1y ago

So, on pronouns.

I have a few questions on how to best behave to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible without sounding bad. I hope you guys don't hate me.

I'm just a straight male. Are my pronouns he/him? Is that how I should tell people? Do you actually tell them as you meet them ? Do I have to wait for a certain social cue ?

How about online. Should I tell people or have it on my personal profile somewhere?

And about respecting other people's pronouns. How do i figure them out ? Is it a big faux pas if I don't before I know them ? Is it a faux pas if I refer to someone I just met and I assumed to be male as he/him?

I've never seen anyone referring to anyone irl by non conventional pronouns. Is it an actual thing or is it currently being pushed to make the world a more inclusive place?

I'd love some help with all of this.

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166 comments

Your pronouns are the ones you want to be referred to as, its that simple. So yeah, he/him if thats what you want people to use.
As for gender neutral pronouns, I just use them by default for everyone, especially on the internet when you have no idea who you are talking to as it is all anonymous (unless they have specified their pronouns in their bio/profile of course)
But overall you just get in the habit of using "they/them" unless explicitly you know their gender.
Once you get in the habit of it, it becomes more natural and you stop thinking about it.
Thats pretty much all there is to it, its quite simple and people who moan and complain about gender stuff are either:
Lazy, and dont want to put in the 1% of effort it requires to not be shitty
Really just bigoted but cant admit it out loud, so they complain about such things as a dog whistle to other bigots
Are extremely misinformed about what is expected of them. They seriously think the real world is out to get them, and that if they misgender someone they'll get attacked for it (in reality maybe 1 person coughs uncomfortably and they get informed as an aside awkwardly). Non zero chance these folks also think vaccines cause autism and 5G causes cancer.
- Or... hear me out... this is insanity being given a voice and should be pushed back against, like so many other unhealthy things.
  Yep, that does in fact sum it up
  
  No idea wtf you are talking about, but you sound like someone in section 2 or 3.
  But Ill just quote you, yourself, from something you wrote 6 days ago:
  People are rather ignorant as a whole. Many of us here probably use our brains for genuine thought, but I find that to be the exception.
  Look at the shit people focus on as important and how they mimic what they see and parrot what they hear and it becomes clear how they can’t even get simple sayings right.
  While you were referring to people using common phrases entirely wrong, I think it applies to what you have written here.
  There is nothing unhealthy about being grammatically correct. There is nothing new about this either. The pronouns They/Them are ancient as hell and have been a part of the English lexicon for centuries. It is not conceptually a remotely novel idea to use gender neutral pronouns in a gender neutral way.
  Full stop, its that simple. There is nothing political, social, or whatever about using they/them.
  It is purely grammatically correct, and always has been.
  Consider this
  Completely subtract the whole trans thing away, all recent kerfuffle, and just consider this very simple scenario that is not anything new, and is grammatically an occurrence that would have happened even hundreds of years ago.
  Imagine you have discovered in a public place a personal belonging of someone, it is clearly valuable and has initials on it. You dont know the person's name, and you don't know who they are. You definitely do not know the person's gender.
  Now, answer me this simple question: Would or would not the following statement aloud, even hundreds of years ago, be grammatically correct English?
  "Someone lost their belonging! We should get it back to them, they probably miss it!"
  Note how in this case we are still using Gender Neutral Pronouns, because we do not know the person's gender
  Even hundreds of years ago, this would have been absolutely normal to say and grammatically correct. Gender Neutral Pronouns were in use in even extremely old books you can still find and read today.
  
  I already think you are off your rockers. Seeing that much text and the bits of glanced at confirmed it.
  Write more essays to support clear unnecessary complexity in langauage. But know this: only people drinking the same Kool aid as you will read that much nonsense.
  
  So, you're entire response effectively boils down to:
  "Rather than actually read what someone has written, I am going to choose ignorance and make assumptions about what the text contains so as to avoid the possibility I may have to question my own viewpoint"
  Look mate, if you wanna ignore what people say and not even bother to read it, out of fear that you might possibly learn something new, that's on you.
  But later in life, as the world begins to advance past you and every day you feel more and more left behind, remember that these moments were all the sorts of points when people offered you a hand to help you catch back up and keep pace with everyone else, and you slapped that hand away.
  I can't possibly speak as to why. Willful ignorance? Fear of confronting a mistake you perhaps made? Pride? Bigotry? Hate?
  Who knows.
  But in the end, you probably won't bother to read any of this either.
  Nothing about what I wrote above was "nonsense" or "drinking the Kool aid"
  It was a fairly basic grammar lesson, covering a topic you should have learnt about in gradeschool.
  The fact something as basic as the topic of how gender neutral pronouns work, something that has existed for centuries in the English Lexicon, has produced such a response from you as to say I am "off my rocker", is fascinating... and sad.
  I don't really know how to approach the concept of someone being informed that the words "They" "Them" and "Their" have been around for a long long time, caused them to respond with "you are off your rockers"
  Mostly just makes me sad to see how deeply your school system has done you a disservice, and failed you. Shame really.
  
  Chill dude, seriously.
  
  Can we not dig up people's comment history to win arguments? That's kinda toxic.
  
  If you dont like people using your own words against you, don't post it on the internet where the entire world can see it.
  What, exactly, is toxic about holding someone to their own word?
  What is toxic, precisely, about pointing out how a persons own statement mere days ago directly contradicts their current stance now?
  If highlighting a persons inconsistencies and self contradictions is toxic, then so I shall be. I have zero issue with calling people out on their bullshit though.
  Don't like it? Stop posting on the public of the internet on a forum where your words will be marked down for the rest of history (or at least, until Lemmy instances all suddenly stop being used, which likely won't be anytime soon)
  
  There's a basic expectation, when you make an argument on a public forum, that it'll be judged on the content of the argument, not on who posted it. If you want to look through their history to see if they're a troll, and then just ignore them if they are, there's nothing wrong with that.
  What you did was say "you're stupid and lazy," but for no good reason, you used that guy's own words to say it. That was entirely unnecessary. It didn't prove any inconsistency, it just proved that, like many people on Lemmy, the guy thinks a lot of people are dumb.
  What is non-toxic about using someone's own words from past threads to insult them when you already have enough of a text wall to make your point?
  
  What you did was say “you’re stupid and lazy,”
  Extremely reductive and explains why you viewed it as toxic.
  That is not what I said, at all. You have focused on the wrong parts of what I quoted, and ignored the context of my statements surrounding the quote.
  If you read what I wrote, you should see that was not what I said at all.
  So yeah, I guess if you quickly skim over what I wrote, not really reading it much, focus on the quote I called out, and assume there is some sort of insult buried in their to be dredged up and squint your eye's hard enough, you can draw such a conclusion.
  But I'd recommend go back and read what I wrote instead.

166 comments

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