I’ve always said that in person I’ll call anyone by the pronoun they wish to be called, and I intend to abide by this as a simple matter of civility. But I’m not sure I’d do that when talking about someone who uses a “neopronoun” when they’re not present, because some of those pronouns seem pretty bizarre and would stick in my craw (see below for examples).
Pronouns like “they” for bi-gender people are okay by me, as are “he/him” for trans males or “she/her for transfemales. But when you go on, and look at lists of other ones, it seems like going down the rabbit hole. The article below mentions over 200 different neopronouns!
For your delectation and social harmony, CNN offers “A guide to neopronouns, from ae to ze.” First, what is a neopronoun? The site explains:
The most common third-person pronouns include “she,” “he” and “they.” While “she” and “he” are typically used as gendered pronouns to refer to a woman and a man respectively, “they” can be used as a gender-neutral descriptor for an individual person or a group of people. Celebrities like Janelle Monáe, Emma Corrin and Jonathan Van Ness have each said “they” is a pronoun that works for them. [JAC: I use “they” when referring to a generic person.]
Neopronouns, meanwhile, are less commonly used than those three familiar pronouns. They’re often used by nonbinary, transgender and gender nonconforming people because they offer more freedom of identity. In his book “What’s Your Pronoun?” Baron wrote that neopronouns “expand the ways that people are able to indicate their gender identity to encompass anyone who is trans or nonbinary, as well as those who choose an altogether different term to characterize their gender.”
Per the LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign, neopronouns are a “step towards a society where people can more fully express all parts of themselves.”
And here’s a handy list from the article. As I said, I’d use them to a person when encountering them directly, but I’m not so sure if, when talking about such a person to another, I’d use them. In fact, while I’d use them as well in writing about a person, I would probably refer to a neopronoun user by name rather than use these words, which seem awkward. Actually, for most of the examples below, you can use a person’s name instead of their pronoun (i.e. “I asked Sammi to come to the movies. Sammi said yes!”, and so on).
xe/xyr (commonly pronounced zee/zeer)
I asked xyr to come to the movies. Xe said yes!
ze/zir or ze/hir (commonly pronounced zee/zeer or zee/heer)
The teacher graded zir paper today, and ze got an A!
Ze said hirself that I’m hir favorite neighbor.
fae/faer (commonly pronounced fay/fair)
Fae told me that faer best friend is in town this week.
ey/em/eir (commonlypronounced aye/em/air)
I’m taking em to the park today. Ey wants to bring eir camera to capture the garden for emself!
ae/aer (commonly pronounced aye/air)
Ae is my best friend — most of aer’s weekday evenings are spent at my house.
I’m not sure exactly how these pronouns express a person’s identity, beyond reject the familiar “binary” pronouns, but that’s their business, not mine.
The article notes that some neopronouns were introduced in the 1700s, but an expert weighs in on their history. (The expert is “Dennis Baron, one of the foremost experts on neopronouns and their histories and an emeritus professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign”.) Baron notes that
Even though there were dozens of neopronouns that made it into print in the 19th and 20th centuries, most of them didn’t make a huge impact upon their introduction or were lost to time, Baron said. During that time, the public was resistant to language change, and men in positions of power often didn’t take issue with a lack of gender-neutral pronouns, Baron wrote. [I suspect you can’t pin this solely on “men in power”, as these neologisms would seem strange to many people.]
And I don’t think I’ve ever see any used in literature, whether fiction or nonfiction. But times have changed:
Some neopronouns were created by writers as far back as the 18th century, many of whom did not publicly identify as nonbinary, because they wanted a genderless word to describe a person or group of people —only recently have pronouns been used as a political tool for the way they’re used by nonbinary and trans people, Baron wrote.
The “political use”, says Baron, is that ” Understanding and using someone’s pronouns is one way to show solidarity and respect toward trans people.” And that’s why I’ll use these terms to people’s faces, but there’s an element of compulsion about using them otherwise that smacks of virtue signaling and attempts to appropriate power through language change. I’d rather use someone’s name. And really, are you being a good ally when you use the ones below?
