4 ms·

What is the (he/him) after the guy's name?

dEnigma 6y ago
His preferred pronouns, I would assume.
Raphmedia 6y ago
Pronouns. That way, if someone is named "Billy" or "Alex", you won't be spending years mistakenly assuming they were a man while they could have been a woman. This also has the beneficial side effect of covering trans individuals who use a birth name while having another gender identity. Even more useful for usernames such as yours, "dionian". I do not know if it is your first name, last name or made-up username. So I have no clue what your gender is and I'd default to "they". If I knew, I could call you by the right pronouns. It's just a slow shift away from assuming everyone on the internet is a man.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  It also serves as a flag that allows people to identify you as having bought into the general set of practices which strive to change our culture to support trans and nonbinary gender ideology.
  - Frondo 6y ago
    And if our culture doesn't already support trans and non-binary people (ideology? no, it's people we're talking about), then that seems like it'd be a good thing to change.
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      Support of people may be involved, and this is a poor forum to litigate deep problems -- but if I trusted the diversity-and-inclusion apparatus of Silicon Valley in general to support the entirety of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, including the inconvenient parts about people of differing religions, then I might not been predisposed to choose that word. Even your reply highlights it. "It's about people." Notice the manner in which you _correct_ my rather anodyne words. The fault is that I did not frame the question as you would have me frame it, and looked at a part of the general phenomenon that is different from you think deserves to be centered on. You are welcome to your ideology, in any event, and it would be a poor world indeed where one could not act to change the world in accordance with one's conscience.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Frondo 6y ago
        Would you please stop editing your post? You've made several substantial changes -- far beyond the scope of a clarification -- and now I'm reluctant to respond at all because who knows what it'll say next.
        Spare_account 6y ago
        Not the same person but for what it's worth: the edit period is limited to a few minutes and it exists for a reason. This topic (gender identity/pronoun use) is important to approach carefully and is exactly when the edit window should be used.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        The edit window's about an hour
        fennecfoxen 6y ago
        I was within ~5 minutes, mmmaybe 10 tops. It is unfortunate that there is an excess of ideology around these issues. It hinders communication by confusing questions about the implementation of an ideology with hate-filled attacks on people. It does not help the matter that similar attacks are real and exist. On the other hand, such confusion of concerns is a common goal of many who advance their ideologies, so there is a possibility some may deem this confusion desirable.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Raphmedia 6y ago
        There is no such thing as "transgender ideology". You won't find those words on any credible sources. There are transgender people who want to access their human rights. Transgender people do not choose their gender identity.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    I.e. it's a sort of political armband indicating you've fully submitted to globo-corpo neoliberal ideology.
    - chungus_khan 6y ago
      Not sure exactly what you think pronouns have to do with neoliberalism? I don't really associate the likes of Thatcher, Reagan, Friedman, or Hayek with anything of the sort. I also think globo-corpo neoliberal is a bit redundant, no?
      - centimeter 6y ago
        "Liberal" and "neoliberal" have both been hijacked by progressives thoroughly enough that no one associates colloquial usage of either of those with Friedman or Hayek. Friedman and Hayek were certainly not globo-corpo, considering that they believed in things like freedom of association, covenants, and other legal protections that work against the likes of Amazon or Wal-mart (who are primarily interested in undermining unions, using strategies to diminish worker cohesion like diversity quotas, and strategies to defang leftism like trans activism).
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      I'm not sure I would call it that at all. Silicon Valley is not the world and, in the corporate world, this remains a very California / Silicon Valley phenomenon (present but less strong in a few key other places — New York, Seattle, Portland come to mind). It is of course also a university-campus phenomenon (especially private universities) but those aren't really "corpo". For that matter, the Wikimedia Foundation is only "corpo" insofar as a 501(c)(3) is technically in fact a corporation — unlikely to be within the meaning of what you intended. On that note, it is more prominent in the nonprofit sector, perhaps due to volunteers being more predisposed to activism in general. (Mozilla was a bellwether.)
- hinkley 6y ago
  I hesitate to call it virtue signalling because there are other forms of social signalling that aren't about virtue. Safe spaces require effort from the members who already feel safe. Putting (he/him) in does three things. It invites you to provide your own. It also stops someone from starting a side-argument about you assuming 'he/him' in your response instead of you/your or they/their. Which means that we can talk about what we want to talk about instead of gender politics, if you don't feel like it. Or we can if you need to.
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    It also make it so that trans people won't be outed as trans for having their pronouns in their profiles. If only trans people did that, you'd automatically know who is trans and who isn't. Now that everyone is adding those, you can't say.
