this stems from another conversation on this site.
a commenter used the pronoun “they” because they didn’t know the gender. Commenter could have looked at an inactives users profile to see the pronouns were she/her, but they didn’t.
So the question is: is it wrong to use pronoun “they” when you simply don’t know or needed to know the gender? I was told that “liberals” use it aggressively/offensively to trans people, but most liberals i know aren’t smart enough to know about pronouns and how to use them properly.
I’ve been using “they” to admit gender ignorance all the fuckin time so im just trying to see if im wrong or not. Because ive never heard of this before. and i thought this site had told me everything by now lol
edit: thank you all for the comments. ill certainly try to remember to check pronouns of inactive accounts before i talk about them, but we need to be able to debate from a reasonable position and jumping to “HOW DARE YOU SAY THEY YOU LIB” isn’t going to do shit. Lenin created schools to educate workers, Hexbear is our school. and i fucking love this school.
It depends on the context imo
If they know your pronouns but insist on saying the wrong one even after being reminded then yeah they’re being a shithead.
Otherwise it’s just a polite way of being like “IDK your pronouns please feel free to tell me”
i don’t think its offensive, you have to use some pronoun when the gender isn’t known and ‘they’ is considered gender neutral. I think its offensive when someone deliberately uses it despite knowing their pronouns.
I think its offensive when someone deliberately uses it despite knowing their pronouns.
for sure, and that’s not what happened here.
In my friend group, the one cis guy (we’re working on it) kept defaulting to they for all of us for a couple months cause we all basically transitioned at the same time lol just 5 people newly using she, he, they, and his poor brain couldn’t keep up. I didn’t give him a hard time about it and he eventually got it sorted.
That’s 100% understandable, and there’s a huge difference between being understanding of someone struggling in a context like that, vs not bothering to click a link to verify before throwing up your hands and acting like it’s unknowable. I also assume you knew the person well enough to know he was actually trying, which doesn’t often apply online.
and that’s my other point: the words versus the intent(especially on the internet where words have no tone). Pronouns are trickier territory than racial slurs.
ok yea that could be a bit much at first haha. i could understand even more if they knew everyone before transition. i dont have any long time friends that transitioned, its mostly people ive met recently so that makes it easier. if my long time best friends transitioned i would call them “he” on accident for sure.
libs definitely use the They pronoun as a minimum of performative solidarity instead of seeking to understand someone’s gender identity or having it be low on their Priority List
imo: when talking in the abstract about someone or something, it’s fine.
When a person is in the conversation, use their pronouns. In the scenario who is the object of a conversation has a name like TransComrade, you should do the diligence of seeing if you can find their pronouns. In that sort of scenario, it’s clear that the person’s pronouns matter (they’re identifying themselves as trans! their gender identity is clearly a very important thing and should be respected!)
If you can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum of due diligence to check a hexbear user’s pronouns before discussing them, I don’t know what to tell you. In cases where you have no easy way of finding out someone’s pronouns, sure, use they/them, but refusing to put in the bare modicum of effort when our pronouns are right on our profile is lib shit.
i dont even know if they saw the link to the profile or not, but if admitting ignorance or trying to be as neutral as possible is lib shit, then we’re just an echo chamber that won’t accomplish anything. Confronting everyone from the most left position possible isn’t going to do shit.
lmao bein a woke lib who is still participating in gender coercion is a really “funny” bit. their kid is gonna come out to them in 12 years and they’re gonna be like “darling it’s really insensitive of you to appropriate transfem experiences like that. now come on, we’re late for soccer practice.”
I don’t think anyone would fault you for using the information you currently have available, even if it might possibly be outdated. And if someone happens to know updated information, a quick correction is all it would take.
And thinking to check a profile for pronouns is now something you can try to be aware of, and do better with.
I do wish you would use hir correct (as far as we know) pronouns now that you have been corrected, though.
i never interacted with tc69 but other people were using she/her so if i had a reason to participate in that other conversation i would have carried on with those pronouns, but maybe those were made after the user this post is sortof about made comment.
i’ve never clicked on someone’s profile and i’m not going to start, i didn’t even know we had profile pages and especially with the scuffed accessibility standard preventing links from opening in new tabs I think clicking onto a new page and losing track of your place in a conversation is enough of a competing accessibility to rise above “bare minimum”, as someone else put it.
maybe userpings or links to whatever the fuck a profile is should have the pronounce in them
at this point, there is a weird trend where accounts newer than 3 months old think it’s horrible, and 3 year old accounts are ok with it. so that’s at least interesting. most people here seems to agree with you, but a few new users take offense to it. We’re not going to convince people to join our side if you choose to argue from the most leftist side possible at all times, a side that maybe 5% of the population can understand.
i keep saying this, but please don’t be a parody of ourselves. shit’s bad enough as it is.
Yeah I don’t put a ton of stock in account age. I have shitty takes too no doubt. And I took a huge break (funny enough largely because of the user in question). But I am trying my best not to be a lib and do praxis and care for comrades in all their spaces and that’s about the best I got.
Yeah I don’t put a ton of stock in account age.
im trying not to, but the trend is certainly odd.
But going to “HOW DARE YOU SAY THEY” is just being TC69 and trying to keep people away from HexBear and therefore we can’t change anyones mind. Like, do you want progress or not? It’s not easy from our side but it has to be done.(and this only applies to being online. if i could throw every transphobe into a literal pit, i would)