Leaf, sun, star — nounself pronouns are neopronouns that use nature and other inspirations as nonbinary or genderless descriptors. Linguist Jason D’Angelo told The New York Times that nounself pronouns were popularized on the social platform Tumblr around 2012 and 2013 and remain in use among members of fandoms who may take their nounself pronouns from the properties they enjoy.
For someone who uses the nounself pronoun “leaf,” that may look like: “I hope leaf knows how proud we are that leaf is getting to know leafself better!” or “Leaf arrived at the coffee shop before me; I was mortified to have been late to meet leaf.”
I don’t think I could force myself to say such things. And I get that someone might have a non-standard identity and want a novel identifier, but who identifies as part of a tree, or as an astronomical body? Really, would you refer to someone as “leafself”?
I like the word “neopronoun”, sounds like “neoplasm”.
A cancer on our vocabulary
If you identify as an autumn Pumpkin Spice Latte, leafself pronouns are a human right!
What a complete load of crap!
Agreed
Mishegoss….you kids get off my lawn!
And stay off mine while you’re at it.
Which is *exactly* why I refuse to use them.
Also agree
Pronouns are third-person, so that if I use them they are my pronouns. I used to be somewhat sympathetic towards preferred pronouns, but I am so fed up with the authoritarianism of these fanatics that I shall revert to the language with which I am comfortable.
+
I find “it” to be a nice inclusive pronoun.
My niece started high school a few weeks ago and students were asked for their pronouns and they were entered into the computer. I’m not sure if that was for one class or for the school. She said that students have already asked to change them. Wouldn’t it be great if the students were changing them every day, driving the activist teachers crazy?
Were they given guidelines for what could be a pronoun? Or can they use anything they like? I would definitely troll a teacher by changing them often and complaining about their improper use.
I’m about 100% sure that they could use anything they want. If “leaf” qualifies, what wouldn’t? I have never seen a pronoun deemed inappropriate.
Ah, it took me a while to find, but here’s a story about a teacher who got upset when a student said his pronouns were “banana” and “rock” when “somehow the concept of pronouns came up.”
It can be surprising what passes as inappropriate.
Some years ago I was working for an aviation Client in Italy who in addition to a helicopter registration I-AGFA also had two aeroplanes one registered I-FART and the other registered I-F***K (I won’t spell it out) my Italian colleagues really didn’t appreciate the offensiveness to (some) English speakers and obviously neither did the RAI the Italian Airworthiness Authority at the time.
I thought it was most inappropriate and I know for a fact the UK CAA would have also although also at this time the UK National Jam Manufacturer “Robertsons” had a fixed wing aeroplane with the registration G-OLLY together with the then Company symbol, a large Gollywog on the tail complete with detail. Children used to collect the jam jar labels in return for an enamel broach of the Company Symbol. At the time no one batted an eyelid or complained it was inappropriate.
The times have changed, mostly for the better but not always.
Hope no one here is offended.
You recreate my childhood! I used to collect the gollies on the jam and marmalade jars, and send them off for an enamel badge. I ended up with five or six, as I remember.
I used to live on the outskirts of South London, and a couple of miles away was a Robertsons bottling plant. Everybody referred to it as ‘the golliwog factory’. Autre temps, autre moeurs.
For those who don’t know what a Gollywog is, it’s a very stereotyped version of a black person (usually a doll) used in England decades ago, when I was a kid. You can see what they look like here.
I’m sure Little Johnny — every class has one — is taking that on as a personal challenge somewhere as we speak.
For context, the teacher was asking the class if anyone could use the word “Rotterdam” in a sentence. Little Johnny’s hand shot up. The teacher was pleasantly surprised that Johnny seemed to know about Rotterdam so she gave him the floor.
“My sister et all my Hallowe’en candy and I hope it’ll rotter dam teeth out!.”
