I’d even go simpler than that. “If calling people by their preferred pronouns is one of the hundred biggest challenges…” Inserting “correct” into the statement just begs to get into an argument with a conservative and feels like you’re trying to force them to accept a different reality than they want to.
IMHO it’s simply a personal preference thing. Let people live how they want to live. You don’t have to convince everyone that Sally is really a woman trapped in the body of a man, you just have to say that it’s her preference you call her as a “she”. People should have the freedom to define themselves. That’s it. End of story.
My conservative neighbor brought up trans stuff thinking he’d use all the conservative media talking points and my answer was simply “it doesn’t really bother me. I’m a live and let live kind of guy. If they want me to use a different pronoun I’ll do my best to switch to that pronoun.” If you spin it as a freedom instead of a reality then it’s easier to accept.
That’s a fair point. When I said “choose” I meant that they did not necessarily go with what they were assigned at birth. So it was “choose” in the sense of choose to be honest about who you are. I guess saying coming out of the closet would be more accurate. Sorry for the confusion.
that’s what tolerance is. not tolerating them is being intolerant, and self-defeating ultimately.
sorry, should we go an extirpate the Amish because they don’t accept lgbt+ people in their community? or another community that disagrees with lgbt identities? are we going to bomb the middle east in the name of trans rights? those are utter ridiculous ideas, so is the idea of being ‘stamping out intolerance’. all that tells me is you think others should conform to your beliefs or be removed.
no, we’re not. because that’s insane. we tolerate the intolerate all the time. just like you don’t scream at your annoying co-worker who bores you to tears about sports or wahtever shit they try to chat you up about.
No one is suggesting that only fascism can prevent fascism. It’s the ‘right to refuse service’ when people are being an asshole, and you have to exercise that right when people go too far. There have to be some consequences for being intolerant in order to maintain a tolerant society.
Where I live in liberal leftie land… people are 100% often totally for facism, as long as it’s targeted at the ‘right’ people. And ironically, also they all bend over backwards to accommodate assholes as long as have a minority identity, because you know, it’s perfectly ok to treat people like shit because you’re categorically oppressed.
And in the few spaces that are generally open to everyone… they get shit on by these same supposed tolerant people, becuse these spaces are not ‘safe’ if the evil bad majority is allowed into them.
It’s pure insanity. Largely fueled by nitwits who have no experience with genuine oppression and tell me I’m an asshole when I tell them my stories of genuine racist and sexism, because it makes them ‘uncomfortable’. lol
There IS a correct answer, though. If someone says, “My name is John”, you don’t get to tell them, “Well you look like a James to me, so I’m only going to call you James”. That would be incorrect. You don’t get to define other people’s existence like that.
Same thing. ‘John’ isn’t a preferred name. It’s his name. Calling him a different name would be incorrect just like using different pronouns.
We had a temp receptionist called Joyce at my job. She said that at her old job they called her Mama J, and indicated that she would like to be called that here as well. I guess we were all assholes who defined her existence by calling her Joyce.
Nicknames aren’t pronouns, they’re nicknames. If her legal name was Mama J and you didn’t call her that, yeah, that would probably constitute harassment over time and her asking you to call her by her legal name.
What would actually be comparable is if you addressed her with male pronouns. Since the discussion was about pronouns, not nicknames.
Isn't using \they\ is just better all around because
Not everyone identifies as binary, so they makes it better for everyone
Not everyone is willing to come out and reveal their identity, especially at workplace, so why only use correct term with those who reveal themselves. It is not relevant at work, in fact it may lead to biases
Specific pronouns do increase cognitive overload for everyone. Imagine trying to remember not only names but also pronouns of 100s of colleagues and friends. Linkedin has started adding pronouns? If you forget, someone will get offended.
Now even conferences are manufacturing pronouns pins. These pins get discarded and this just causes more waste
\They\ is just simpler and better for everyone. I think we can even start to eliminate \he\ and \she\ to make more inclusive society.
Yeah, let people live. But also, let me live. Let me define myself the way I want. Stop telling me what the fuck to say and do and think and labeling anything that is ‘different’ than your way of thinking ‘bad and wrong’.
I agree with most of the sentiment, but we don’t let children go around saying things (especially wrong things) that offend people just because they believe them. Why should we accept when an adult does it?
My conservative neighbor brought up trans stuff thinking he’d use all the conservative media talking points and my answer was simply “it doesn’t really bother me. I’m a live and let live kind of guy. If they want me to use a different pronoun I’ll do my best to switch to that pronoun.” If you spin it as a freedom instead of a reality then it’s easier to accept.
That sounds to me like he realized he couldn’t have the argument he wanted to have, not that he accepted anything. Edit - but I generally agree with your overall point.
It’s an inherently anti conservative thing, funny enough. At least with how some conservative voters think – Keep government out of it and let people live how they want to. Respect how they want to live, as a good neighbor.
I agree with you that spinning it as freedom is a good way to do it. You could probably put a Christian tilt on it as well.
Perhaps we could all just use he/her for everyone because its less typing (e and r right next to each other vs im on him or he on she) and less space taken up on screens and paper? It would end run the haterade bigots looking to stir shit up and the self serving jackasses that inject themselves as the main character in every else’s life choices and experiences.
In my own case, I only really take issue with the singular vs plural pronouns because they/them implies multiple people. Declaring they/them as your pronoun feels like an awkward adjustment to force on everyone else, not at all from a gender fluid or gendered language position, just from a logical expedience of exactness of language position.
We make all this shit up anyway, so let’s just collectively define a shortest pronoun to represent individuals universally. Equality of respect among peers.
I’ve been arguing this for a while and I don’t understand why so many people are against it.
He/Him: okay i guess
She/Her: weird change and doesn’t fit previous convention
He/Her: actually builds off of each other
That and while the distinction between Male and Female pronouns is kind of pointless, having a distinction between singular and plural pronouns is actually a helpful feature.
I mean, my only real argument is about efficiency and language exactness for the sake of clarity of meaning. Here’s a version based on my suggestion:
“This person understands pronouns, if everyone was like her then no one would use they are them to refer to one person.”
I’m not attacking pronoun users, I’m advocating for more efficient pronoun usage rather than arbitrarily requiring others to redefine their pronoun usage for every single individual that wants to use a different unique pronoun. Why, you ask? A pronoun is a shortened identifier than can be used in many different instances to represent a noun, in general, individual pronouns are a substitute for individual names.
Your name is the actually unique identifier more-so than any pronoun is or needs to be.
They/them as a singular is really not the confusing. You’d have to come up with an extremely contrived example for it to be problematic. People have been using ‘they’ as a singular pronoun for centuries when the gender isn’t known: “Someone left their umbrella, I hope they come back for it.”
It’s not that contrived to have two subjects in a sentence be a single person and a group of people. I have personally been in situations where someone was confused about the use of the singular them. Obviously it’s possible to understand in most circumstances, but why not make it easier? Especially when it’s a simple solution that also stops most of the misgendering people experience.
‘They/them’ has been used for singular people for centuries.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. Except for the old-style language of that poem, its use of singular they to refer to an unnamed person seems very modern. Here’s the Middle English version: ‘Hastely hiȝed eche . . . þei neyȝþed so neiȝh . . . þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.’ In modern English, that’s: ‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together.’
Yes and languages evolve. I also worry that your same sort of historial logic can be used in favor of preserving gendered language and traditional gender definitions that is contrary to the goals here.
I’m arguing for a standard usage, he/her for everyone covers always having a singular standardized pronoun so that they/them can be used as plural pronouns without the potential confusion that you may be talking about more than one person in the same literal contextual frame of a discussion. Preciseness of language improves the quality of communication.
Even in that example, and perhaps the modern English translation is just incorrect in its wording, “Each man hurried… til they drew near” is still a plural representative form of usage, as ‘each man’ is an implied amount of more than a singular man.
To say “Each man hurried… til he drew near… where William and his darling were lying together” creates a confusion of singular subject and does not work since ‘each man’ and ‘they’ represents more than a single self identifying entity.
No, not cool. Languages do in fact change over time, regardless of what you or I may think, do or want.
I never demanded others conform to what I want, I argued in favor of an idea that has evolved over time from my own personal growth and life experiences, and it’s a suggestion that is certainly open for discussion.
This was shared as a thought out consideration meant to improve on existing language in several ways, including:
as a compromise and simplified solution on pronoun gendering,
more exactness when discussing single individuals or multiple individuals,
and as a pronoun that is inclusive of everyone without having to talk down to people you disagree with.
I don’t know if you just constantly see red when you go to reply on certain thread topics, but not everything is or needs to be a reactionary agitative internet fight. Have a nice day.
