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.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Unless someones pronouns are in their username they’re getting a “they” from me. Nothing against xe/xim/xir but i ain’t checking every profile of every person I debate about whether Sonic would be tempted or double tempted by the One Ring.

    • germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      That’s a fair problem, Lemmy and the mobile apps need a feature where you can see peoples pronouns beside their names. Voyager doesn’t even let me see anything besides someones username and instance, even on the profile page so I can’t even look for their pronouns even if I wanted

      • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
        0·
        2 months ago

        They absolutely do not, lol. This is a problem for less than 1% of society. The incredibly overwhelming majority of people do not care at all about theirs or others pronouns. In fact, the majority probably still haven’t even pieced together what you guys are even talking about when the topic comes up.

        • germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          As far as I’m aware more than 99% of people have pronouns and most of them would prefer not being called by the wrong ones

          • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 months ago

            Which is why “they” and “them” and “you” exist. If this WAS a big concern for the majority then you would already have pronouns in all the apps instead of not a single one. The fact it’s not there is the proof you need that most people don’t think about this until it’s brought up by you guys.

        • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          2 months ago

          This is a problem for less than 1% of society.

          Yes, and? So if a minority is small enough then it’s okay to be an asshole to them?

          And there’s 8 billion people on earth, 1% of that is still 80 million people that somehow don’t deserve respect?

          The incredibly overwhelming majority of people do not care at all about theirs or others pronouns

          Try calling a grown-ass man a ‘she’ and see how quickly he starts caring.

          • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 months ago

            I’m a grown man, I couldn’t care less. I’m also bi, don’t care if you said I was something else because you’re a stranger on the Internet. And, I know you want to be a victim here, but not putting pronouns in apps isn’t “being an asshole to them”. It’s not wasting time and resources for an incredibly niche issue almost no one is concerned with. I’m not here to tell you I’m an attack helicopter and I’m not here to say your pronouns are invalid, but I am definitely going to stand by the fact that most people don’t think about this or care and it’s in no way necessary to add them to any apps.

      • Akrenion@slrpnk.netEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        We got names for that. It is hard adjusting to nonbinary people in a language that does not support nongendered pronouns but names and nicknames are sociacialy accepted and carry the same respect as a correct pronoun.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      0·
      2 months ago

      i always just use they/them as a default until i know the correct pronouns because it’s the most universally genetic anyway :3

      • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        2 months ago

        Personally I use they/them until I get corrected on it. It’s my default.

        It being my default of course means that a lot of the time I’ll keep using it even after being corrected. That’s not from a position of intolerance though, it’s from a position of habit.

        And also given the amount of people I engage with online I’m not going to remember every person I interact with, especially given how sparsely I actually respond to people and my response time to people.

        Basically y’all are a field of ever changing faces I’ll likely never see again let alone IRL, I’m going to stick to they/them for 99% of our interactions.

    • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      This is the only reasonable way to handle this situation. I’m all about making sure people are comfortable, but making-up words and then getting offended when people don’t use them properly is bonkers. I truly don’t mean to offend anyone, but this is getting out of hand.

    • RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      2 months ago

      Hold on, I’m she/they.

      Now can we discuss this FASCINATING topic??? Do we think the one ring would hold multiple ring value? Would Sonic turn invisible or just absorb it? How does the ring affect sonic if it is absorbed? What happens if he collects 100 One Rings? I have so many questions.