“… and they were entered into the computer. I’m not sure if that was for one class or for the school.”
The UN / UNESCO / WEF is using it. They are datamining all students without consent with the objective of growing a society (Mao – bottom up) to fit into the world they are making with their Sustainable Development Goals (Stalin – top down).
They call it “economic forecasting” in the “Psychodata” paper :
Journal of Education Policy
Volume 36, 2021 – Issue 1
Psychodata: disassembling the
psychological, economic, and statistical
infrastructure of ‘social-emotional
learning
Ben Williamson
… they think it will work this time.
Scary!
To the best of recall from a friend in New Brunswick Canada.
This is the subject of a considerable political argument in New Brunswick Canada where the leader of the legislature changed part of the education act to require that children under the age of 16 years in the NB public schools must have parental permission prior to changing pronouns/names required and recorded in school documentation and this must be transmitted to the school and teaching staff by parents. Without this children must be addressed as recorded when initially attending the school.
His actions are apparently driven by belief that parents should be involved in all activities of their children’s education especially wrt the recent concern with juvenile gender dysphoria.
I believe he has had much thrown at him from accusations of “ transphobia” to “fascist “ and worse and also experienced considerable push back from teachers and members of the legislative assembly.
The New Brunswick premier (and those in a couple of other Canadian provinces) is doing the right thing. Social transition is a big deal indicating mental disturbance in children; parents should be alerted when this is going on. It is not like outing a kid who seems to like members of the same sex “that way”. It is more like alerting a parent that a child is “cutting”, acting out, coming to school intoxicated, or inducing vomiting. It should absolutely not be covered up by the school.
Leslie, I totally agree, however having perused the subject subsequent to my post the Premier is still getting some significant push back but also growing support which is promising.
There are a lot of Canadians who do not fully appreciate the risk to youngsters from the TRAs either that or they just don’t care.
This just came out today.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-sues-district-requires-parents-notified-kids-change-102623343
California’s attorney general sued a Southern California school district Monday over its recently adopted policy that requires schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns.
Attorney General Rob Bonta called the Chino Valley Unified School District’s policy a “forced outing” of transgender students that violates their civil rights. He said he is seeking a court order to immediately halt the policy from taking effect.
I really don’t know what to say. What about the Parental Civil Rights in being informed about all aspects of their children’s education practices and procedures. Does he abdicate other aspects of parenting and take responsibility, I think not!
This is not a “ forced outing” it is common sense. The law is an ass, to quote Mr Bumble the Beadle from Oliver twist.
California is hopeless. Look to states that are banning drugs and surgery for minors with sex-identity confusion, not to states that are banning attempts by parents to be parents.
I’m looking for what, exactly, Györg Lukács set for educational policies in the attempt at communism in Hungary (~1919)- as well as Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) – target : “childhood innocence” (see below) – a form of private property – to destabilize the family, to radicalize youth for revolution, the state takes custody…
Nahhhhh, that’d mean the whole school training system would have to have Marxists installed – impossible!
Interrogating innocence: “Childhood” as exclusionary social practice
Julie C. Garland
Childhood 2019, Vol. 26(1) 54–67, 2018
Quote : “… I reveal how the doctrine of innocence has operated to maintain White supremacy.”
Quote : “What we need is not a more inclusive concept of innocence, but rather a concept of childhood that is premised not on innocence, but justice. “
Author name typo:
Julie C. Garlen
I have been saying for some time that I think the attempt to control how people talk about you is nonsensical. For all a person knows, others may refer to him as “that bastard” or with other terms of derision, which is apparently alright in this context. To think you can control that (other than by not being a bastard) is ludicrous. Clearly, this is less about the object of the pronouns and more about cant. If this were truly an issue, why not just use the person’s name, and avoid the pronoun confusion?
Once you have ~200 pronouns, are they any more useful that using someones name?