So that means that’s the best way for it to work in the future? Having a distinction between singular and plural is useful, so why *not adjust our language and repurpose the not useful gendered pronouns?
I understand that, my point is that they’re not useful. Or at least it would be much more useful to have a singular and a plural pronoun, because that distinction is more relevant to modern speech.
Language is as useful as people make it and people have been happy to use the singular ‘they’ along with gendered pronouns for centuries. I don’t see the issue.
Are we not intelligent enough to make language whatever we want it to be? We actually do that all the time with political correctness and ungendering words like policeman.
I’m not obligating anything or asking for any accommodation. I’m trying to make an argument for a better system than what we currently have, whereas you just seem to be saying ‘change is stupid’.
No, I’m saying you can’t force people to change their language if they don’t want to no matter how much better you personally think it would be some other way. You can ask, but I don’t know why anyone would agree in this case.
Dude, we’re probably the only 2 people on earth who are going to see this conversation, how am I trying to force anything? The responses you’ve given have made you seem like a very close minded person. If you don’t agree with what I’m saying that’s fine, but if you’re going to engage in a debate then please address the things I’m actually saying. Otherwise I’m just going to stop responding.
Cool, I wasn’t talking about this conversation and I was addressing what you were actually saying, so I’m guessing you’ll have no problem continuing to respond.
From what I recall from briefly studying German, there’s still a masculine/feminine/neuter pronoun in all 4 cases. Couldn’t you just use the appropriate one in each case?
Okay, then you use whichever English pronoun you wish to use. Again, pretty simple. I really don’t think this is something you couldn’t have figured out for yourself just by spending time around English speakers or even just watching English-language media or listening to English-language music.
Es geht nur um das Geschlecht, also er/sie/es. Mann kann das gleiche auf deutsch machen, die Fälle haben eigentlich nichts damit zu tun.
Es geht nur darum, wie sich der Person fühlt. Leute mit eine biologische “Zwischen-Zustand” sind ein gutes Beispiel für uns “0815” leute. Sollte ich sie oder er sagen zur eine Person mit weiblichen Büßen und einen Penis? Die leute (und auch andere die sich als nicht Standard fühlen) wollen einfach selber einschneiden wie man sie adressiert.
(Entschuldigung wegen meinen Grammatik-Fehlern, mein Deutsch wird ständig schlimmer)
Yep, pretty much what UNY0N said. It is about the gender, not the pronouns per se. It is an English thing that they have gendered pronouns when mostly all other stuff in the language is (assumed not) gendered. Such meticulus discussion of pronouns detached from gender makes me wonder what your reaction would be if someone held a door open for you and then called you Fraulein. Would you feel misgendered then?
Most commonly used English pronouns are typically listed as “he/him”, “she/her”. Sometimes people add possessive forms as well ("ie “she/her/hers”. “They/them”, “she/they”, “he/they”, “they/he”, “they/she”, “he/she”, “any” are other common options. There’s not hard rules though.
English also has cases, we just don’t think of them much. It’s why pronouns are typically given as nominative/objective pairs: she/her, they/them, etc. So, similarly in German you’d probably only need to give one or two examples to make it clear which set to use. Or give all four.
My experience has been that transgendered people will correct you politely when accidentally misgendered. They get it. They don’t like it, but they get it.
It’s the cisgendered people who get offended when they are accidentally misgendered (i.e. calling a cis-female who has masculine features “he/him”).
No different than assuming a fat woman is pregnant or a man with a high voice is gay. And the embarrassment is felt all the same, for both parties.
Okay imagine that… but with an internal crushing anxiety knowing that under best case there will be probably around five somewhat invasive follow up long answer questions either about your personal history or about trans people’s existence in general. Then an optional depressing thing people think is them being magnanimous where they say “I don’t get it but okay.” OR they look at you like you grew another head and walk swiftly away to watch/glare you with furtive long stares or try and speed run whatever brief social interaction you are participating in like you have the plague.
People genuinely do care considering Jordan Peterson’s entire career is based on the whole “you can’t force me to use your pronouns” bullshit that no one was trying to force him to do in the first place.
No, I’m saying bigots and assholes care. You can be sane and be a bigot and/or an asshole. And there a huge number of such people.
And if you mean that people who know what their gender is are loony and would prefer it if people didn’t get it wrong, you are probably loony yourself.
Your point seems to be than anyone who cares about repeatedly being called “she” when they’re a man is crazy rather than just a man who doesn’t want to be called “she” all the time.
I will start by saying I am very open minded and really don’t agree with a lot of what Peterson says. I’m also pro LGBT and leaving people be who they are and love the life that makes them happy… But he’s right that we shouldn’t be forced to use someone’s pronouns. At the time there was discussion about making this a law. If someone wants to be a prick let them. Better to know who they are.
You mean harassing someone at work will get you fired. That’s true no matter what type of harassment it is. That has nothing to do with pronouns. You could get fired for repeatedly calling someone at work a panda.
I have personally seen many instances of people getting banned or suspended from communities for either misgendering people (intentionally or not), or refusing to use their preferred pronouns.
But due to a real concern of retaliation or getting banned here myself, I will not be providing specific examples.
Sorry, it’s not my job to prove your claims. If there are real world instances of violence, I’m sure you can provide them and show they were definitely unprovoked.
Thanks for the apology. I really hate the LGBT hate. I don’t understand what’s wrong with letting people live their own lives the way they want, if they aren’t physically affecting others. Shame my original post got downvoted so much. I didn’t think it was offensive.
Edit: also thank you for correcting my misconception over the law! I’ll make sure to correct people going forward.
lots of people are being harassed and intimidated into it though. lots of people take an absolutist stance on pronouns, and if you misgender someone or don’t ask them what their pronoun is, you are considered a ‘bad person’.
labeling and harassing people into social conformity is being forced to do something.
What people? I have never seen anyone get angry about being accidentally misgendered.
No one is being “harassed” or “intimidated” into calling people what they want to be called. You’re just an asshole if you don’t do it because you’re not giving them a very basic amount of respect: the acknowledgement of the right to be who they are.
I have, many times. Don’t know where you live… oftentimes it’s not ever the trans person getting mad… it’s a straight cis person with a hero complex goes around as a self appointed pronoun police officer and calls you names if you even ask them wtf the deal is.
On the one hand we have people who have said “trans people are usually very polite about correcting you if you misgender them.” (Which has also been my experience as well)
On the other hand we have you saying “trans people are always rude jerks!”
The only difference between the two scenarios is… You. Pair that with how you have been talking about trans people in all of your posts and I have to conclude that you are the problem here, and there must be something you are doing that is making trans people and trans allies aggressive towards you.
On the contrary in fact, I’ve seen people be very forgiving if you accidentally screw up but genuinely mean well. I accidentally misgendered a friend of mine once, and when I realized it I immediately started profusely apologizing. They appreciated it but said it was all good.
At the end of the day, everything can be distilled down to one maxim – be genuinely kind to people, and 99% of people will respond in kind and forgive mistakes.
Sure, anyone can make a mistake. Trans people know that just as well as cis people. If you just say sorry and correct yourself, most trans people would probably be fine with it. It’s the people who do it on purpose that are the problem.
Wow this sounds really reasonable, wtf kinda drugs is Peterson on if he thinks it restricts free speech…
TLDR: bill C-16 adds gender identity and expression to the list of discrimination protections, a list which already includes gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. So yeah right now you can’t fire someone for being black, under C-16 this will also apply to trans people. Ontario already has this in their provincial laws, so Peterson is already living under such a “regime”.
Wow this sounds really reasonable, wtf kinda drugs is Peterson on if he thinks it restricts free speech…
If I recall, Peterson’s entire idea on that was that it would result in misgendering being considered hate speech, though it’s been a while so I might be misremembering.
It was made a law, it’s also a law in many parts of the US. It’s not about preventing random people from being pricks, it’s about discouraging harassment from employers, school administrations, and government officials. They’re prohibited from persistently misgendering you in the same way they’re prohibited from calling you slurs. I struggle to imagine a scenario where life would be improved by removing those sensible guard rails on civil society.
Nobody is “forced to use pronouns” at present but this stance misses the point. It looks at the harms of misgendering as a situation that doesn’t cause other inequities and harms.
For the average social interaction where you are on equal terms but can walk away being misgendered is something a lot of us hate but live with like any small annoyance. It is like stubbing your toe. Not fun but whatever it’s fine that’s just “someone being a prick”. But if deliberate misgendering is allowed to happen over a long period in a workplace setting it is not something we get to walk away from. If we have to regularly interact with that person or lose our ability to feed and house ourselves then we are forced to have mental health problems because someone essentially doesn’t like being told what to do. Having to deal with panic attacks at work because you had to be locked in a room with someone hitting every trauma trigger you have exposed to the world or else you have to find a new and maybe worse job is a barrier to participation in society.
