here’s my take:
first off, in this specific case, @sedgequeen expressed that her decision was due to trauma and distress she has experienced in the past. I really think you should be more lenient towards her, as this is a case in which you both have legitimate boundaries that are conflicting.
refusing to use someone’s pronouns can look one of three ways:
passively not using their correct pronouns.
saying “I’m not going to use your pronouns”.
actively misgendering a person.
all of these are misgendering, but 1) is not inherently hateful and even 2) can be, sometimes, in appropriate context, tolerable. 3) is just hate speech.
1 → passively not using their correct pronouns. maybe they’re lazy. maybe they forgot. correct them. if it becomes truly egregious, then a formal warning is needed. a sign of apathy after the first correction, but about 80% of the time I’ve found that the person was just… ehhhh…
2 → saying “I’m not going to use your pronouns”. this is a very common dog-whistle. it’s used as a way of denying dignity and humanity and agency to trans people. however, it is possible that a person may not be aware of its more sinister meaning. I believe that is true in this case. but the vast majority of the time, it’s being used with malicious intent.
3 → actively misgendering a person. remove that comment and if they do it again suspend them.
I appreciate everyone’s contributions to this conversation and I am learning from all of the links and back and forth how to be a better ally. I hope everyone receives the apologies they deserve.
dog whistles are so malicious because they’re designed to look totally innocent, reasonable, even morally forward. people can use them without even knowing they’re dog whistles. but if you’re the intended target, it hurts every time because you can never be sure if there was hostile intent… and then if you react strongly to, eg., “the parents’ choice of what is age-appropriate” people think you’ve gone off the deep end. because “parents’ choice” is masking “we, the hateful people in power, think it should be a felony to mention within any classroom at any age that gay people exist”. (see: Florida’s “don’t say gay” law).
Please. What is a respectful and polite, neutral pronoun, to use - when I don’t know, and you haven’t told me? In English we can use one, one is hungry it is lunch time here. Is that okay? Or they, is neutral and respectful? Other languages have actively created new neutral pronouns.
‘They/them’ is usually pretty safe as a neutral if you dont know. It kind of pulls double duty both as a plural pronoun and a genderless individual pronoun
Completely true. For the last 4 years we’ve had a lovely pair of dedicated gay male mallard ducks visiting our garden, they behave in just the same way as a male/female pair that also visit. In fact the gay couple are more loving to each other, preening themselves and each other on our lawn, chasing off other mallards that come too close, its lovely! :D Nature is nature whatever the species and love is love.
If you don’t know someone’s pronouns (in English), they/them is the best way to go, then you can use whatever their pronouns are once they or someone else tells you.
EX:
You see someone walking down the street with a cool haircut. Instead of assigning he or she pronouns based on what you assume of their gender, you can say, “Wow, did you see their hair? That was so cool!”
You could also use one, I suppose, but it might confuse people since that’s usually not used in everyday conversation these days.
It would be interesting for a new English pronoun set to be created for specifically when you don’t know someone’s pronouns, but it wouldn’t stay with that specific role for long, lol, I know lots of people who’d immediately snatch it up (positive) to use as a personal pronoun.