- kepler1 6y ago
  It's appropriate that the commenter below uses the phrase "bought in", because that conveys the general sense of mob/unthinking latching onto this movement. One which I'm quite disappointed to see companies just caving to, through little insertions of ridiculous practices like these. Having everyone declare their gender is a little bit ridiculous, just to serve the desires of a ~1% group who are trying to gain more recognition. I am frankly surprised how people are willing to distort their behavior when they refuse to do so for other groups who are far more downtrampled in their rights in greater percentages. I suppose somehow transsexual people just became popular for some reason. Frankly, it's a symbol and problem of the modern liberal/democratic mind (at least at the party-level) that these problems rise to the level of national and corporate attention -- and apparently we solved all our other material needs and have time to spend on this in comparison.
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    You project a lot of problems onto people who provide their pronouns in their user descriptions. Not everyone is American, and not all issues are about American politics. I find it interesting how much emphasis has been placed on an afterthought that I edited in. A lot of really emotional reactions like yours. I described it as a beneficial side effect and suddenly the whole conversation is about "evil trans people" and "bad liberals". Having your pronouns available is beneficial to more than just trans people. It benefits everyone, avoids mistakes and makes conversations more accurate. It also breaks the myth that there are no women online and that there are no computer-savvy women. It also brings visibility to non-binary people who are otherwise invisible.
simcop2387 6y ago
This person has decided to provide the pronouns he would like to be used when referred to
beervirus 6y ago
It is a way of virtue signaling.
Amorymeltzer 6y ago
Preferred gender pronoun: >Preferred gender pronouns or personal gender pronouns (often abbreviated as PGP) refer to the set of third-person pronouns that an individual prefers that others use in order to identify that person's gender (or lack thereof). In English, when declaring one's preferred pronouns, a person will often state the subject and object pronouns along with the possessive adjectives—for example, "she, her, hers", "he, him, his", or "they, them, theirs"—although sometimes, only the subject and object pronouns are stated ("he, him", "she, her", "they, them"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_gender_pronoun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_gender_pronoun
narenkeshav 6y ago
I've been seeing this trend quite often these days.
jamiequint 6y ago
Virtue signaling
function_seven 6y ago
When people list their preferred pronouns, why list them all? Here we have "he/him". Sometimes I see "he/him/his" or "she/her/hers", "they/them/theirs", etc. I doubt people are mixing and matching among the different types. In other words, I've never seen someone prefer "he/them/hers". Seems like we can standardize this to just one type (e.g. the subject pronoun). A simple "he", "she", or "they" will do the trick. Yes, I bikeshedded it. Sue me.
- jamiequint 6y ago
  I've seen a lot of he/they or she/they lately
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    It also allow people who are not comfortable using "they/them" to know what to use.
- geogriffin 6y ago
  I think it's just more clear that they are listing pronouns, especially if someone isn't familiar with the practice or in verbal speech. Also note that some people use two sets of pronouns, with equal weight, and may list them such as "she/they".
centimeter 6y ago
It signifies that you've submitted to corporatist neoliberalism.
DanBC 6y ago
Chris is a name used for men and women. He's letting you know he identifies as male.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
I have begun putting she/her in some of my profiles (twitter, reddit) because I still get mistaken for a man at times. To be fair, my middle name -- Michele -- can be a male name in some places. It's the Italian version of Michael, IIRC. It is my personal policy to not correct people who misgender me in most cases, especially if that is the only thing I would be saying (I will sometimes clarify if it is part of a larger comment, but I try to be gentle about it). I would rather put that info somewhere and let them have the chance to learn of it without me having to correct someone. Different people have different reasons for noting their pronouns. Some do it because it is trendy. Some do it because they have genuinely been misidentified in online spaces. Some do it to show themselves as allies to certain groups. Without him saying why he did it, no one here can genuinely tell you why he chose to do so.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  With my name I get presumed to be a woman - who cares? I don't.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Some people care. Some don't. If you care so very little about this issue, why bother replying to me to suggest I shouldn't? If you really don't care, then you shouldn't even be reading this crap. There is plenty of other stuff to read elsewhere that isn't on this subject.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Fair point, fair point. It wasn't thought through. Sorry. But it leads to the question of why it matters - should it? If we treat all equally, should it matter? I don't see myself as female, but neither a 'man', as I don't much relate to common cultural depictions of men, which I find distasteful. I am what I am, names won't change that so I don't care. Why do you? BTW I know a few trans people and I suspect most of them would roll their eyes at this excessive care not to offend anyone with wrong pronouns. They expect people to get it right but it's no disaster if someone got it wrong. None of them are snowflakes. Consideration towards trans people needs more basic considerations such as not being called a freak on public transport (this happened to a tgirl I know).