If it’s in a medical setting where we have to balance our health outcomes knowing that if we don’t comply with the misgendering our care is impacted because a doctor holds our lives or the relief from pain in their hands. A lot of trans people become shy and don’t seek help early and often because they equate doctors visits with a sense of powerlessness and shame knowing that they can’t stand up for themselves. In that instance it’s not just “someone being a dick” you are placing someone’s complete physical wellbeing before someone’s egotistical need to be “right” about you.
If a trans person in a social club and misgendering isn’t checked by a majority it can mean that they might not have a choice on whether or not to go. The world becomes a smaller place when you have gender related trauma.
Deliberate misgendering in a professional setting isn’t just “someone showing you they are a prick” the burden always falls upon trans people disproportionately because our participation in society often forces us to compromise directly on our health and there are real traumas and weaknesses that underlie our transness. If someone was openly making rape jokes around someone you knew had sexual assault trauma you’d step in right? Why not the same for someone with gender related traumas?
What Peterson is railing against is protections for participation in regular society through professional setting misgendering cases.
the problem is, in the tech world, many transgender people seem to make their entire existence revolve around their gender identity and then try to force inclusion politics on everyone.
Let me fix that for ya. In the real world many cisgender bigots make trans people entire existence about their gender, and then try to enforce cis-sexist ideologies on sports, healthcare, culture and education.
If you were regularly harassed by being called a gender that you aren’t after spending years pretending to not be that gender because other people wouldn’t like it, you might care.
Just like you might care if you were black and someone refused to stop calling you ‘negro.’
I just can’t imagine caring about this very much. Sure, when I was an angsty teen, but as an adult “what people think” about me is just so far down the list of things I care about.
Maybe because you come from a place of privilege where you didn’t have to hide who you really are due to a vast amount of society hating you for it and just want a little bit of courtesy from the people around them instead of endless hatred?
Your perception and opinions is likely why you don’t know of any adults who fret over third person pronouns. You are not a safe person to bring those concerns up to so no one is going to out themselves around you. I assure you it’s more common than you think.
Generally speaking we’re looking to gain quality of life. If someone negatively reacting is a bigger problem than the internal dysphoria triggers then we take the loss and just quietly hope we don’t have to be around you for long.
the fundies are just as full of performance moral grandstanding hypocracy as the pronoun nutbags.
I don’t understand. What is the middle ground between “you should refer to trans people by their chosen gender” and “you shouldn’t refer to trans people by their chosen gender”? Do you flip a coin?
I have never met anyone in real life that doesn’t address you the way you ask them to. My language, however, does not have gender neutral pronouns so the “did you just assume X gender” question is kinda annoying.
Like this is a question that people ask and not a troll ragebait. People most positively misgender on purpose upon inspection that a person is trans. If a cis person says "but I am a boy" they will bend over apologizing.
I definitely have, just last week my girlfriend got intentionally misgendered multiple times while going to get her gender marker changed, by a social security agent. Some people can be incredibly cruel like that. An overwhelming majority of people are not like that though, in my experience, but the sting of cruelty is louder than passive acceptance.
because people change their pronouns and they get pissed off if you use the wrong one.
I’ve had trans people tell me their pronoun. OK, cool. Then a few weeks/months later, they change it. Then they jump down my throat for not knowing the new one they have picked. One person I know was she/they, now they are he. well sorry if I didn’t check your FB status or whatever to see when you updated it… but last time I talked to this person and used the old pronoun they went OFF on me about what a facist I am or something. (let me add this person IDs as androgynous and claims to be asexual and does not have a gendered appearance)
Look, most trans people are cool, but there are a few out there who are DETERMINED to be complete assholes about it. And it’s like… ok I’m not going to bother anymore. I’d rather just avoid them entirely, just like I avoid middle-aged white women like the plague since too many of them have Karen syndrome.
All of them now. It only takes a few times of being physical threatened and verbally assaulted before you just decide it’s not worth it. IME the ratio of cool trans people to psychos is 1:1, so it’s 50/50.
I get they feel ‘under threat’ but taking it out on well-meaning people who support you isn’t the answer… and frankly a few years ago it was never big deal. But like I said me not being ‘up’ on the latest pronoun you choose used to be NBD a few years ago… now it’s ‘erasing my existence’ or some crazy extremest nonsense. I have no interest in interacting with extremists.
You can’t know if someone is a dipshit until after you interact with them, btw.
Yeah painting all trans people that way is nonsense. It gets pretty close to bigotry territory. I gotta wonder where you live or what kind of choices you are making to surround yourself with that many unhinged people. Where I’m at I’ve encountered zero trans people that act like you’ve described.
I can only paint people with the experience they give me of themselves. If I’ve treated like a bigot, I will start be likely to start acting like one. I live in Boston and it’s become really bad the past few years. I have been physically attacked by trans people for standing in line at a coffee shop because they demanded I ‘give up my privilege’ and I ignored their crazy nonsense, so they escalated because they know nobody would take by side, because I’m the ‘big bad white guy’ and most of the staff were trans.
Least to say I don’t go to coffee shop anymore. And yeah, I am becoming a bigot because of how I’m treated with bigotry. It’s almost like hate breeds hate and I want no part of that horrible shit.
If you are going to make substantial edits to your post like that (as opposed to small corrections) I think you should either make a new post with the follow up information and ideas or make it very clear in your original post what the added content from the edit was.
if i eat the purple berries and they make me puke, i’m not going to eat them again. am i now bigoted against purple berries? or should i just keep eating them and getting sick and doing it over and over again?
just like if i have a shitty meal at a restaurant, i won’t go back to that place, or that chain if it’s a chain. etc etc.
The inherent traits of a species of berries is not comparable to the behavior of an entire demographic. If you treat all trans people as though they are unhinged or looking for the slightest excuse to be offended then that is as much bigoted behavior and stereotyping as treating all Mexicans as lazy or all black people as criminals or all Irish as angry drunks. People are not berries. Their treatment of you isn’t coming from the genetic level.
You may have had some legit crazy fringe case experiences and the shock and hurt that you would feel from that would be very valid but if you turn immediately from that to “if I’m gonna be treated like a bigot then I’ll just be a bigot” then there are some worrisome seeds already planted. If things went as you described them then you had some unfair encounters but those handful of experiences are not close to enough to judge all trans people by. That’s hard to grapple with if there is still that emotional sting from those experiences. I do understand the reaction of “fine I’ll show you just much I can be the thing you wrongly accused me of being”. I’ve been guilty of that in other contexts. But it’s destructive and toxic. It makes the people treating you wrongly feel completely justified. It makes you act like a terrible person that you are not.
I didn’t until 2022 or so. I have been repeatedly assaulted the past few years, verbally and i have been physically assaulted by them. Some of them spread rumors about me. I’m done with them now. They treated me wrongly, and now I don’t care about being friendly and welcoming to them anymore, justifiably.
Keep moral grand standing all you want. If a group of people repeatedly harassed you I don’t you’d be so high minded about it. You’re arguing genetics, I’m protecting myself from mentally unwell people who have arbitrarily decided I’m the enemy because they are on tiktok too much and believe their violence is 100% justified as long as it’s towards people who look are cishet and white.
Truth is i’m not even what they think I am. I’m gender fluid, but I just look like a cis-hit white guy, so they go apeshit on me.
I’m not trying to moral grand stand on you here. I’m saying that your reactions to your negative experiences are valid. But how far you take those reactions needs to be kept in check. Its not a high minded or aggressive stance to warn against letting the emotions of that trauma cause you to overreact. Try not to read it that way but rather as understanding and cautionary. You seem like you try to be decent and fair. You wouldn’t let one bad person from other demographics/groups/whatever dictate how you treat all them. Don’t let these handful of assholes control how you think of and treat all of trans people. Don’t become the monster they accused you of being.
I think you should also consider that they’re probably just lying and don’t actually have these negative experiences, since they also say they got kicked out of a community garden they helped fund because they were white and kicking out white people helped the garden get more grants.
It’s just not likely that one person is a walking Fox News story, lol
This person is either lying, or had some karen at the coffee shop go off, and is now stretching that. I have family in Boston, Including a couple that live Jamaica Plains. That has been like LGBTQ central for a while. They, and no one they know, have ever been assaulted by people over privilege, pronouns, or for being white/straight/male/cis. They said the only place they have ever seen such eruptions of behavior is online, meaning it’s just the rare karen.
