All of everything nonbinary-naturalist wrote. (Not just the tldr but i cant quote a whole post, probably). It wrote an amazing post that should never have to be written.
For clarification; i don’t necessarily want this thread closed, i am however not happy with blatent misgendering apparently being fine with the mods when we have made it clear post after post about how unrespectful that is. If this is a thread for queer people, and on this forum people are supposed to be respected, the mod team cannot allow blatent disrespect and say its okay.
I know now its been addressed above in quotes so said posts should stay for continuity, but an apology from mods for allowing yet another post to go through after this thread was put into approval only mode would be nice; and not allowing any further such posts, would go a long way. Its okay to be wrong, as long as when ya learn better, ya do better.
And yet I think I do understand your position better now. If every human you ever knew mistreated you, why would you want to be one of them?
I’m happy to come across someone else who says that. In my circle, I’ve been the only one.
That doesn’t help in choosing the right pronouns for oneself, though. If, for example, I don’t think that “He” quite fits, it would be nice to have an idea what the others mean so that I can determine which one(s) might fit better. That was what prompted the question, actually.
AH! that’s why i use they/them if i can; because idgaf about my gender, i don’t fit into any gender, and i have troubles remembering nouns and many gender neutral words parse as nouns so i struggle to remember (it’s a long term lyme disease thing, losing ability to recall nouns); so meh. They/them. I’m only ‘okay’ with she/her because it takes more energy to explain more often than it gives me the warm fuzzies to have the ones i prefer to be used, I like my b**bs, have no dysmorphia about them, so for passersby in my life to use she/her the cost/benefit of explaining they/them is not good for me mental health wise. rambly because i’m tired and outa spoons today but hopefully that helps some xD
Kind of same, honestly. Like I wouldn’t call myself on the genderqueer spectrum, like, not really, though I do have a lot or resentment based on being AFAB and the ways that female people are raised, socialized, and expected to act in our country - but like, I’m fine with They/Them. I’m fine with She/Her. I’m sometime prone to using ‘dood’ and ‘gurl’ as interchangeable ways to refer to people - but of course not for anyone who would be made uncomfortable by it.
Sometimes I want to beat my face and cinch my waist and dress like a million bucks, and sometimes I want to put on a grungy band tea and go hang out in a mosh pit without misguided guys trying to protect me from the dangerous moshers.
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