His preferred pronouns, I would assume.

Pronouns. That way, if someone is named "Billy" or "Alex", you won't be spending years mistakenly assuming they were a man while they could have been a woman. This also has the beneficial side effect of covering trans individuals who use a birth name while having another gender identity. Even more useful for usernames such as yours, "dionian". I do not know if it is your first name, last name or made-up username. So I have no clue what your gender is and I'd default to "they". If I knew, I could call you by the right pronouns. It's just a slow shift away from assuming everyone on the internet is a man.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
It also serves as a flag that allows people to identify you as having bought into the general set of practices which strive to change our culture to support trans and nonbinary gender ideology.
- Frondo 6y ago
  And if our culture doesn't already support trans and non-binary people (ideology? no, it's people we're talking about), then that seems like it'd be a good thing to change.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Support of people may be involved, and this is a poor forum to litigate deep problems -- but if I trusted the diversity-and-inclusion apparatus of Silicon Valley in general to support the entirety of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, including the inconvenient parts about people of differing religions, then I might not been predisposed to choose that word. Even your reply highlights it. "It's about people." Notice the manner in which you _correct_ my rather anodyne words. The fault is that I did not frame the question as you would have me frame it, and looked at a part of the general phenomenon that is different from you think deserves to be centered on. You are welcome to your ideology, in any event, and it would be a poor world indeed where one could not act to change the world in accordance with one's conscience.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Frondo 6y ago
      Would you please stop editing your post? You've made several substantial changes -- far beyond the scope of a clarification -- and now I'm reluctant to respond at all because who knows what it'll say next.
      - Spare_account 6y ago
        Not the same person but for what it's worth: the edit period is limited to a few minutes and it exists for a reason. This topic (gender identity/pronoun use) is important to approach carefully and is exactly when the edit window should be used.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        The edit window's about an hour
        fennecfoxen 6y ago
        I was within ~5 minutes, mmmaybe 10 tops. It is unfortunate that there is an excess of ideology around these issues. It hinders communication by confusing questions about the implementation of an ideology with hate-filled attacks on people. It does not help the matter that similar attacks are real and exist. On the other hand, such confusion of concerns is a common goal of many who advance their ideologies, so there is a possibility some may deem this confusion desirable.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Raphmedia 6y ago
      There is no such thing as "transgender ideology". You won't find those words on any credible sources. There are transgender people who want to access their human rights. Transgender people do not choose their gender identity.
- centimeter 6y ago
  I.e. it's a sort of political armband indicating you've fully submitted to globo-corpo neoliberal ideology.
  - chungus_khan 6y ago
    Not sure exactly what you think pronouns have to do with neoliberalism? I don't really associate the likes of Thatcher, Reagan, Friedman, or Hayek with anything of the sort. I also think globo-corpo neoliberal is a bit redundant, no?
    - centimeter 6y ago
      "Liberal" and "neoliberal" have both been hijacked by progressives thoroughly enough that no one associates colloquial usage of either of those with Friedman or Hayek. Friedman and Hayek were certainly not globo-corpo, considering that they believed in things like freedom of association, covenants, and other legal protections that work against the likes of Amazon or Wal-mart (who are primarily interested in undermining unions, using strategies to diminish worker cohesion like diversity quotas, and strategies to defang leftism like trans activism).
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    I'm not sure I would call it that at all. Silicon Valley is not the world and, in the corporate world, this remains a very California / Silicon Valley phenomenon (present but less strong in a few key other places — New York, Seattle, Portland come to mind). It is of course also a university-campus phenomenon (especially private universities) but those aren't really "corpo". For that matter, the Wikimedia Foundation is only "corpo" insofar as a 501(c)(3) is technically in fact a corporation — unlikely to be within the meaning of what you intended. On that note, it is more prominent in the nonprofit sector, perhaps due to volunteers being more predisposed to activism in general. (Mozilla was a bellwether.)
hinkley 6y ago
I hesitate to call it virtue signalling because there are other forms of social signalling that aren't about virtue. Safe spaces require effort from the members who already feel safe. Putting (he/him) in does three things. It invites you to provide your own. It also stops someone from starting a side-argument about you assuming 'he/him' in your response instead of you/your or they/their. Which means that we can talk about what we want to talk about instead of gender politics, if you don't feel like it. Or we can if you need to.
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  It also make it so that trans people won't be outed as trans for having their pronouns in their profiles. If only trans people did that, you'd automatically know who is trans and who isn't. Now that everyone is adding those, you can't say.
kepler1 6y ago
It's appropriate that the commenter below uses the phrase "bought in", because that conveys the general sense of mob/unthinking latching onto this movement. One which I'm quite disappointed to see companies just caving to, through little insertions of ridiculous practices like these. Having everyone declare their gender is a little bit ridiculous, just to serve the desires of a ~1% group who are trying to gain more recognition. I am frankly surprised how people are willing to distort their behavior when they refuse to do so for other groups who are far more downtrampled in their rights in greater percentages. I suppose somehow transsexual people just became popular for some reason. Frankly, it's a symbol and problem of the modern liberal/democratic mind (at least at the party-level) that these problems rise to the level of national and corporate attention -- and apparently we solved all our other material needs and have time to spend on this in comparison.
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  You project a lot of problems onto people who provide their pronouns in their user descriptions. Not everyone is American, and not all issues are about American politics. I find it interesting how much emphasis has been placed on an afterthought that I edited in. A lot of really emotional reactions like yours. I described it as a beneficial side effect and suddenly the whole conversation is about "evil trans people" and "bad liberals". Having your pronouns available is beneficial to more than just trans people. It benefits everyone, avoids mistakes and makes conversations more accurate. It also breaks the myth that there are no women online and that there are no computer-savvy women. It also brings visibility to non-binary people who are otherwise invisible.