That, or they are bigot that goes out and agitates this type of behavior. Then frames it in a manner in which they are the victim.
this was in Jamaica Plain at Espresso Love last new years day.
And yes, everyone who i ever tell this too denies it happened to me. because I’m a big strong white guy… so nothing bad can ever happen to me. I’m clearly a bigoted POS and if i didn’t put it on tiktok it doesn’t exist.
I’d rather just not deal with violence and crazy people whose insecurity is so rampant they need to assault others to feel powerful. I will just mind my peace and go to places not full of angry people who scream at being for getting coffee.
That is a quality of life issue. This person’s issue is not their changing pronouns, it is that they are an asshole, who loves to milk the victim role.
I am a cis, male guy, who due to some hormonal issues looked androgynous and sounded like a girl when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and was addressed as “miss” quite often, and for the most part, people would just say “Sorry” when corrected, then address me as a guy.
This is how people should behave, the person you describe is just an asshole, whether they are aware of it or not.
Same issue I used to have with gay people, I used to think they were all loudmouth assholes, until I found out that what I had been exposed to was a loud minority, a ton of gay people are your regular Joe and Jane, and you would never know they were gay unless they told you.
Don’t let a loud minority sour your day, you have been doing the right thing, and the downvoted are overzealous, reactionary assholes.
I know, they are an asshole. Just like many cops are assholes.
But give the propensity of assholes in the group, the safest course of action is to just avoid them entirely. I also have no interest in interact with police, and yet I bet nobody would call me a bigot for saying that…
Eh, that’s different. Police officers choose the profession. Trans folks aren’t choosing the trans life, they’re discovering who they really are (maybe I should have just quipped “…the trans life chose them”, ha).
There’s nothing wrong with trying to avoid assholes, but when you start painting with a broad brush like that, well, it does smack of bigotry. Same energy as racists who memorize arrest statistics and then say things like “It’s not racist if it’s true!”
Also, to be clear: I don’t mean to accuse you of anything. I just see some uncomfortable parallels.
Personally, I don’t have a lot of experience in this area. I’ve really only been acquainted with two trans people, and I don’t/didn’t know them very well (I say didn’t because I haven’t seen the one person since before covid). Both were friends-of-friends type acquaintances that I’d see at game nights and the like.
Cool. I’ve been acquainted with dozens of trans people and known a dozen on a regular social basis and a few quite well…
turns out they are just like… people. some of them are cool… but a good chunk of them are selfish jerks just like any group of people.
for some reason people want to lionize trans people as they suffering saints… and anyone who criticisms trans folks is clearly a hateful bigot… which also tells me they know nothing about trans people and put them on a podium. the brush i paint trans people with is broad… because they are people. they aren’t some other subspecies of human beings with superior moral worth, empathy and insight. some of them are really great, most of them are not so great, and a bunch of them are awful humans who delight in antisocial behaviour. have you ever hung out in trans internet forums? they are full of awful hateful and bigoted shit… often direct at other trans folks, and incessant gatekeeping about who or what is really ‘trans’. it’s disgusting.
and being trans is a choice. just like me presenting a a cis het man is a choice. just like i wanted to dress up in a woman’s outfit an go out tonight… that would be a choice. just like the trans folks who go around policing other people’s pronouns, fashion choices, and their gender worthiness choose to do that.
but of course don’t let the complexities of the human condition and identity get in the way of a good ‘hurrr durr well yer a bigot and i am a good purrrson for saying so’ internet self-righteous indignation.
I am a cis, male guy, who due to some hormonal issues looked androgynous and sounded like a girl when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and was addressed as “miss” quite often, and for the most part, people would just say “Sorry” when corrected, then address me as a guy.
Did you ever have someone insist that you’re wrong? I looked quite feminine from childhood all the way to around 25-26 years old. I can think of several occasions where people insisted that I couldn’t be a man.
The most positive one was when I was flying to the U.S., and ended up chatting with an elderly lady for a few hours while waiting for the check ins. She had a massive wagon with pots and pans and whatnot, and I had a tiny carry-on. Eventually we realised we’d forgotten to exchange names, so we introduced ourselves. She was like “but that’s a boy’s name”, “well that explains why your luggage is so small!” and every so often she’d say “I can’t believe you’re a man” incredulously.
Worst time was when I was frequently swimming in my teens, and a Karen-type person walked up to me, insisting I put on a bikini because I’m too old to walk topless. It didn’t register with me that she mistook me for a girl at first; I just thought this pervert old woman wanted me to dress like a girl.
From my experience most trans people are pretty clear cut. I get that they change their pronouns a lot when transitioning and coming out of the closet because it must be hard to pick a pronoun when you dont even know who you are. They are usually ok with the singular they. My problem is with tiktok queers and people who just change it for fun basically. I dont care if your pronoun is xe or idk but i do care when you dont accept if i use they(which i even use for cishet people because in my native language we dont have genders and its just generally easier).
sadly where I live lots of queers/trans are of the tiktok variety. a lot of them are trust fund types who aspire to be influences and have vanity jobs and want to lecture you on how they are an artist or something. they get really pissed off if you call them ‘they’ for some reason.
Had a friend’s kid go through it and it was hard to keep up. Started as ‘she’ and birth name, then ‘he’ and a new name, then ‘xe’ and another new name, then ‘she’ but another new name, not original, and finally landing on ‘he’ and a new name. The ‘xe’ was super hard since using a totally new pronoun naturally is a bit more difficult. In the end, he turned out to stay ‘he’ and did some surgery and hormones and now if you didn’t know his history, you’d never get confused about the pronoun.
Meanwhile, an in-laws family member is super hard to treat as trans, because despite being a she, she doesn’t act or look vaguely feminine. Doesn’t like cosmetics, or styling hair, or women’s clothing. Generally wears jeans and a t-shirt. Her hair is long, but looks like grunge guy hair rather than girl hair. Also sports a full facial hair, because shaving is a pain. Says she doesn’t even want hormones or surgery, just wants to be considered feminine. Also is attracted to girls. The least trans person I have ever met. Near as she has said, she just thinks guys need to be stoic and tough and she doesn’t feel that way, but otherwise she pretty much has all ‘masculine’ sensibilities.
Most trans people I have met fall in the middle, they clearly adopt the target gender style or mannerisms at least, even if they don’t go so far as to ‘pass’.
I have only had one instance where anyone got upset about the wrong pronoun, and it was a sibling of the person, and the pronoun use was actually referring to a dog, but the sibling assumed the worst since there was no ‘he’ in the room among the humans. Haven’t seen someone personally get upset for themselves over a flubbed pronoun though.
Singular, “they” has not been taught widely to foreign learners (maybe not to native either?). I just recently learned about it myself from LGBT support content despite practicing since childhood, I never heard about it during my English lessons.
So yes indeed, many English speakers don’t know about singular they.
Right which is fine, but usually requires context clues to determine which and a story with multiple people can get real convoluted real quick. Maybe we should come up with some new terms, it’s our language we can do whatever we want
In my experience people react poorly to the accommodation ask of neopronouns. A lot of people will treat you as though you are childish, insane or you grew a second head. Outside the community or publication world neopronouns don’t see much action.
You can use it as a gender-neutral way to replace he/she, it still represents a single person, as opposed to plural they. Context is required to determine whom it represents.
it would be used in the same way french uses vous (which can both mean they, or when speaking to someone formally (opposite from informal, which only happens when you know the person/are buddies with)). Using they, especially if you dont know them first hand, leaves ambiguity on the table since youre not making assumptions.
and most decent transfolks don’t give a shit about prounouns. they just want to be left alone and stop being made into child raping monsters by politicans looking to scare up the voter base.
I mean… I care about pronouns, so do most of my trans friends, and I’d like to think we’re all “decent” trans folks. It sucks when someone misgenders you. I would also like the conservatives in my country to stop using trans rights as a wedge issue. I can care about both of these things at the same time.
I’d like people to stop screaming at me for misgendering them when I meant no ill-will. Just like I don’t scream at people when they ask me if I’m Italian or when they mispronounce my surname.
God forbid we don’t get pissed off at people for making mistakes, especially strangers.
Oh, you’re the same user who was lying in another comment thread about trans people beating you up in a coffee shop.
Ironic that you’re commenting about politicians making up stories about trans people to scare voters, seeing as you’re doing the same thing to win an argument on the Internet.
My boomer parents will die on the hill that it sounds “wrong” to use “they” to refer to a singular entity. And whenever they bring that up, I always remind them that the word “they” has been used in that way for AGES.