Precisely. In the sentence “Leaf arrived at the coffee shop before me; I was mortified to have been late to meet leaf” it sounds remarkably like ‘Leaf’ is their name.
In the 70s my older sister had a thing for a teeny celeb whose name was pronounced “Leaf”
Spelled “Leif” (or sometimes “Lief”), a not uncommon Scandinavian name.
GCM
I had as lief not be.
Thought reform is for Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution.
I’m prepared for the struggle session.
“You better free your mind instead”
-John Lennon
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow”
Conventional pronouns “evolved” to support unambiguous communication, and so align with large, easily identified groups (male/female, singular//plural). The “new” pronouns don’t serve the same purpose and, on account of their number and applicability only to rare individuals, are hugely demanding in use. I predict they won’t last save to be used by a tiny few, except for maybe “they.” And “they” creates confusion in its overlap of singular/plural. I’ve had this happen more than once in personal experience.
I am not doing this. Period. Full stop. And I will not respect anyone who does. Also period. Also full stop.
Me too
Me three!
Me four
They should try controlling their own mind and speech than my mine.
Are you sure that’s the pronoun you want to go with? Don’t come back tomorrow and try to change it on us!
Agreed. Besides, I could never remember them all. I can’t help think that with the dangers the world is facing from climate disaster to the possibility of annihilation by still-stockpiled nuclear arms, these people are worrying about pronouns.
Seems like a lot of work to relearn all my pronouns. I can do it if I have to, but I doubt that these will catch on easily. It’s not hard to use the pronouns that a specific person requests—as in he/she/him/her/they. But neologisms add a lot more friction to the system. It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.
When writing, I have long adopted a strategy of avoiding pronouns where possible. It’s usually not that difficult. It’s the same with plural possessives. “Our cats’ (or is it cats’s?) bowls are always kept full” becomes “Our cat bowls are always kept full.” Easy peasy.
“cats’s”
You just made my eyes bleed a little.
a “step towards a society where people can more fully express all parts of themselves.”
Sounds good to me. Please refer to all my parts between my belt and my neck as zi/zog, below the belt as pra/prep [except for my genitals which frankly you shouldn’t be talking about anyway] and everything above my neck as ae/%*3.
I just noticed “towards a society where people can ” – clear Marxist intent and phrasing.
Only Marxism would claim to know the future society. Non-Marxists don’t presume – they of course expect/predict society to get better by classical liberalism.
But Marxists know as a prophecy, because they think so much about it – more than anyone. Notice, nothing else will work – it has to be their plan – i.e., Marxism.
Recommended reading:
* Byrne, Alex. “Pronoun Problems.” Journal of Controversial Ideas 3 (2023): 1–22.
The paper is freely downloadable from PhilArchive:
https://philpapers.org/rec/BYRPPV
“ABSTRACT: In recent years, pronouns have become a white-hot interface between language and social and political issues. “My pronouns are he/they” signals allegiance to one side in the culture wars, as does “My pronouns are whatever.” But there is surprisingly little philosophical work at this interface; this paper aims to chart the main questions and argue for some answers, with the hope of stimulating more research.”
One point not highlighted enough is that many people are not that good at remembering names and faces (I’m not). To ask them to remember pronouns as well (when appearance doesn’t give sufficient clue) is getting unreasonable. “Neo-pronouns” are way passed unreasonable.
And to highlight how the woke manipulate language:
No-one “uses” “their” pronouns. This means: “… someone who wants other people to use a neopronoun …”. And the difference there is fairly major.
A solid point, but I don’t think reasonableness is one of the criteria being used in formulating these policies.
The so-called “nounself” pronouns are indistinguishable from simply changing your name.
As for using people’s preferred pronouns to their face, surely that is the one situation when the only pronoun required is the 2nd-person “you”.