simcop2387 6y ago

This person has decided to provide the pronouns he would like to be used when referred to

beervirus 6y ago

It is a way of virtue signaling.

Amorymeltzer 6y ago

Preferred gender pronoun: >Preferred gender pronouns or personal gender pronouns (often abbreviated as PGP) refer to the set of third-person pronouns that an individual prefers that others use in order to identify that person's gender (or lack thereof). In English, when declaring one's preferred pronouns, a person will often state the subject and object pronouns along with the possessive adjectives—for example, "she, her, hers", "he, him, his", or "they, them, theirs"—although sometimes, only the subject and object pronouns are stated ("he, him", "she, her", "they, them"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_gender_pronoun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_gender_pronoun

narenkeshav 6y ago

I've been seeing this trend quite often these days.

jamiequint 6y ago

Virtue signaling

function_seven 6y ago

When people list their preferred pronouns, why list them all? Here we have "he/him". Sometimes I see "he/him/his" or "she/her/hers", "they/them/theirs", etc. I doubt people are mixing and matching among the different types. In other words, I've never seen someone prefer "he/them/hers". Seems like we can standardize this to just one type (e.g. the subject pronoun). A simple "he", "she", or "they" will do the trick. Yes, I bikeshedded it. Sue me.

jamiequint 6y ago
I've seen a lot of he/they or she/they lately
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  It also allow people who are not comfortable using "they/them" to know what to use.
geogriffin 6y ago
I think it's just more clear that they are listing pronouns, especially if someone isn't familiar with the practice or in verbal speech. Also note that some people use two sets of pronouns, with equal weight, and may list them such as "she/they".

centimeter 6y ago

It signifies that you've submitted to corporatist neoliberalism.

DanBC 6y ago

Chris is a name used for men and women. He's letting you know he identifies as male.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I have begun putting she/her in some of my profiles (twitter, reddit) because I still get mistaken for a man at times. To be fair, my middle name -- Michele -- can be a male name in some places. It's the Italian version of Michael, IIRC. It is my personal policy to not correct people who misgender me in most cases, especially if that is the only thing I would be saying (I will sometimes clarify if it is part of a larger comment, but I try to be gentle about it). I would rather put that info somewhere and let them have the chance to learn of it without me having to correct someone. Different people have different reasons for noting their pronouns. Some do it because it is trendy. Some do it because they have genuinely been misidentified in online spaces. Some do it to show themselves as allies to certain groups. Without him saying why he did it, no one here can genuinely tell you why he chose to do so.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
With my name I get presumed to be a woman - who cares? I don't.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Some people care. Some don't. If you care so very little about this issue, why bother replying to me to suggest I shouldn't? If you really don't care, then you shouldn't even be reading this crap. There is plenty of other stuff to read elsewhere that isn't on this subject.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Fair point, fair point. It wasn't thought through. Sorry. But it leads to the question of why it matters - should it? If we treat all equally, should it matter? I don't see myself as female, but neither a 'man', as I don't much relate to common cultural depictions of men, which I find distasteful. I am what I am, names won't change that so I don't care. Why do you? BTW I know a few trans people and I suspect most of them would roll their eyes at this excessive care not to offend anyone with wrong pronouns. They expect people to get it right but it's no disaster if someone got it wrong. None of them are snowflakes. Consideration towards trans people needs more basic considerations such as not being called a freak on public transport (this happened to a tgirl I know).