Example: “Whose umbrella is this? Did they already leave?”
Watched a video that addressed this in good faith, because it is a tad awkward. They brought up and old term (because this isn’t new), “thone”, short for “the one”. And I’mma be real with you, “THE ONE, DIRK MCCALLAHAN” does ring kinda hard.
Most people arguing about this are coming from an emotional place, so facts and truths don’t really matter. If gender in language is important to your in-group, that’s what matters. Not the history of language. Not the dictionary. The group believes this. If you reject your group, you’ll die alone. Or that’s what the brain would have you believe. We’re all a little susceptible to social influence on belief. Some people are just unwilling or unable to overcome it.
my entire life I got shit form grammar nazis for preferring gender neutral language. now i get shit for not asking everyone their pronoun. and my entire life I have had to put up with people’s shitty assumptions about me based on my physical appearance.
it never ends. people just want to be angry and feel superior to others who don’t agree with them and browbeat others into submission, all the while being judgemental about how others look vs how they think they should look.
What’s craziest to me is that people so often adopt beliefs as to belong to some sort of in group, right, but won’t necessarily adopt the set of beliefs that actually immediately benefits them, ingratiates them to their immediate surrounding environment, gives them a more functional outlook. No, it’s way simpler, people just adopt the beliefs of what they perceive in their immediate surroundings. Oftentimes this manifests more as people locking themselves into increasingly insular media environments, rather than, say, having productive conversations with their kids, or allowing themselves to be convinced by their friends, or being able to even really talk on a surface level with their co-workers. Their immediate environment, their “in-group”, can supercede physical reality.
they don’t go so well IRL than they do in your head. the conservation you want in your head requires two willing and thoughtful parties… often there is only one person with that mindset… or sometimes none.
I had at trans friend who I did talk about this stuff with a few years ago… but now they are a radicalized nutcase and they are more focused on being ‘pronoun’ police and making every topic about ‘their suffering’ etc. oftentimes sane people become crazy people.
I’m going to ignore the bit about your friend for now.
I have had the kind of conversation where you try to change someone’s mind. That is, distinct from the more common kind on the Internet where you’re just fighting.
It takes a lot of time and energy. You need them to see you as a member of one of their in groups, typically.
I have had a couple friends who would consume a lot of right wing media, but we shared some things in common. One was also working retail, both were video game nerds. I think because we had those things in common, they saw me as a friend, someone in an in-group, and thus listened to me.
If I had just sent them a YouTube video, they probably would have rejected it. If a stranger did, almost certainly.
Unfortunately, when I was no longer in their daily life they sort of drifted back to what their dominant groups thought.
Yup, either singular or plural. It’s clear from context because you always refer to them in a previous clause. The user did this, they… The class did this, they…
The user must do this before first use, if he or she fails to… Ugh
The user must do this before first use, if they fail to…😘👌
They has been used like this for a long, long time.
Since nobody has mentioned the actual reason for this phenomenon yet, the difference here is usually one of known vs. unknown gender/referent. (At least for practically all older speakers of English. Some younger speakers do seem to be able to use “they” grammatically to refer to known people. Changes in progress, woo!)
Your example is a perfect one: in a question like “whose umbrella is this?” we have no idea what gender the owner is, and so “they” is grammatical for the vast majority of English speakers.
Once the gender/referent is known, however, for many/most speakers of English (myself included), “they” becomes ungrammatical and the speaker must switch to “he” or “she”:
“Whose umbrella is this? Did they already leave?”
“That’s John’s.”
*“Oh, they need to come get it then.” (The asterisk here is the common linguistic notation for ungrammaticality. This also assumes that both speakers are familiar with who John is. You can still get grammatical “they” after responses that refer to unknown people, especially with common gender-ambiguous names like Pat.)
So, for anyone wondering why many speakers, probably including themselves (if they’re honest enough to admit it), seem to find known-gender singular “they” to be awkward/ungrammatical when supposedly “it’s been grammatical for a thousand years”, that’s why!
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend — Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3, 1594
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear the speech. — Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3, 1600–1602
So lyke wyse shall my hevenly father do vnto you except ye forgeve with youre hertes eache one to his brother their treaspases. — Tyndale’s Bible, 1526
I already mentioned that we can get grammatical “they” with non-definite/unknown referents (your first and third examples), and in the second example Shakespeare is clearly referring to all mothers with “them”, so none of these are counterexamples to my generalization above. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find many examples with a specific, definite antecedent (though it is possible, of course - grammaticality is a spectrum, after all).
This distinction, as well as the fact that modern speakers are showing various innovative uses of “they”, has been well known for decades in the linguistic literature.
It kinda grinds my gears when people intentionally (or maybe just ignorantly in this case) misconstrue linguistic data to support their political positions, and that includes all of the boneheads acting like singular “they” isn’t a thing at all for their own nefarious purposes as well.
It doesn’t matter that English hasn’t had specific singular “they” until Gen Z. That’s just a fact of history and language, and has (or at least should have) nothing to do with the rights of non-binary people.
Stop using bullshit linguistic data to try to justify your political positions! All of you! This is how we get Hindu nationalists justifying their oppression of Muslims with ridiculous claims that Sanskrit is the original human language. Language is just language!
Edit: I just went and read your other thread, and it does appear that you’re just being disingenuous at this point, or at least doubling down after being proved incorrect. Your own source pointed out that Shakespeare would not have used “they” with specific individuals. Thymos is completely (and demonstrably) correct.
I already mentioned that we can get grammatical “they” with non-definite/unknown referents (your first and third examples)
The gender is known though. What a weird distinction to make that it’s talking about an abstract gendered person rather than concrete. I don’t know why the grammar would make that distinction (nor do I think it does).
in the second example Shakespeare is clearly referring to all mothers with “them”
Sure, but it’s in the singular. It’s “a mother” as the subject, not mothers.
none of these are counterexamples to my generalization above. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find many examples with a specific, definite antecedent (though it is possible, of course - grammaticality is a spectrum, after all).
The argument that is almost always made is that “they can’t be singular.” That argument is clearly bogus. Sure, maybe it historically hasn’t been used for a particular subject, but that’s a fairly minor grammatical shift. If we’re going to argue that’s wrong because it isn’t historically accepted then we probably need to speak a totally different version of English than we do because it has made much larger shifts than that in the past.
What a weird distinction to make that it’s talking about an abstract gendered person rather than concrete. I don’t know why the grammar would make that distinction (nor do I think it does).
Then you’re gonna be absolutely gobsmacked by the other grammatical distinctions that exist across the world’s languages.
It doesn’t matter if you know why the grammar would make that distinction or not - the distinction exists, and is widely accepted in the linguistic literature (as cited above) whether you think it does or not.
The argument that is almost always made is that “they can’t be singular.”
I’m not sure what that has to do with our conversation, since I’ve never made that claim (and neither did Thymos). If that’s what you’re basing your argument on here, then that’s a pretty egregious strawman of my position.
Sure, maybe it historically hasn’t been used for a particular subject, but that’s a fairly minor grammatical shift.
And yet it exists nonetheless, rendering your “correction” of my original comment (and your “correction” of Thymos’s comments in the other thread, for that matter) inaccurate and misleading.
If we’re going to argue that’s wrong because it isn’t historically accepted then we probably need to speak a totally different version of English than we do because it has made much larger shifts than that in the past.
I haven’t argued that anything is “wrong” other than your description of the historical use of English pronouns. Linguistics is descriptive, not normative, which means that the historical facts of English have no bearing whatsoever on what we “probably need” to do.
“They” also refers to plurality. In the case of an individual having either both or neither and you aren’t trying to be disrespectful with “it” then it’s not confusing at all because it’s accurate.
That’s not relevant to our conversation here - we’re not talking about how language should be used (which linguistics, as an empirical/rationalist science, has nothing to say about), we’re talking about how it is used.
Once the gender/referent is known, however, for many/most speakers of English (myself included), “they” becomes ungrammatical and the speaker must switch to “he” or “she”:
I must be one of these “younger” people because I don’t get this. I have no problem referring to people as “they.” Sometimes I do so because the gender is irrelevant, sometimes to obfuscate who I’m talking about, and sometimes because they might not identify within the s/he binary.
What I don’t get is, how can knowing the gender suddenly make it difficult to use a neutral term, if it worked before?
Sometimes I do so because the gender is irrelevant
This seems to be part of the pathway of change that has led to the widespread adoption of specific singular “they” among younger speakers, and there’s some empirical evidence supporting this.
What I don’t get is, how can knowing the gender suddenly make it difficult to use a neutral term, if it worked before?
