I’ve been waiting until after Christmas day to make this post, but some of our communities recently have had a lot of noise and upset over someone that uses neopronouns that most people are unfamiliar with.
So I want to make this clear. A persons pronouns are to be respected. This is true when the user is using neopronouns that you’re unfamiliar with. It’s true even if you think someone is trolling. Pronouns are not rewards for good behaviour. They aren’t only to be respected when you like the person you’re interacting with, or if their pronouns “make sense” to you. Trolls, spammers, twitter users, it doesn’t matter who they are, your options are to respect their pronouns, or to not engage with them.
I really want to re-iterate the importance of this. Gender diverse folk are undermined, invalidated and questioned at every step of our lives. As a community, we need to be working to undo that, not creating more of it, and that means there is no space for treating pronouns (including neopronouns) as a reward for good behaviour.
This isn’t a free reign for trolls and spammers. The rules still apply. Trolling, spamming, etc will continue to be dealt with, but it’s not an excuse to act as if respecting someones pronouns is optional.
It doesn’t really matter what you think about the person, the point is to take their word for it. If making people accept neopronouns is trolling then it’s not a bad thing and I am personally not upset by it. If that did somehow “discredit” me I would argue that it only reflects badly on those who think my acceptance of it is bad, they are using it as a weak excuse to attack me.
Using they may be considered misgendering if you know that that person doesn’t also go by they, neo-pronouns or otherwise.
It makes a mockery of real gender issues. I fully support anyone who wants to be anywhere on the spectrum of existing genders. What I’m not sure I support is indulging people’s possible mental illness by pretending it’s ok that they believe they’re a fictional creature that only exists in fantasy.
I’m really not trying to sound callous or offend anyone, but that’s just not the same thing and I don’t believe it should be treated with the same level of seriousness as actual gender fluidity.
We know that it is possible for people to be assigned one sex at birth, but then fit anywhere in the spectrum. We also know that it is not possible for someone’s gender to be “unicorn.” Because unicorns aren’t real, and even if they were, they are not on the human gender spectrum.
I’m sure everyone will tell me how I’m wrong but whatever. This has nothing to do with transphobia. The opposite, in fact.
When people on the left legitimize these people’s obviously absurd claims, it is used as a cudgel to harm the trans community. It legitimizes all of those stupid, “litter boxes in schools” things in many people’s minds. It does more harm than good.
Seriously. I’m fine with neopronouns that relate to the actual gender binary or spectrum. Something that says you’re male, female, somewhere in between, some oscillating state along the spectrum, or even a pronoun saying you don’t exist along the spectrum at all. But the key distinction here is that any neopronoun must relate back to the male/female gender spectrum. Otherwise you’re not describing gender, you are describing personality traits. Every personality trait and characteristic is not a gender.
I don’t quite understand your point, how can a pronoun denote that one is ‘somewhere in between male and female’ or even express more complex state as in your example? The idea looks impossible to implement to me, an example would definitely help
The umbrella term for this is nonbinary, and people often use they, or if they use neopronouns it’s something like xir.
The parent commenter’s point is that nonbinary identities typically relate back to the conventional gender spectrum in some way, whereas dragon does not and seems more like a fursona or character trait thing.
This is not made easier by the fact that “dragon” is a proper noun, and in fiction there are male and female dragons.
so we’re back to gender being indistinguishable from biologial sex, and there being only two settings with a option for some mixing of the parts on occasion? every single fucking time gender comes up we end up back here.
This “summary” you have proposed is not an accurate represntation of what the other person in this thread is arguing.
Men are as made up as unicorns, but we all respect men’s gender identities, and we should.
i could identify as a unicorn if i want and for you to think you need to fight against that makes you a bad person. Who are you to say the self images others can or cannot have?
If you think you can just identify as something at will, you don’t understand gender. That attitude is an insult to the entire transgender community. Gender identity is not some fun feather you just stick in your cap. It’s an immutable trait. You don’t choose your gender identity, you simply have one.
If you think that gender is immutable, you are the one with the misunderstanding around gender. What do you think trans people change when they transition if not their gender?
Gender is a performance. You absolutely can change it or choose not to perform it altogether. Please educate yourself.
That’s maybe the most helpful argument I read here, I think I should reconsider what neopronouns are about.
Good thing no one asked you.
In other words, the correct response to someone demanding you call them what is almost certainly a troll neopronouns is to block them. Or, the equivalent in the real world is, “I’m not going to misgender you. I’m going to tell you to fuck off and never talk to me again. If that really is your gender, I guess I don’t like associating with people of that gender. Goodbye.”
Removed by mod
The reason people say these one or two users are trolling is not because of their pronouns. It’s because they demand accommodations that go well beyond pronouns and most of their posts are playing the victim.