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.
Absolutely, I understand. I’ll make an effort to always refer to neopronouns are abused and often idiotic by neopronouns are abused and often idiotic’s preferred pronouns.
And you don’t see how that makes communication completely impossible? Just read that sentence, it make no sense at all. The purpose of having a trans community is to have just that - a community. “Communication” shares the same root. If you cannot effectively communicate, you cannot have a community.
I use capitalised pronouns. If we’re going to have this discussion, I’d rather that neopronouns are abused and often idiotic used My preferred pronouns.