This is just one of those arbitrary rules that often exist in language, like how in many languages neuter/inanimate nouns can’t act as the subject of a sentence due to what’s called an “animacy restriction”.
For this specific phenomenon (the “older” ungrammaticality of definite singular they vs. the “younger” grammaticality of it), this recent paper argues that this is due to a difference in obligatoriness of morphosyntactic gender features. The paper is a bit technical if you don’t have a linguistic background, but the basic argument is that in older varieties of English, gender features must be obligatorily expressed in the morphosyntactic derivation if they are known, while in younger varieties, this expression seems to be optional, and therefore free variation between he/they and she/they is allowed by the grammar.
So, “It’s John’s. They need to come get it” is ungrammatical for older speakers for not obligatorily expressing the gender feature once it’s known, while it’s perfectly fine for younger speakers for whom expressing that feature seems to be optional in the grammar.
Maybe this analogy will help: Let’s say you meet someone, and you ask them “Do you have a cat?”. Note that you’ve used the singular here, though it’s acting number-neutral in this context. If they respond “I have two”, then it will immediately become ungrammatical for you to continue to use the number-neutral singular and ask “Does your cat like fish?”
Once you have access to the information that there’s more than one cat, then the arbitrary rules of English grammar require that knowledge to immediately be reflected in the morphosyntactic structure of your sentences from then on. And this makes no independent, logical sense, because there are tons of languages out there that don’t have plurality distinctions. But, English does, and so to speak grammatical English (for now), you have to use plural morphology to refer to more than one entity.
It’s the same for “older” speakers of English - just like it’s ungrammatical for you to continue to use the number-neutral singular once you know that there’s a “plural number feature” in the linguistic context, for older speakers of English it’s ungrammatical for them to continue to use the gender-neutral “they” once they know that there’s a “masculine gender feature” in the linguistic context.
Also, it’s important to note that this term “ungrammatical” is descriptive, not prescriptive - it’s not saying that it’s not “proper” or “correct” according to some arbitrary standard that someone decided on in the 1800s, but rather that’s literally not how those speakers’ mental grammars work. While it may seem illogical (and even regressive from a modern political perspective), every natural human language is composed of arbitrary rules that often seem illogical. Like how the past tense of “go” is the completely unrelated past tense of the older English verb “to wend”, “went”. Or how the past tense of the verb “can” isn’t “could” anymore – that’s reserved for modal usage now in most English dialects – it’s the completely awkward phrase “was able to”.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t, try to accommodate non-binary people of course, as is unfortunately often argued, but it does mean that, contrary to what I commonly see people say on the internet, doing so for these speakers does require a constant, concerted effort to consciously override their mental grammars.
Maybe this analogy will help: Let’s say you meet someone, and you ask them “Do you have a cat?”. Note that you’ve used the singular here, though it’s acting number-neutral in this context. If they respond “I have two”, then it will immediately become ungrammatical for you to continue to use the number-neutral singular and ask “Does your cat like fish?”
This helped a lot. It is true that I do not feel this way about “they”, but it does put things into perspective. Thank you.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t, try to accommodate non-binary people of course, as is unfortunately often argued, but it does mean that, contrary to what I commonly see people say on the internet, doing so for these speakers does require a constant, concerted effort to consciously override their mental grammars.
This is true also when someone you’ve known for a while transitions, or changes their name (like in the case of marriage, or just a regular name-change). Most people are okay with you tripping up, it’s expected even. It’s just when it’s done in bad faith that it becomes an issue.
It was beaten into me in school that this is incorrect. “They” is to be used as a plural pronoun only. It’s commonly used in the singular, but it’s wrong according to the English teachers I had. In referring to a person, you must choose either he or she under those grammar rules.
With that said, maybe it’s time for me to move into the future and accept that the meaning of the word has changed. I am confident those English teachers weren’t concerned about actual gender issues. Now, I think those issues are more important than the technical grammatical issues of English.
I’ve offended people in a social setting by insisting that this is the correct usage, when truly it was just me being autistic and informal rather than political.
Grammer rules are rooted in racism or classism pretty much every time. At least when they’re used to exclude someone instead of teach someone how to speak the language.
Well, you can start from the fact that language is a living, changing thing. The only real rules of the language are descriptions of how people are using the language. Even after they put rules to it, those rules have had to evolve as speakers change how they use English. It’s not like we still use Shakespearean English as the standard of correctness anymore.
So, the set of rules that are written is just a description of how some people are using the language at the time. Can you take a guess which people’s use these rules are based on? You can bet it isn’t going to be the black people. And then these people can use these rules, which are just a description of how they use English, to say black people are wrong.
When someone says “you sure is” instead of “you are”, or wants to “axe” you a question, we are taught to consider them wrong. But they’re not. They’re just speaking a different dialect of English. Just like people from the UK call bathrooms “the loo”, and people from India say “do the needful”. There are loads of different dialect of English, and it’s racist to consider the “black” dialect stupid or incorrect. It’s not wrong, it’s just another dialect.
It counts as a dialect when a significant number of people use a certain version of the language.
Yep. Language is only as good as it’s ability to transfer information. English is a good language (IMHO), not because it has good rules to follow, but because it can be flexible in order to transfer new ideas. Want to steal a word from another language? Want to verb a noun? Want to create a new word by gluing two other words together? Want to add a new definition to an existing word? Yes, yes, yessir, and bet.
No one uses literally to mean figuratively. They use it to emphasize regardless of if what they’re emphasizing includes figurative language. Nearly every word that means something similar to “in actual fact” undergoes this semantic drift (actually, really, etc).
“She literally exploded at me.” is similar in meaning to “She totally exploded at me.” Not so much to “She figuratively exploded at me.”
Nearly every word that means something similar to “in actual fact” undergoes this semantic drift (actually, really, etc).
I looked into this for 3 minutes and found examples in multiple languages.
Neat.
New expression-insight remix into the human condition connected; We literally really actually feel the need to be sure we’re understood, no matter the hyperbolic lengths gone to, huh?
“literally” being used to mean “figuratively” dates back to 3 years after the word “literally” began meaning “actually”. If this is a hill to die on, you need to use “literally” exclusively to mean “as written in the texts”. Common usage of “literally” to mean “actually” and “figuratively” both date to the 1590s
I’m curious when and where “singular they” was taught as incorrect. Coming from the Midwest in the 80s (not exactly a liberal or forward thinking place), I was taught in no uncertain terms that singular they was appropriate in many circumstances. And my teacher was old as hell, so her education on the matter probably dated to around WW2.
It must not be specifically gated on time. My instruction was rural East Coast. I’ve learned however just from the article posted in this thread that a singular third person has been in use for centuries, even recognized as such an official contexts.
I think of that like I think of the anti ain’t and anti Oxford comma stances. They weren’t entirely correct, they were enforcing the style of the time for educated use of English. Today educated use of English still doesn’t include ain’t, but it does use the singular they for people of unknown or nonbinary gender, and it uses the Oxford comma.
The language keeps evolving and stuff like this is part of that. Hell at one point the singular they was far less controversial than the singular you
The exclusion of the oxford comma is a really good example of grammar that’s a bit outdated. It’s far clearer to use it. Dropping it used to make sense when we used typewriters and ink, but in a digital world it makes no sense.
It used to be correct APA/MLA formatting to use “he/she” when the gender of a subject was unknown. That was changed back in the mid 00’s I think. The preferred format is now “they” over “he/she”.
That being said, people use singular they/them all the time in casual conversation. We just aren’t used to using it when we know or think we know the gender of the person. But let’s be honest, there have always been people that have been hurt by being misgendered. Hell, it was common for some racists to use they/them with black women in an attempt to dehumanize them. So this idea that the singular they is new is absolutely ridiculous.
They went with them and then they decided to take off and took them with them, so we met up with some friends and then got together with them even though they didn’t join because they ultimately wanted to go home.
It’s less precise. That’s just a problem with English though. That said, just using people’s names more often isn’t that big of a deal and using gender neutral pronouns otherwise is, similarly, not hard and not a big deal. Nevertheless, I was referring to seven different distinct individuals in the above.
He went with her, but then she decided to take off and took him with her, so we met up with some friends and then got together with him though she didn’t want to join because he ultimately wanted to go home.
It’s still confusing, and the sentence is absurd, but you can get a better sense of how many people are involved with gendered pronouns. But no one talks that way, contextual clues would make it more obvious, and we’d use proper names in many of those instances by habit for clarification. That said, it would be easier if we just used a number-word in place of a pronoun. Thone, thwo, theree, thour, etc or something. Then we could refer to whom we mean with a numbered-pronoun to indicate agents. That would be the clearest way to differentiate agents in a sentence.
