Pronouns are like so over!!

Him, him, himmmmmmmmm:
What's she gonna do about him?
She's gonna have to do without him
Or do without meeee, meeeeeeee, meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
No one gets to get it for free!
It's time for me to make the girl seeeeee...
It's me or it's him.
(Rupert Holmes, 1980)

Good, pronouns are old hat now and sooo irrelevant 😃

Yah, third person singular personal pronouns are officially over. Don't worry, tho - they (/them) will be back as "retro" soon enuf -- along with cold-shoulder tops, funfetti hard seltzer, Tik Tok sales conferences, eating on the street with the rats, 24-hour Peppa Pig marathons, FFP2 masks, and foot-long beards. Mark yr calendars for 5020 ...

Some of us are most definitely opting out of the game that assumes boxes are required at all.

Personally, I want to go around telling everyone that identity is a reciprocal social process. Identities are not innate, they’re social categories that people use to make sense of themselves, each other and social systems more generally. They’re always messy, ambiguous and more-or-less problematic. They change over time and vary between contexts. They’re as much - or possible more - imposed on us by the world around us as they are things we generate ourselves. We are identified according to a range of social categories. Our behaviour can contribute to shifting those categories but it’s a bigger process than any individual and not one that can easily be directed or controlled.

Many of us are opting out of any game that requires us to pretend that identity is an essential part of us. Or that having multiple, slippery and only half-applicable identities is in any way unusual.

Mostly I blame this on the massive expansion of social science higher education where a large number of concepts were poorly, uncritically and problematic ally learned and have come to shape all sorts of debates in really problematic ways. All those students whose essays demonstrated that they really didn’t know what ‘social constructionism’ (for example) is and still emerged with a ‘good degree’ (I’ve marked thousands of these myself!) have gone out into the world to deploy this rubbish. And the internet has allowed the rubbish to spread.

I love how Brock has combined the head tilt, hand on hip, arm draped down the body, AND daintily crossed legs and he still looks like a bloke!

I didn't like this article very much because unfortunately I've had too much experience with narcissists like Brock, and it gave me that horrible sensation like I'm walking on eggshells. They are such bullies. So, despite the fact we have endured massive social pressure to ask for pronouns because it's the kind thing to do, apparently asking for pronouns is an act of self flattery designed to make us feel good. The reality is that Brock and others like him will be sneery and nasty no matter what people do. There is no pleasing him. This is why it's so sad seeing women falling over themselves to be allies when in fact the targets of their kindness are thinking 'ugh, how pathetic.'

So Brock will be pleased to know that he doesn't have to go through the 'charade' with me ( although no doubt he will be sad that he doesn't get the thrill of making me confused or upset), because I refuse to play the pronoun game with him.

I quite enjoyed reading it but did skim bits as I found it too long.

The thing that stood out to me was the 'I'm not playing your game' comment. Great, loads of us aren't playing but because we haven't given ourselves a new label, you assume we are. And by labelling yourself as interesting and different by extension you put us in boxes too. Sounds like he might have sort of realised that as he has grown up but I'm not sure he's quite there.

Other people really don't think about you that much Couldn't agree more with this @NecessaryScene

I couldn't be arsed to read all that; what a very boring person. It reminds me of the Sneetches. It's so predictable and juvenile to be cross that your exciting, edgy quirk (which they admit they deployed in part because they enjoyed fucking with people's heads) has now become mainstream and you're no longer special and interesting. I guess that's a drawback of having a gender identity instead of a personality.

lovesT what you say makes sense to me.

It feels like by having to switch sex they're only emphasising the differences in sexes rather than showing that you can be one sex but prefer things associated with the opposite gender.

CB addresses that in the final paragraph.

These days, it feels as if an identity that, not long ago, felt unique to me in most rooms I entered has gone mass. Yes, part of what I’m personally upset about is the fact that this thing I loved isn’t so alt anymore. But more than that, it feels as if pronoun culture has contributed to nonbinary becoming just the third gender after male and female, more static and concrete than its original fluid intentions. The same nonbinary person who complained about nonbinary stereotypes lamented to me, “I don’t want to be a homogeneous normcore mashing of the two genders.” Ben hoped, “If man or woman can mean so many things, then so can nonbinary.” We all became nonbinary to escape gendered expectations, and now we’re stuck again. I can’t help but think that the walking-on-eggshells battle for pronouns is turning my gender into a human-resources-approved corporate product, more neutered than neutral, and, maybe above all else, profoundly unromantic. Next time, just call me by my name.

I don't know if this makes sense at all what I'm about to say because I get so confused with all of this 😅 but ...