The English language is historically intolerant of this kind of complexity: it shed both gender and case inflection centuries ago. Why is that important? Because people who have grown up speaking English will not have the patience to expand their 3rd-person pronoun vocabulary applying an if-then logic to their choice of words. Ironically for such an Anglosphere problem, speakers of case-rich languages like Hungarian or Bengali would probably be better equipped for the mental gymnastics involved.
Agree, this is about trying to police how people are referred to when being spoken about in the third person. And your last paragraph neatly summarizes why it won’t catch on. He/she/it (per the comment from Mike below) seems a bit harsh, but it is the way the language has worked during my lifetime. “They” is not difficult, but still feels odd in a singular context.
And, per comments above, Leaf, just sound too much like Lief to avoid jumping to the conclusion that it’s a name.
Ultimately the language will be whatever it settles into – it can’t be forced or policed effectively, so this stuff is all for naught (thankfully)
To avoid insult and doubt I’m now calling everyone “it”.
Lots of people seem to self-identify as stars.
Neopronouns aren’t just an attempt to control how we talk about people; they’re an attempt to control how we think about sex.
In an enlightened society, sexes are reproductive categories which don’t involve personal attributes. What is the difference between men and women? Biology. We don’t separate men from women by personality.
If we did that, we wouldn’t get a society where people can more fully express themselves. We get a society where sex categories have been made so restrictive that we think of them as controlling the way we think and behave. What is now the difference between men and women? Personality. Thus it becomes a necessary act of liberation to throw them off when they don’t “fit.” Create a problem which doesn’t exist — then solve it by way of regressive sexism less than fully expressed.
The “solution” — a million different ways to refer to a person’s sex — points out the problem. Sex isn’t personality. Using a person’s preferred pronouns doesn’t just support stepping backwards, it contributes to their reliance on pseudo-respect.
Bingo.
Yes, that lays it out very clearly. Nicely said.
Yes, and there’s a term and intent for it :
thought reform.
Robert Jay Lifton
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism – A Study Of “Brainwashing” In China
1961
This is what I’ve been saying here lately, so I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I use “they/them” for individuals only if they has multiple personality disorder. And I limit
my use of “ze/zir” to zose who speak wiz French or Austrian accents. [Although modern Scandinavian languages don’t contain a “th” sound, Nordics never seem to have trouble with it in English. Does this reflect a muscle memory of the þ in Old Norse?] My own preferred pronouns reflect my self-ID as the rightful Tsar of all the Russias.
“They/them” is an excellent pronoun for people who have worms. Especially the tissue dwelling forms that get deeply into the body organs, not merely staying in the intestine which is topologically outside the body. When we say, “We are going to treat them with praziquantel or ivermectin”, we really mean “all of them.”
Seriously amusing.
Hope the worms appreciate the gesture.
When I am speaking with someone, I have always found the pronoun “you” to work perfectly well. Has anyone ever heard of a person objecting to this word?
If this pronoun nonsense were a right-wing craze you wouldn’t find a soul in academia who would countenance it, and the token linguist who was called upon to endorse a political stance would instead be arguing about how pronouns in English are, essentially, a closed class that rarely change.
Is there an added complication in languages like German where every noun has a feminine, masculine or neuter article?
The Frogs are already at odds about it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11533825/Brigitte-Macron-blasts-French-leftie-councils-using-gender-inclusive-spelling.html
Not with the pronouns – yet. Our bigger language issue lies with gendered nouns akin to actor/actress which becomes something like act*ess or act:ess where the * or : is spoken as a hard attack on the following vowel. Given German’s propensity for compounding nouns, hilarity ensues… not.
> ”Understanding and using someone’s pronouns is one way to show solidarity and respect toward trans people.”
Not sure if anyone noticed something similar to “concept creep” happening; neo-pronouns now indicate transgenderism?
Please excuse me, but whereas I will use “they” in the singular if you wish, and I will call a transgender person by whatever existing pronouns they chooses, I will not adopt any of the neopronouns under any conditions. I think it is a little like asking people to call me “your excellency” or some random string of letters; it is simply an abuse of language.
