• This is why I always debate on any given new place if I should list my preferred/assigned pronouns (because they’re all assigned originally, though the debates over the semantics of that are challenging), or not do so as way of showing that they shouldn’t matter anyway. As in they shouldn’t be requested by some random site or piece of paperwork, not that they don’t matter to people for themselves.

    It doesn’t help that while I am cishet male, I don’t actually care what pronouns get used for me. I had long hair in the south in the eighties; I got over being called a girl a looong time ago because I reject the fucking misogyny inherent in people trying to weaponize it, and I managed to divorce myself of that same misogyny in my own perceptions of masculinity. Like, I’m genuinely fine with any pronoun, and I’m mostly on the side of working to just get rid of them entirely.

    The mostly is because on a personal scale I don’t have the energy for that specific fight when there’s so many other ones that are dire.

    So I end up just leaving such things blank when possible, they/them when I can’t select multiple as a point of effort at making the idea present.

    Dang. Memes be all relevant and thought provoking up in this piece!

    • QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      because I reject the fucking misogyny inherent in people trying to weaponize it, and I managed to divorce myself of that same misogyny in my own perceptions of masculinity

      🩷

    • yuri@pawb.social
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      1 month ago

      thank you for making this comment! it’s really insightful to see gender-apathetic feelings coming from a cishet person ^^

    • industrialdeerfluff@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      Its worth noting that cis allies, and others who don’t care about their pronouns, giving/listing pronouns no matter what they are, both normalize pronouns and act as a sort of smoke screen for trans individuals by making pronouns stand out less.

      Its also worth thinking about how listing pronouns publicly or wearing pronoun pins/patches serves the above but also to communicate safety and acceptance to others.

      It can’t be understated how nice it feels when you encounter someone while going through your day who’s visibly communicating themselves as an ally without any words about it being spoken.

      This isn’t to disagree with any of your personal thoughts on it, just worth considering.

      • I appreciate the perspective :)

        I actually have hats lol. Various symbols and iterations of the usual flags. Which isn’t the main point of your comment, but you’re absolutely correct about how even very subtle signs of support can be a positive experience. For everyone, since I very much enjoy the responses when someone in need of some public support says something about it. The sense of community can be thin on the ground, but it’s never stronger than when two strangers can find mutual respect.

        I think I might well need to piddle around with the settings on my accounts on lemmy at the very least.

  • Minty@aussie.zone
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    1 month ago

    I hate calling my non legal name my preferred name. Its my real name! The other name is now just legal

    • GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      Nobody ever talks about Chad Ochocinco, Angelina Jolie, Miley Cyrus, Cher, Olivia Wilde, Elton John, or any other celebrity that legally changed their name having a “preferred name.” It’s just their name.

      • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        we always called it “your full government name”

        i don’t know why. our siblings only heard it from our mothers when they were mad at us

    • DaPorkchop_ [any]@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      same i just refer to my legal name as “my legal name” and my actual name as “my name” and frankly nobody’s ever thought anything of it. i’ve been referring to myself with a different name basically since i learned what a name is, and frankly don’t even think of the legal one as a name at all - it’s just a string of letters i use to identify myself on certain official paperwork, no different than a passport- or health insurance number.

      (transitioning has made this all very confusing because now i’m juggling 3-4 new names, and am also constantly flip-flopping on whether i want to keep using my old name or want to burn it with fire, and also still have the same legal name)

      • Focal@pawb.social
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        1 month ago

        Sounds like a good solution would be referring to them as “legal pronouns” then.

        Though, as someone else mentioned, “illegal pronouns” sound cooler

  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I’m not an expert in this space by any means, but aren’t these the terms that the community picked themselves?

    • yuri@pawb.social
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      1 month ago

      i think this is more about how trans folk get described by folks outside trans spaces, which amounts to most media. we say “trans women are women” but publications will still say “x, who identifies as a woman”

    • Marcela (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      No, these are the terms that prevailed in the public discourse, to cater to the underlying cisgenderist absolutism.

      Sometimes we need to succumb to these terms if we want at least part of our message to come through. Otherwise cis people look confused and start emitting weird noises.

  • Marcela (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    My thoughts exactly.

    Cis-genderism in a nutshell.

    Lots of people in the community should get more woke about this stuff. It is the absolute essence of our oppression.

  • Malica@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    We should all be fighting to get the language back on the side of the people.

  • sasnak@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    One time, my doctor had a student following her and she asked me if I would me okay telling them about how to address nonbinary people and what kind of language to use. She asked if it was inappropriate to ask for someone’s “preferred pronouns.” She seemed like she’d never considered that that may be insensitive when I said you should probably just ask for their pronouns bc preferred made them sound optional

  • jjj@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    22 days ago

    One of my favorite books on the matter is called “Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity” (emphasis mine)