5060

Hah, and much worse, yes? Considering all the things we’ve gone through in the last decade, a novel pronoun shouldn’t seem like such heavy lifting. And I’m sure this is just me being an old guy using “they” in a particular way for 43 years or so, I might very well be on a completely incorrect tack.

5061

Sure, that’s just a choice of their name. Folks can have any proper noun they want, within reason.(for instance, if you said that you wanted us to refer to you by a 20 digit number, we would probably tell you to fuck yourself)

But pronouns are things that we all share, and asking that people don’t use them at all leads to awkward, difficult communications. There is a reason why pronouns exist in the language.

The refusal to accept any pronoun isn’t even something related to trans people… Any person could make such demand, but if someone who wasn’t trans made such a request and demanded that you use their full name any time you ever referred to them, you wouldn’t even conceive of honoring it, not for a second.

5062

Elon and Grimes side-eye.

5063

This reminded me. With my nieces and nephews for whatever reason up until around the time they could walk I would always refer to them as “it”. My wife would call me on it all the time. I had no idea I was doing it usually.

5064

Eh, they’re all little monsters until a certain point.

5065

It’s not like pronouns are 100% necessary. We’re not talking about a request not to use them as the subject of verbs. Just to use the long form.

Plus this is all hypothetical since I don’t know if anyone, Bob Dole aside, has actually decided that they don’t want pronouns used for them. Again it may have just been something thrown in to cover all possible options.

5066

Point of order, “anyone” being another semi-obscure plural, you chose “they.”

5067

But isn’t that person just as likely to say “he” or “she” in referring to the caller.

And I will call someone whatever they want but they will first have to tell me what that is if it is not as it appears. And if we have just met expect me to screw up once or twice.

Change is hard. :)

5068

I don’t think anyone here is expecting perfection, or telepathy.

5069

Also, just a stupid aside, my company owner is one of those people who always greets others by their full name, as in, “Hey, Bob Ross, great to see you!” I suspect that is the polar opposite of what we’re discussing. I also strongly suspect it’s a characteristic of a base introvert thrust into an extrovert role, but that falls way outside our current discussion. (See: Rob Lowe in Parks and Recreation.)

5070

Sorry, that’s not reasonable.

You can pick any pronoun you want, that’s cool. You can’t demand that people make a special exception for you, and always use your full name.

I mean, of course you can choose to accommodate such people, but I don’t consider their request reasonable. They are demanding that they be treated differently from everyone else.

I’m cool with treating people equally, but they don’t get to make up special rules for themselves and expect everyone else to bend to their will.

Oh, is apparently a thing.

But the people doing it are assholes. They are simply indulging their own egos, and demanding that others endulge them as well.

5071

Or someone who sucks at remembering names and beat the device of repeating someone’s name into them. I try, but usually fail, to say peoples name back to them at some point after introduction to help me remember it.

5072

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

5073

I believe one should make a good faith an effort. That doesn’t in any way imply one has to put up bad faith shenanigans once they manifest.

5074

Me too, don’t sleep on memory palaces. First time you meet someone named Tom, picture Tom Cruise holding him up in front of wherever you’re at, and really build the picture in your mind. It works.

5075

Again, cranky man here, but I just feel like saying, “These are your choices. Pick one. If you ID as a male, I’ll call you ‘he’. Same with female and ‘she’.” It’s this wishy-washy “fluidness” B.S. that I really have a hard time with. Are these people constantly changing characters? Are they presenting as male one day and female the next? I know I’m being callous and insensitive, but come on.

5076

I attended the wedding of a good gay friend of my daughters, someone we had known for almost 20 years. I was warned by my daughter that the individual presiding over the ceremony preferred to be called They. I did speak to They but I never had to use the pronoun.

5077

I guess I just don’t think it’s fair to make such a demand of others.

I could make such a demand… Such a demand has nothing to do with gender. But to do so would be to force other people to make special efforts for no other reason besides playing to my own ego.

Like I said, it’s totally cool to request whatever pronoun you want. When my coworker decided to transition, I didn’t bat an eye when she said she wanted to be called she. That’s cool, that’s simply treating her as an equal.

5078

I guess I just have a higher tolerance for this kind of imposition. Someone asks me to call them whatever, I say whatever, whatever.

5079

I don’t think they pronouns are much of a leap from that.

Now, if someone wants to use something like fae/faer or xe/xir, that’s a little unusual in my eyes, but it doesn’t cost me anything to respect their/faer/xaer wishes.