And to be very clear, I have no problem using non-gendered pronouns, but the idea that it isn’t slightly less precise is facile. But, again, only slightly. And who cares if it makes people more comfort and seen?
Even then, whether “them” references a group or an individual is left unclear–as I noted. E.g., “you” vs “y’all.” Exclusively using they/them is mildly less precise, but people acting like it’s the end of the English language is silly.
As I also explicitly stated, acting like it’s not slightly imprecise is facile. It could be worse, at least English doesn’t have gendered nouns like Spanish, Italian, etc. 😁
You don’t even need a convoluted sentence like that, just now on the news the reporter was talking about a trans woman’s mental health problems and said “Jane’s parents were concerned that they may harm themselves”
Yeah, and like in my own example, it’s easily clarified by simply saying Jane’s parents were concerned that Jane may harm theirself.
Over and beyond gendered pronouns, the overwhelming amount of confusing sentences I read aren’t confusing because of genderless pronouns. They’re confusing because they’re poorly written.
When my brain interpreted ‘they’ singular to refer to a unspecified so-far unnamed person or an already mentioned group, it was definitely confusing to have it suddenly used to refer to someone who had just been referred to by name. This was definitely a novel use of ‘they’ for me at the time and I don’t understand why no-one else ever seems to have this kind of confusion. I did get used to it but I don’t think it’s as universal as some of y’all realise.
Edit: I just learnt the term ‘indeterminate antecedent’ from the Wikipedia article someone else linked. Thanks to them, I just got a little bit smarter. ;-)
It’s funny to me how easy English has it. All you have to do is use “they”, and if people think that’s awkward, they should see how difficult it is to navigate it in a language with complex verb conjugations with gendered nouns and verbs. It’s complicated to the point that non-binary people will still use their assigned-at-birth (if that’s the term?) pronouns, to save everyone - including themselves - a headache. There’s of course a movement to change the language, but it’s difficult.
My only experience with it was in a bar I used to frequent in Los Angeles, though I think they were more transvestite than transgender. Pronouns never came up there. We just used names.
It’s easy for me to use any name given when introduced. If you introduce yourself to me with a feminine name when you appear quite male, it’s no skin off my teeth.
Pronouns are more difficult simply because of my embedded native language of English dictating gender. While difficult, it’s no more inconvenient than to slow myself down, think about what I’m saying, and try to use what’s preferred. If I should slip up, then maybe a brief, “oops, sorry about that,” is in order.
The hardest thing for me is if I have known you as one name and now I’ve got to use a new name. This has nothing to do with gender or politics however. It’s just how my brain stores things. My sister uses a different first name in adulthood than when we were kids, and I never have been able to adapt. Since my sister is awesome and understands me, she gives me a pass on this.
Bottom line, the linguistics can be difficult for us oldies, but that doesn’t give us reason to fear, hate, or persecute.
The hardest thing for me is if I have know you as one name and now I’ve got to use a new name. This has nothing to do with gender or politics however. It’s just how my brain stores things. My sister uses a different first name in adulthood than when we were kids, and I never have been able to adapt.
That’s interesting. I’m certainly not young myself (approaching 47), and while I had no problem with remembering the new name for my high school friend who had transitioned in the years between us knowing each other then and getting back in touch, I have so much trouble remembering to call my own (cisgender) daughter by the shortened version of her full name, which she’d prefer. Maybe because my friend also changed her gender and, obviously, her look so it’s easier to remember when I talk to her?
Luckily most people are going to be like your sister.
Sometimes people have their own shit going on that might make them “overreact” to your slip ups.
Weirdly you’ll see people that trust you more react more strongly but it’s not a you problem. They’re likely venting against constant micro aggressions in a “safer” space, so try and be forgiving:)
You’re right about it taking more work the longer you’ve known someone the harder it gets… It takes zero time for me to register “they/them” for someone I just met… But I still fuck up with a 20 year friend that switched 5 years ago…
Just remembering it’s not about you and as long as you try your best you’ll be fine.
I think (in general) any one should be just allowed to say “oops” in any situation, in any case, however bad it is, to note he/she/(add any extra pronouns) has said/done and gone something that should not have happened or taken place. It’s like software crashing of thinking, which happens and will happen more than we would like to.
And yet, in both cases, there is a significant subset of people who don’t see it that way. They see it as your personal fault/failure as a human being from not knowing the right pronoun, or that the software crashing is your fault.
If I’m genuinely trying to adapt to something, I’ve got no time for intolerance toward my errors en route to learning. That’s on the other person regardless of makeup or identity.
My personal favorite for singular gender neutral pronouns are Zi/zir/zirs/zirself or Ze/zer/zers/zerself.
Xe is just trying to be Zi/Ze and it would be confusing for Chinese people. There’s also female connotations with X genome vs Y genome. Which is he Ye is also meh.
I wouldn’t mind Ve, ver, vers, verself either.
Ze sounds more unique and it’s kinda neat how it’s Gen Z helping push it too.
Otherwise just use the pronouns they prefer.
Having to write official documents while having to use they/them is annoying without gender neutral terms coming into it.
English really just needs a better gender neutral singular and plural pronouns. Since they has been used for plural most of my life it feels like better singulars are the way to go, but it doesn’t really matter. Just someone make it official please lol.
A lot of the transgender people I’ve befriended and even dated. They all stick to the simple things.
They don’t really care about whatever the hell the pronouns have gone to. They just wanted to be the opposite sex. Some, wanted to be no gender. Others, were genderfluid. They weren’t pretentious by coming up with 50 different genders and 50 more ways to call them by.
Yeah but you know, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be a little more realistic.
I’m having a hard time taking zie, zim, zis and all that seriously. Even if they have meanings, you’re really sounding like you’re treating your identity like it’s a title a child gives themselves to like it’s a flavor of the week.
Neo pronouns are essentially just another experimental project to combat some of the linguistic issues behind using they/them singular pronouns. Consider you use singular they/them pronouns for people you don’t know ("I found someone’s cell phone, I will try to get it back to them. ") or some people get confused if their attention wanders and someone starts talking about a non-binary person whether you are talking about a single person or not.
Some non-binary people find they/them pronoun options to be dehumanizing or dislike the linguistic effect problem… However there isn’t a cultural concensus on a strictly singluar non-gendered pronoun. There are a handful of established neo-pronouns but they are akin to regional varieties born out of very specific communities but non-binary people are not a monolith. Even inside our communities there’s a lot of variation. The attempt to try and normalize new language across is board isn’t high on a lot of people’s priority list who are fine with the path of least resistance because they are dealing with a lot right now. People who use neo pronouns know it’s a big cognitive ask but they are doing it for the same reasons any trans person who asks for an accommodation - a quality of life issue. Something about the status quo is actively not working for them. It’s not based out of a desire for attention or a way to feel unique - quite the opposite usually it is nerve wracking asking for an accommodation knowing people will likely treat you as lesser for asking.
So just because you have what you need out of an accommodation you are going to turn around and put up barriers for other people who are not served by your level of accommodation?
If they/them pronouns work for you that’s awesome. It’s in a way another path of least resistance… But there are some people do hope for more from their nearest and dearest. Generally speaking they like all of us take what we can get from the people who legitimately wish them well.
Turning around and dumping on someone else’s accommodation the same way others dump on yours so you get to feel “respectable” is pretty classless. Maybe take a step back and realize the company you keep when you act like that.
Don’t stereotype people by the online facade. I’ve met maybe one weird trans person who fits the stereotype but most of the time they are normal people
I’ve met plenty of people who fit stereotypes, and are not normal well-intention ed people. Trans or straight or cis or whatever. Plenty of people just lean into their own stereotype purposefully… these are also the same folks who are obsessed with social media, trends, and policing what is ‘cool’ or ‘strong’ or whatever image they want so desperately to project.
I put pronoun police into the same category as bro-dozer drivers. insecure assholes who are desperate to be recognized.
Who are you to tell anyone whether they are a man or a woman? What gives you the right to tell someone else who they are? What even business is it of yours?
I’d say it’s best to be in a community where people respect each other’s identities. But your mileage may vary.
So flat chested women are not women? Or women with XY chromosomes but no vagina (yes that’s a thing) are not women? What about those born without a butt hole? What does that make them? Or if someone gets a sex change and now match your definition?
Doesn’t work because of the ratios of the populations. For a majority group, their interaction with the minority group is 1 in 100 interactions. For the minority group, they are interacting with the majority group 99 of 100 times.
Being mindful 1 time every 100 is not a big deal. Hearing something hurtful 99% of your day every day is a very big deal and could easily be the most difficult thing in your life.