I read some of this and he (and other trans/ non binary etc etc) seem to talk about not confirming to gender norms which is fine, whatever 🤷 but they want to be able to be whatever they want so if they're a female they don't necessarily want to be considered girly or someone who does stuff at home, likes baking and flowers etc and if they're a male they don't want to have to be "manly" and enjoy football etc, of course just stereotypes mostly! So why do they then decide to be the other sex to conform to those gender norms rather than saying "I'm a male but I have a preference for more feminine things"?

It feels like by having to switch sex they're only emphasising the differences in sexes rather than showing that you can be one sex but prefer things associated with the opposite gender.

I've thought about this before but literally can't find a way to explain it 😂 if someone else can make sense of it that would be great 👍

Agree with a lot of this. Brock didn't fit the stereotypes, tried to identify out of people's expectations.

Turns out it's the cultural expectations that need to change, not how you identify.

Except that what young people often don't realise is that these "expectations" really aren't so concrete - they're projections of YOUR OWN expectations onto others.

Other people really don't think about you that much, or have such concrete expectations, usually. (Maybe some of the Munchausen moms like Susie Green excepted).

Figuring out that you can just "be yourself" rather than trying to "fit in" is one of those key differentiators between adolescence and full adulthood, and is I think the strongest argument to have a higher-than-normal-legal-adulthood age bar for physical transition like 25 - to clear that common mental change.

I’m actually embarrassed by the women (usually women) in my current and past industry who do this. _always- she/her.

They fall into 2 camps:

middle aged straight women, married to men, with kids who wear dresses and heels, and

young women - in a traditionallyvery male industry (where sexism is rife). Duh???

So cringe. Get some self respect.

Agree with a lot of this. Brock didn't fit the stereotypes, tried to identify out of people's expectations.

Turns out it's the cultural expectations that need to change, not how you identify.

that was long! and so self obsessed. but i'm totally with just using their name ...

I actually liked the article.

Another young gay man who found out he didn't like the masculine expectations placed upon him so decided to identify as non binary.

There is some self awareness and acknowledgment that there's an element of rebellion which now it has become part of the establishment it is no longer fun.

Yes the writer is ageist but that is not uncommon amongst 20 year olds. I can remember thinking that 30 was old!

A good article to bookmark and pass on.

Another giveaway! You go along with it, you're flattering yourself with your deft ally-ness; you don't, you need to die in a grease fire.

I welcome much of what he's saying & it does show critical thought, including around the futility of preferred pronouns (Brock accepts everyone still read him as male anyway) :
I worry that in the end, they/them is just another dead end that mostly serves to annoy some people and make others feel better about themselves

But this bit was hilarious:
At the time, I was particularly close with one of my professors, whom other professors were constantly approaching nervously to ask how they should refer to me.

'constantly' 😂 aye Brock, aye.

"If you know my pronouns,” Sam continued, “you know very little about me. It was never about the pronoun. We’re doing it for other people. In an ideal universe, I don’t need to have a pronoun.""

How close is this though. Because really the pronouns we all use just reflect the sex we can very clearly see people are. If you know my sex, you still know very little about me. You don't know if I like mowing the lawn, baking, craft beer or anything else stereotypically female or male. We need accurate words to describe the sex of people, ie pronouns are useful.

But in an ideal universe I agree Sam, I too don't need to have people make outdated assumptions about me based on gender stereotypes.

Good, pronouns are old hat now and sooo irrelevant 😃
I did giggle at the bit where he was assigned both his sex AND his name at birth. Just like that!

I don’t mind that teenagers are obsessed with not being put in boxes, and then proceed to label themselves according to how they part their hair. It is also good to read that they start to mature at around age 24-25.

I hope it trickles UP to the middle aged people who have a different agenda than «personal freedom» and to those who have been falling all over themselves to facilitate this agenda without understanding it at all.

Absolutely. "Oh pronouns are so mainstream now, they are no longer relevant".

No doubt, in a few years time, anyone who dares ask someone their pronouns, will be considered offensive and a bigot.

Do you know, I’m as GC as they come, but actually I thought that was a fun read. It was witty and smart in places, and had a decent level of self-awareness. I think I’d like Brock Colyar in person. I do love a man in nail varnish and makeup.

This! "It was only fun when we were upsetting people, now people are accepting it and I'm bored, what else can we do to cause a stir with our oppressed outrage?"

Well this was inevitable. Fads fade. And it is a fad.

I do not think any of this will last, but I think it will stick around for a long time yet unfortunately.

That may be a sentiment that underlies much of this stuff

"am a little proud to say that my generation was the one that forced — finally — the entire world, or at least the good-intentioned, progressive part of it that I am fortunate enough to reside in, to acknowledge something many queer people (and feminists and restless square pegs of many varieties) have long sought: freedom from the bright-line tyranny of gender and its accompanying expectations."

Oh sweet child of summer.... you have no idea how far from the truth that is.

I doubt that pronoun declarations will go away, I'll carry on referring to people by name as much as I can and not declaring mine.