While I consider myself very open and careful, while remaining neutral for the most part, it really do goes both sides here.
There needs to be an open-ness to the person receiving an answer as a NB. Not everyone knows from the get-go you are a NB without them openly and explicitly announcing it.
Because the other way around, everyone would be They/Them by default for precaution, which isn’t how it works really.
In Venture’s case we do know, and it’s a little like I said in a previous thread, if I shotcall, I don’t have time to think, everyone’s a he or a she for a 0.5s since it’s not my main language. I just want the message straight for my 4 other teammates. Anywhere else, I can take 5s and adjust myself for the matter.
It’s very contextual, but it’s a competitive game, decisions are made faster than processed at times. Just my sides of things.
I default to They/Them for every person I interact with on the internet if I don’t personally know them. It’s safer, and I don’t have to deal with a would-be ally ranting about how it’s actually They/Them, and how offensive it is to misgender someone.
Genuine question, but why does it matter how offensive you are?
Like, is there a certain level of offensiveness that you are okay with?
Such a silly argument, just to stir the flames.
No, I meant spectrum as an actual bimodal spectrum.
Just like if you render a gradient between green and blue. There is no point in that gradient that blue becomes green. Even tho we can’t name all the colors on the spectrum we know that there is many of them there.
BTW, it’s the same for biological sex.
Well… Technically NB person is also transgender person.
Because definition of trans person is person that does not identify with a gender that they got assigned at birth. Since no one is getting assigned non binary at birth they all are transgender.
Shouldn’t be like that, mistakes are normal. I’m genuinely scared at times to use a pronoun in modern thinking since it seems radical to be radical and dangerous to.
I speak French and we didn’t really have a formal “neutral” pronoun in itself since every words are gendered, minus a few other. It’s recent even and I believe it’s still not formally accepted by every dictionnaries, so it’s currently more about being ethic and morale about it. We use “iel” for male/female gendered pronoun (combines Il/Elle [He/She in english]).
They/them is maybe one NB’s pronoun, but realistically speaking, not everyone uses those. So it’d be rather shocking, but there’s like a fraction of people who will be offended by using They/Them as default since it’s also not their pronouns.
I think only an extremely racist non binary person would think that the sentence “he dropped his wallet” is as offensive as “that n word dropped his wallet”.
Next time you are in public use the word “him” 5 times and then drop the n word 5 times (preferably in front of a black person) .
Then let me know what the reactions of the people around you are.
I see, well even if there are bimodal spectrum, I don’t think we really need to have more than male, female, non-binary genders. It will overcomplicate things especially since each one of them requires their own pronouns (at least in English language).
It’s quite obvious that sexual characteristic can come in a spectrum. Some girls are tomboys, some guys are feminine with little to no masculine traits, and plenty of others between.
Sexual preference is also a spectrum too.
But I still find it hard to grasp the concept of gender identities being a “spectrum” that goes beyond male/female/non-binary but that’s just me
It shouldn’t be that you address people with a gender neutral pronoun online, when you have no idea who is behind the screen?
Like offline, yeah most people will use the appearance, and that’s okay. 99% of people will tell you their preferred pronouns and won’t be offended, as it’s a genuine mistake. But to just assign a gender to everyone online is weird.
They/Them are the gender neutral pronouns to use. There is nothing offensive about them.
Mistakes are normal, yes, but the people who police that sort of thing will call you a bigot for an honest mistake. Those people call themselves Allies and will speak for minorities, despite not asking them what they think.
NB person (or any trans person for that matter) will just politely correct you when you misgender them. It will be in form of a single sentence usually something like “Hey, I am non-binary/trans man/trans woman, so I go by they/them / he/him / she/her pronouns. I would appreciate if you would refer to me as such, thank you”.
Where the problems begin and we pick up the beef with them is when corrected person throws up a fit and refuses to do so. It takes many forms, so I won’t give you examples but at this point we know that said person isn’t here to have a good faith conversation, but rather want to stir the pot and insult people. And at that point all respect is lost for that bigot.
I feel this way too. It’s very confusing to keep up with everything. Then when I come back to learn more about it, they’ve added 100 new things to learn and keep up with. It’s exhausting.
also we know a lot about what contributes to that, and we know that it’s not a single thing, but many different things. And every one of them have multiple options where they can fall to.
Yup!
It’s fine.
Bottom line is that you don’t need to “grasp the concept”. Just respect people that are NB. And it sounds like you do, so
I have never been politely corrected in my life and neither was my grandad, always attacked and called horrible things for something so stupid. Especially my grandad, he was completely unaware of the whole non-binary thing and completely had no clue about it but was still harassed by them in a Tesco just because he said “Darling can you reach that for me?”
While I agree to this, in my whole life, I’ve often been called a “she” for unknown reasons and I just laugh it off, I also work in a women-filled field statistically and they always prefer “She” over “He” in formulations. I’m fine with it as a man.
There’s a way to do it, and half the time it feels like I got a gun on my head for using the right pronouns, granted it’s not as problematic in French from my experience, compared to English. Original gender-neutral pronoun at the non-plural form always defaulted back to impersonal Il (He or it). It’s just so different between the 2 languages.
The way we speak in French when you go by formalities, we use You (plural) [Vous in French] and We [Nous in French]. It’s a respectful tone that’s used since forever.
I.e. “Voulez-vous … ?” (Should you… ?) referring to 1 person only, which is common courtesy, usually used by elder people. We commonly call it “Vousvoyer/Vouvoiement”. There’s also the singular-You speech that we call “Tutoyer/Tutoiement” which is the modern-day equivalent and much more “friendly” approach. We don’t expect anyone to use either.