Is this a guide, or just a list? Did I miss the part where definitions are provided?
I visited a coffee shop recently where they had a sign on the counter saying “If we have misgendered you in our greeting, please let us know and we’ll do better next time!”. Oddly, I don’t remember them saying “Hello, straight white superannuated male!” as I came in the door.
We’re lucky with English that the second person is gender-neutral (as opposed to some European languages (Russian?) where the verbs are declined by gender). So it’s only the third person that makes any difference. Personally, I refuse to use ‘they’ to refer to specific people. I’d be OK with a third-person neo-pronoun if there was only one but I’m not going out of my way to learn the pronoun du jour of the day.
Well, verbs are conjugated, not declined. Nouns are declined for case, number and (grammatical) gender. Russian (and other Slavic languages) does indicates the sex/gender of the subject on verbs but only in past tense: он сказал ‘he said’, она сказала ‘she said’.
I put this in the same category as do those Latinos and Latinas who refuse the neologism “Latinx” among Spanish speakers.
If people want to speak their own version of Klingon, go for it. Just leave me out.
I’ve seen Ze/Zir used in science fiction, in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy. It functioned well enough in that context, although it was as if my brain hit a speed bump each time it came up.
I am often in Zoom meetings, or seeing emails from colleagues, where their name is tagged with their pronouns (always boring cis-gendered ones. Never anything interesting (*Yawn*).
But I think it would be even more interesting if people instead listed something randomly weird and interesting about themselves. Pronouns are almost always boring! So why not instead declare what is your favorite dinosaur? (Utahraptor for me). Or favorite beer? (Coconut porter). I think everyone could get on board with that.
Our host writes:
Pronouns like “they” for bi-gender people are okay by me, as are “he/him” for trans males or “she/her for transfemales . . .
First I see a little slippage here. A “transman” is biologically female, and a “transwoman” is biologically male, right? I both cases we are suspending disbelief of what we know to be untrue. But what then are “trans males” and “trans females”? I understand the push by activists to call transidentfied men “transwomen” (in order to get immediately to “transwomen are women, get over it!”) but isn’t calling them “transfemales” surrendering too much biology?
Second, I can see why in your position you can regard use of wrong-sex third-person pronouns as a free-choice matter of civility and perhaps you say civility doesn’t extend to neopronouns. You are responsible only for you and that is your call. But for many people — employees and licensed members of regulated professions — it is not a matter of civility but of compulsion. So I ask, if you had someone in your employ on whom you could enforce work rules which surely expect civil treatment of customers, would you require your employee to enquire of every member of the public she encountered what pronouns they preferred? And further compel her to use those pronouns — say if she had to run something by you and had to refer to the customer in the third person? Would you discipline her for what the customer would call a microaggression, or only if the customer overheard?
You’re not sure that you would respect (or make your employee respect) neopronouns.
But what if the customer complained that it was uncivil of her (and by extension you, as the boss) not to respect the whole gamut of third-person pronouns that this particular customer happened to use? After all, you required her to enquire about pronouns, but here you are letting her get away with not using MY pronouns!
If you were trying to run a functioning business you would probably decide that customer wasn’t worth the trouble and tell xyr to take xir business elsewhere. But the regulated professions can’t really do that. Patients/clients can file complaints that can result in fines or licence suspensions, thus in effect enforcing “civility” by their definition, not yours.
Main reason this is not going to catch on: laziness. Most people in the US are monolingual. We have little experience communicating across different languages on a regular basis. I don’t see very many folks making flash cards to drill these top-down words, even if they are sympathetic to the politics behind it. Which most of us are not.
Fashion is (by definition) arbitrary, ever-changing, and costly. Fashion serves the invaluable role of limiting the social elite to those who can afford to spend time and energy fashion-following. From that perspective, when the kids insist on a bewildering array of pronouns, it’s no harder to explain than their clothing choices…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/27/gen-z-fashion/
At some point the expectation that I participate in the subjective “reality” of other people begins to violate my expectation that we all participate in a shared objective one. I do not see why I or anyone else should need to climb into every rabbit hole the “selves” of humanity manage to dream up. My own life is too short for this waste of time.
