I am neuro-divergent. I struggle with remembering minutia that aren’t, coincidentally, just luckily the minutia that I glimpse, once, and never forget. I state this not as an excuse but as a statement of fact and I am terrible at remembering people’s pronouns. I cannot even remember people’s names. When I see people I know, I can remember who they are, what we have done together, where we have been, what we have seen and even the tone of voice they might use to exclaim at an occurrence or upon some eventuality but – yet – I often cannot remember their names. Pronouns are like parts of their names.
And, so, I tend to address everyone with “they” / “them”.
In my limited experience, this only tends to annoy the anti-woke conservative types who renounce the very concept of pronouns and believe that one should only ever be addressed as “he” / “him” – assuming that a penis hangs between their thighs – or “she” / “her” otherwise. (A musing: How do they know? Also, what if it’s cold? Or they’re upside down? Quandaries within quandaries!)
BUT… I am open minded and I can believe that others, too, might be offended by my cop-out, including open-minded, non-mysoginist, non-bigots who do understand why people elect to be addressed under non-Victorian pronouns.
I have recently had reason to pause and wonder about this. I struggle with pronouns but I do try my best and so, I’m asking: for which reasons might someone object? Tell me, LGBTQ+ community.
and likewise, as an older queer I’m doing my own educating here. I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth. Not now with the severity of the threat we collectively face while we’re having a fucking pissing match over pronouns and being offended by the innocent use of they/them purely to be outraged and feel important.
To me it seems the original comment was simply someone providing an example of how binary trans folks can be upset at being referred to as they/them, an experience that many have also shared in here. Those who have chimed in have even stated it is mostly a pet peeve or an annoyance at best. I’m not sure I share your opinion that anyone was getting their “panties in a twist” so much as they were educating and sharing, which is completely reasonable on a website of this size in an area where folks who are not queer can read and comment.
Your response makes plenty of sense given the severity of problems happening right now. I wonder, however, if your energy is not better spent elsewhere? Infighting does not serve anyone, something which I see even you preaching, yet you are even replying to my comment where I simply am reminding you to be nice (which I made as an admin only because you were reported) with strong language deriding your fellow queers and allies.