You can disagree with the reason the minority group is feeling hurt, you can’t proclaim that they aren’t feeling hurt.
And with that being the situation you can only decide whether you have the empathy and belief in common humanity to do your small part in reducing the amount of hurt in the world. Or not.
It’s not about consent or validation, it’s about being harassed. I’m not sure why that isn’t clear to you. Do you think trans people have an easy life?
me misgendering you is not harassment. i honestly don’t care and you shouldn’t either. people that want to die on that hill are wasting everyone’s time. move on. don’t engage with people who don’t take the time to respect your whatever.
But accidentally misgendering someone is often considered paramount to taking part in the holocaust. I’m not mean, I’m just lazy, and I don’t want to talk on egg shells to make sure I accurately read someone’s gender correctly. You can only take some much unjustified vilification before you start to think “you know what? fuck you. I’m going to misgender you out of spite”.
guilty as charged. I’m an equal opportunity asshole these days and don’t really care. no one is going to help change the things that are important to me, so I’m really not interested in your sad song.
Expecting you to treat people with basic respect is not policing your words. Do you go around calling black people the negroes? I hope not. Is it because you think that’s extremely disrespectful? I hope so.
It doesn’t take much effort to spot black people. I know how to treat them with respect because that’s easy. Again, I’m just lazy a little spiteful. Sorry not sorry.
It’s really not the big effort you seem to think it is. If someone looks like a man to you, you refer to them with masculine pronouns and if they correct you, you apologize and go with the pronouns they prefer.
The point is that you don’t keep doing it when they tell you that you’re using the wrong pronouns.
Why do you think people should only care about what you care about and not care about the things you don’t care about?
You sound like you come from a position of privilege and have not been treated with the maliciousness and even violence trans people have to deal with on a daily basis.
I suppose asking you to put yourself in their shoes would be too much?
The system I am actually trying to dismantle is what is oppressing these people, not me. I have my sights set on the big targets and find the trans movement to be a divisive distraction. I have sympathy but it’s not really my battle. My battle is one that affects all of us, not just some of us.
You are part of that system if you don’t give them the basic respect of self-identity they are due. If that is not part of your fight, you’re part of the problem.
there’s a very good chance that the same bigots that use the N word are the same enemy as the one that supports the right. JK Rowling is not my enemy though.
I see. Bigotry against black people is to be fought against but bigotry against trans people is acceptable. I wonder what other marginalized groups you think that should just accept the bigotry hurled at them?
And as I thought, the issue here is that you yourself are a bigot.
Why not toss other queer people into that category while you’re at it? Are gay men are no different from bronies and furries and they should just tolerate being called f*s? Or are those disgusting trans people that make you feel icky the only people who get harassed and attacked for their immutable characteristics that should just suck it up and take all the hatred thrown at them?
I accidentally misgender trans people all the time. Never have I ever been accused of being transphobic because I handle it like calling someone the wrong name accidentally. I quickly correct myself and move on, and actively do my best to remember their pronouns going forward.
Sure, it takes half a braincell of effort at first, but then it becomes easier. This is a strategy known as “not being a dick”.
That said I call everyone Carl because I’m too lazy to learn everyone’s name, and I don’t want to walk on eggshells to make sure I don’t call someone the wrong name accidentally./s
IDK, to me it’s not that much different than trying to keep someone’s religious denomination straight. I really just don’t care what particular branch of stupid you’re into.
But hey, that’s me, a cys white male living their life oblivious to your personal struggle. Fuck me, am I right? If you want to have a conversation about toppling capitalism, you might get my attention.
I’m also a cis white dude, but I’ve grown past the stage of saying “woah is me I’m standing in a place of privilege”. That attitude does nothing for anyone.
Allow yourself to be called out, because that’s how you get called in. If you want change, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable, because that’s what growing feels like. That discomfort is part of you having empathy for others, but it will go away as you learn to love and respect those who are not like you.
I get it, it’s easy to want to focus on how patriarchal systems have put us in a strange position of being both an aggressor and a victim, and it’s easier to face being a victim than considering how we’ve been complicit in this system. We do need to talk about men’s new role in an egalitarian society, and how we can best support men going forward, but being apathetic towards the dignity of others is not how you topple capitalism.
That problem is never the worst in someone’s life, though. If they have that problem, they also have the problems of people calling the police if they use a public bathroom, or being killed on a first date… Slightly bigger problems.
Was sitting in a particular seat the entirety of the civil rights movement? Is being addressed by your correct pronouns the entirety of the trans movement? Are they both smaller manifestations of much larger issues of bigotry and bias that shitty people can isolate to try and mock and trivialize the hardships that minorities and marginalized people face?
Sorry, why is it such a hardship for you if someone says “don’t call me he, please, call me grit?” What does it matter if it sounds funny or weird? Lots of things in English sound funny or weird. We drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.
You’re right, but you can never be left…darn that’s even wrong but not even right. You could say we’re uneven right 👍. Like the word fuck. I can fuck up but haven’t ever fucked down! But there are many ways to fuck up and non of those ways is doggy style. You can fuck someone up, but you can’t fuck them up doggy style. You can only fuck them doggy style. The only way to fuck is up, but there are a huge number of ways to fuck. Like you can’t fuck forward, but you can fuck missionary. But although you can run forward towards a goal, you can never run missionary towards a goal. Two guys can’t fuck scissor style, they can get into that position but it would be painful. Now you can back up and back down, but you can’t back left or right. You can back up a little to the left but your can’t fuck up a little to the left. English is so dumb!
It’s clear that you’re not trying to make a point here.
You didn’t comment here to discuss but just to throw your hate for pronouns onto other people
Ask yourself if you actually want to create positive change. You clearly have an opinion on the matter. Regardless of your opinion being reasonable or not, you already ruined your chance to get your point across by being a total ass
You will never convince anyone by being an asshole. So don’t be one.
And if you just want to express your frustrations then go to your therapist.
You do realize that language evolves and changes, what sounds odd to us may not in 20 years and what sounds normal now may have sounded odd 20 years ago.
Yes there are some rules, but also those rules are subject to change too.
Saying stuff like this 40 years ago would sound absurd: Google it, search it up, tweet it, download it, upload it, post it.
Language changes, thou cannest changeth with it or thee will eventually and indubitably sound like a right silly nincompoop, knave!
I think my point here is that I certainly didn’t get to live in a trans open world. The only openly gay people in my class in jr high and highschool were shun to a corner. They were outcasts. Imagine learning their pronouns… There was no such thing back in the 90’s.
Now you can’t expect people of my age to not find the language strange at all. But my point should be pretty clear, the way to start is through youth. They and not us are the ones that change language. Once they reach their 40’s and 50’s there will be a new wave that will bring more changes with them. So if you don’t catch the waves such as the COVID baby boom, you miss a generation. School is where new language trends will be set.
Similarly is it that big of a hardship that someone accidentally misgenders you? Because if that is a prolem in your life I am super envious of your life. It sounds amazing. Please trade lives with me so that I can have your tiny ridiculous problems.
Well this tweet is mocking the hardship of using different pronouns. It is specifically critisizing the notion that this let’s be real malicious syntax causes ‘hardship’ for someone, writing off the 8 billion people who’s language isn’t native english as morons with a tiny ridiculous problem. IT SPECIFICALLY DOES NOT MENTION INTENTION, it frames not calling someone by their correct pronoun for WHATEVER reason as a person who is either mentally incapable, privilaged, or a whining bitch.
It mentions no conditions, no clarification, it writes off everyone who fails to comply, as people WHO HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN.
So does your comment. "Sorry, why is it such a hardship for you if someone says “don’t call me he, please, call me grit?” - Having grand expectations of MY compliance, yet not applying the same standards for yourself. Why is it such a hardship? What POSSIBLE hardship can you experience conforming to me?
Wow. You really don’t understand what he’s saying.
Also, why on Earth would he be talking about non-native English speakers if he’s an American writer who writes novels in English for English-speakers? Does he really need to add “except for all of you who don’t speak English” or does everyone (except you apparently) realize that without him having to add that bit of unnecessary clarification?
Yes? Because english is the global language? It does not belong to English speaking countries anymore? You lost that with forced colonization? There is no countries on the internet? It is funny how when it comes to MY concerns, and me being offended and being talked down to, the clarification is suddenly ‘uneccesary’, and ‘realised by everyone’.
Bruh… Just use they and them. If people get pissy about it just tell them you struggle really hard with memory and this is your way of making sure you treat everyone with kindness.
Nice reply. I had to remove my comment because it seemed offensive. It was just poking fun at English as a whole. But whatever. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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