In space, can anyone hear my pronouns scream?

[requiredwriting]

I am currently in a situation where I am being forced to think about my pronouns a lot.

And the more I think about them, the more absurd this situation seems. The pronouns that people are getting worked up about are, in theory, the ones which they will never hear. If they are in the room, surely they will be spoken to directly?

So it's very much a kind of thought control, to ensure that we are all thinking about these people in the right way. And also a device for making sure that they are the centre of our attention even when they are not there.

And don't even get me started on neo-pronouns which are the same, but on steroids.

No argument here.

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

Your situation sounds extremely trying!

@Barracker Thank you, v interesting

@Ereshkigalangcleg. It is. Have you come across pronouny? There you can log your preferred pronouns however insane you may be.

pronouny.xyz/u/chaoticdnp

It's narcissism pushing the pronoun thing, wanting to control language and coerce people into complying with things they know are false. Who the hell cares which pronoun people use in your absence?

Do you have to engage?

Don't out yourself by saying too much but I'm guessing that it's is very much something you can't ignore.

Maybe saying it's triggering will keep the pronoun wolves from the door? Or even saying it's fluid and you can't commit to it as it's indeterminable and not something you can control, name or define. Just be vague.

Have you never talked to more than one person at a time? I hear my own pronouns daily as people refer to me in front of me...

What are neo-pronouns?

So it's very much a kind of thought control, to ensure that we are all thinking about these people in the right way. And also a device for making sure that they are the centre of our attention even when they are not there.

100% this.

@OhHolyJesus I do, it's in my house, which is why I have been forced to think about it. So I can't even utter a simple sentence without having to parse it for sense/offence. I am aiming for a middle ground...

@HubertHerbert Basically make up anything you like as a pronoun, which means thinking four times as hard about how you are speaking. I could find a tweet which uses them but honestly, it's almost time for gin.

@alexk3 Not so much, and I've been listening a lot recently. The cats get talked about indirectly to their faces, but the humans less so.

There's something incredibly powerful about using the correct pronouns and sex for a person.
It completely bursts the bubble.

If using accurate language was not so transparently effective, there would be no need for the global expense and extraordinary effort currently being expended in legislation to punish and prevent people from doing exactly that.

Noone would invest millions in pushing hate speech laws, or criminal fines for 'misgendering' if pronouns and referencing sex were in fact only inconsequential politeness, mere courtesies as is claimed.

You don't change laws just to enforce polite courtesies. You don't invest millions for a project that doesn't matter.

Who would throw such enormous money and effort into suppressing truthful speech if it was not extremely important to the success of a particular agenda to suppress it?

Money is thrown where it will yield useful results, or prevent powerful and effective resistance. There's a hell of a lot of money and effort being put into legally PREVENTING people from saying such apparently inconsequential things as "This is a man" or "I reject HIS claims".
Even forums with an apparent commitment to free speech will ban users from saying such things as "this is a man", normalising the censorship and ushering in the laws that make it punishable.

And as others have pointed out, laws are being written to compel people to not only use opposite sex pronouns. But that compelled act is then subsequently offered as evidence that the compelled speakers truly perceive the subject to be whatever they have been compelled to say.

The fact that globally millions are being spent trying to stop me saying something demonstrably true tells me that what I have to say is actually very, very important.

It makes me want to say it louder.

You have always been the best analyst of pronouns, Barracker. Language, as Judith Butler likes to say, is indeed very important.

For those of you who are still unsure, try reading aloud an article about somebody who has committed a violent or a sexual crime, once with 'he', once with 'she' pronouns, and note the difference in your reaction.

I personally think emphasising pronouns will increase discrimination- both old fashioned sexism against women & modern discrimination against trans or non-binary people. I wouldn't know someone was trans or non-binary if they didn't tell me, just as I wouldn't know what their sexuality or religion was. A relative is non-binary & initially said they weren't changing pronouns but have gone hard line on it now & I was recently pulled up on an incorrectly written card I sent- which has merely pissed me off & reduced the likelihood of me contacting them. For reference they didn't bother to tell me they'd changed pronouns, just started correcting my communications. I'd love to see a venn diagram of pass agg vegans & pass agg non-binary people, suspect there is a huge overlap!

I don’t know why, but I’m feeling particularly fed up with this whole situation atm. You’re right, Riders, there’s a particular kind of person who loves to “correct” others’ language.

It’s the same type of person who in the distant past would have told you off for saying “farted” instead of “passed wind”. It’s really the same: middle-class etiquette around speaking frankly of bodily matters. If you’re feeling brave you could put that to your (presumably female) relative.

@alexk3

Have you never talked to more than one person at a time? I hear my own pronouns daily as people refer to me in front of me...

Yes. People make this mistake quite a lot. (V. puzzling.)

Who's "she"? - The cat's mother?

That's when you notice it.

Thank you OP for the link.

pronouny.xyz/pronouns/60057c6df4079b0013953ae5

Nureyevself? Is that for a person who identifies as Rudolf Nureyev?

So I can't even utter a simple sentence without having to parse it for sense/offence. I am aiming for a middle ground...

It's beyond ridiculous.
Surely the sole purpose of pronouns is to make communication a bit easier and more fluent? As soon as you're required to expend mental effort on them they've outlived their usefulness.

Using 'they' for a single person of unknown sex is absolutely fine, been in use for centuries and avoids the default 'he', so personally I've no massive objection to extending that people of known sex. But anything beyond that - wrong sex pronouns or made-up pronouns which are basically nicknames with extra worry about parts of speech - is an imposition.

NEO PRONOUNS?

Can we just get Susie Dent to say "ha ha ha, no, that's not how words or language work, you fucking self obsessed narcissistic moron. No"

She'd use better words, obvs.

Yes, neopronouns. They all spend hours on Twitter validating each other by using them. Which is the only place it is going to happen.

That Pronouny has to be a massive pisstake surely - half of them are symbols/icons!

It’s not a mistake, though? It’s just a normal everyday part of conversation that people on here always seem to conveniently forget.

^ prisencolinensinainciusol2