Mypronouns

[FWRLurker]

Just this really. Found in a colleagues email signature

www.mypronouns.org/

I remember reading this stuff back when I was properly woke. Now I look at it and I’m like... why did I ever think this made any sense whatsoever?

Everyone has a right to decide what other people call them.

Pronouns have nothing to do with your sex so you should always be sure to inform everyone you meet what yours are

People who used sex based pronouns are making assumptions based on someone’s appearance which is wrong

Everyone should ignore the existence of sex in order to avoid accidentally offending hypothetical NB people

Pronoun preferences have nothing to do with being trans. They are nevertheless natural and not to be questioned

There are no conceivable downsides to any of this because personal identity is more real and important than anything else

My brain turned to mush reading this

I think it's such an egotistical problem to have. I rarely hear "my pronouns" because people tend to use them when I am not present. It's not an issue. A bigger issue, to me at least but suspect this comes up far more frequently than the pronouns thing, is the fact I often get "mis-titled" (I am Ms not Miss or Mrs) and "mis-surnamed" (I am MySurname not my dp's surname) and also I get "mis-labelled" a lot as girl when I am a woman.

I'm sure that bothers you, Yogobo. Anyone could be annoyed by lack of recognition or by mislabelling. Does it do you any degree of emotional or physical harm? Is it literally killing you? What does it tell you about the person making this mistake? That they are nasty, evil haters who deserve to die in a fire?

(I hope my 'tone' is obvious!)

What I don't like (as well as the above) is this notion of disclosing things to all and sundry, willy nilly.

I don't really have the brain space to devote to defining my gender identity and I worry it reifies gendered oppression which impacts hugely on women.

By which I mean adult human females.

But say if I did.
It wouldn't be 'cisgender'.

If anything it would be autigender or fatgender (only really coined to mock gender identity on Tumblr, I realize. But I have shorter hair and more masculine or neutral clothes when I can pass male. When I'm fatter and more visibly female due to fat distribution I don't bother as its easier for me at work if I'm more assimilated. But I v much dislike being read as being in any way feminine or femme).

Anyway.

Say if I did go down that rabbit hole.

Why should I make it easier for people who are more comfortable with gender issues to know how to address me?

Why should that be my burden?

Same applies to autistic burden of choosing coloured label to say how people should interact with you.
Why not just assume you shouldn't force eye contact or conversation on anyone?

It's so individualistic and places unfair burdens on people who are already struggling.

That's assuming they are actually struggling.

Obviously forcing your pronouns on people and policing speech is something I'm against for various reasons.

I just wonder about this particular issue, as well.

I recently signed up for a conference, and the registration form forced me to pick pronouns to go on my conference badge. But there was a 'special requests' box so I asked for no pronouns. I don't know how this will go down with the very woke conference organisers.

I think no pronouns is woke Kryptonite. I read a great thread about someone who earnestly claimed to have no pronouns. He was very woke.

It hadn't even occurred to me but I've been 'mis-surnamed' my whole entire life.

Comes of having a surname which is very similar to another, more common (in my part of the world), surname.

In all these discussions, recently of pronouns and over the years of titles, this is the first time I'd even thought of that.

Why do pronoun-controllers go to the bother of telling other people that their preferred pronouns are "he/him/his"(if a transman), "she/her/her" (if a transwoman), "ze, zem, zir" (if "non-binary"), etc. for the other alleged 70+ "genders"?

It seems so disingenuous to me because I don't think such claims are truly the person's preferred pronoun because such pronouns are not self-centred enough.

I'm surprised that these pronoun-controlling people can even notice which pronouns other people say or write because, in my experience, the minds of the pronoun-controlling people seem to be so full of the only pronouns that they really care about : "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, MY, MY, MY, MY, MY, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE".

*If you realize you’ve been referring to someone with either an assumed set of pronouns or pronouns that might no longer be correct:

Example 3. You have a friend who you’ve always called “she” because you always thought the friend is a woman and goes by “she.” You never had a reason to think anything else would be appropriate, but because you’ve recently learned that making assumptions about pronouns could be problematic, you realize you might want to ask people even those who you think are cisgender what pronouns they go by. “Hi Tennishia, how are you? … I recently was learning about personal pronouns and so I’ve started to tell people that I go by ‘she’ and ‘hers’ pronouns myself. It helps me to create an environment where other people can feel comfortable to tell me what pronouns they go by, because some people really aren’t comfortable with the pronouns everyone around them assumes work for them. I know we’ve known each other a long time, and I’ve always use ‘she’ and ‘hers’ pronouns to refer to you, but I realized I might be making some assumptions. Is ‘she’ and ‘hers’ okay or should I be using another set of pronouns to refer to you?”*

How to make your friends instantly hate you!

It would make my friends instantly gently suggest I should book a chat with my GP.

Given I have trouble remembering names, I am at a complete loss as to how I am expected to remember which pronoun someone I barely knew wanted me to use in reference to them when I met them a week ago. Or why I should dedicate any brain space to this task. And this assumes the person I am talking to is also aware of, and remembers, the preferred pronouns of their dozens of vague acquaintances rather than simply referencing the fact the most basic descriptive fact about them - that they are male or female.

often get "mis-titled"

The correct term, which I made up on another thread, is mishonorificked. Mr, Mrs, Miss etc are honorifics, so to be called the wrong one (“It’s MAAAM!”) is to be mishonorificked.

^TM NotBadConsidering, 2019.

That's a great website- comedy gold. Thanks.

I'm surprised that these pronoun-controlling people can even notice which pronouns other people say or write because, in my experience, the minds of the pronoun-controlling people seem to be so full of the only pronouns that they really care about : "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, MY, MY, MY, MY, MY, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE".

Excellent point!

I promise not to talk about people who want me to remember any pronouns.

That website is comedy, it really is. BUT, have you seen this banner at the bottom?

Please check out and support International Pronouns Day, to take place October 16, 2019.

There’s a WHOLE DAY going to be dedicated to this wankery! FWR is going to see some awesome Twitter bullshit on that day I can safely predict.

When we refer to "personal" pronouns, we don't mean that these pronouns are necessarily private information (generally they are not), we mean that they are pronouns referring to a unique and individual person.

Is this the next step? My personal pronouns are personal to me

Pronouns have nothing to do with your sex so you should always be sure to inform everyone you meet what yours are

Eh. I know trans people who think having to inform people is transphobic; you should automatically assume that the 6'5 linebacker wearing a dress is a she, obviously.

WHAT IF SOMEONE MAKES A MISTAKE AND MISPRONOUNS SOMEONE ELSE?

I don’t know which thing is making me twitch more - the fact this possibility is even worthy of discussion, or the fact they’ve invented the verb “mispronoun”.

Have you ever seen anything like this with examples etc on something like say for example 'consent' or how to treat women in the workplace or how to not offend with so called banter?

I started off reading with a chuckle but it's just made me really quite cross now.

anmoony

Well duh of course. This is an instruction manual for highly privileged cisgender masses not for higher beings, who are obviously exempt from any requirements.

Is it like MyLabels? You can have a pretty pink THEM on a pale blue label with a cat next to it?

Well thank Christ we don't have gendered objects like they do in the French language

I think Shige Sakurai has too much time on his hands.

How would anyone know if you mispronouned them as it's presumably when they are not there. If you talk to them directly it is 'you' surely. My work is decidedly unwoke, my boss being the unwoke-ist of all and declares this all as bollocks, so I know we will never have to do this in my work. If forced I think I'd choose the pronoun of HRH or something.