Not really relevant to the discussion but I couldn’t help but think of the elderly Yorkshire man who is alleged to have said to a somewhat overly familiar youth, ” Tha thous them as thous thee an’ nae afore’t. “.
I am getting on to some extent (I’m a couple of months younger than our host), but I still manage to get out a bit. I’m Chair of Governors at a local school, on the Board of another, and a volunteer at our local library; I sing in our local choral society; I’m a season ticket holder at Harlequins RFC; and I’m a regular customer of several restaurants and at least 15 local pubs.
In none of these surroundings have I ever come across anyone who was so pretentious and self-centred as to demand that they be referred to by any of these made-up neologisms. In almost all cases, any such demand would have been met by baffled silence, or more likely by hearty laughter.
Like most fads, this one will pass.
Is the CNN guide to neopronouns for real or it a disguised attack on transgenderism? Does the phrase ‘going off the deep end’ apply here?
Notice that all the earlier (19th, 20th century) “neopronouns” mentioned are completely unfamiliar to today’s speakers: a top-down, non-linguistically-evolutionary change in pronouns (a linguistically closed class) has never taken hold in recorded history (and almost certainly will never take hold now, or in the future). Strange the piece’s author never notes this, isn’t it.
This will go the way of the dodo.
Sorry, but language serves a useful purpose in the civilized world (and in the uncivilized world too, I suppose) and it only succeeds if everyone uses a common vocabulary. Yes, languages evolve and change, but this happens gradually as people slowly adopt new words, not because someone proclaims that we need to words.
Dr Suess would have a ball. You can only manufacture so much to bolster someone’s sense of dignity.
I used to think it was just the polite thing to do to respect other’s wishes of how they were to be addressed.
However, the whole environment surrounding the issue has changed. I made the personal decision that I was not going to use alternate pronouns for my own child, as I feel it would make me complicit.
I kept seeing a day in the future when everyone came to their senses, and I would be asked why I as a parent, just blindly went along with all of it instead of speaking up for what I know to be true.
It is a fine line to follow, and other family members have their own rules. Some use new names and pronouns all the time, some only when the child is present. Understanding that everyone is doing the best they can in a stressful situation, I will not criticize anyone else for how they decide to address the issue.
But for myself, once I decided that I was not using new names or pronouns for my own child, it seem wrong to do so for other people, who I am less invested in. And neopronouns are self indulgent and absurd.
At first, my decision caused a bit of conflict, with some complaints relayed to me via my wife. But everyone seems to have gotten used to it, as people do.
I continue to be perfectly polite to everyone I encounter, as I was raised to be. I am just not going to play make believe about people’s sex or gender. Perhaps it might serve as a lesson to folks that they cannot always get everything they want, every time.
“… a lesson to folks that they cannot always get everything they want, every time.” Max
has put his finger on how contemporary mores underlie rampant narcissism. The expectation of “getting everything they want” may have arisen from the great post-WWII economic expansion. But it has its positive side too—namely the expansion of tolerance (except among the pop-Left), diminished sexism, explicit attention to human rights, and much greater concern for the life-possibilities of the disabled. The latter, by the way, strikes me as the most profound and remarkable part of the new mores. So it goes: every cultural change turns out to include trade-offs of one kind or another.
Suppose you’re talking about a non present person who wants to be treated as ‘they’; now suppose you’re talking about TWO non present persons, of course you refer to them by they!
I’m sorry, I’m not calling a guy with a penis who can get a female pregnant a woman (much less a female). I’ll call him Candice if he wants, but for me a woman is just an adult human female and a man an adult human male!
I just came across this. Funny, but all too true: https://youtu.be/r00xvXvGBtw
I’ve posted this before, but it makes some good points: https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/