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Yes, if someone asked me to refer to them as "your royal highness," I'm sure they will not like me if I don't. But generally I don't care if people who go arou

Yes, if someone asked me to refer to them as "your royal highness," I'm sure they will not like me if I don't. But generally I don't care if people who go around making demands for special treatment like me or not. This is what the pronoun people do. They end up not well liked because of their attention seeking demands, and then when they notice that no one likes them, they blame it on "bigotry."

ModernMech 5y ago
People aren't asking you to call them "your royal highness" though. It's typically "he", "she", or "they" 99% of the time, words you already use to refer to people. People are just giving you the right mapping rather than hoping your heuristics get it right. I appreciate this especially in situations when my heuristics fail, and if you meet enough people they fail often enough to create noticeable social friction. As the world becomes more interconnected, this friction is appreciable, and can be alleviated easily by just adding pronouns to the formalities of introducing one's self. When we meet, I already tell you my name. You tell me yours, and I wouldn't presume to just call you whatever I want. It would signal I don't appreciate you or consider you worthy of remembering. The same is true for pronouns. If I tell you I want to be called "they" and you decide you'd rather call me "she", it's the same level of indifference as if I tell you my name is "Sue" and you insist on calling me "Sam." They aren't asking for special treatment either -- I think everyone in your life appreciates that you refer to them using their personally preferred gender pronouns, rather than ones you might prefer for arbitrary reasons. Go ahead and switch around the pronouns you use with people in your life, and see how those people react. Trans people and non binary people are just asking you to use the pronouns they prefer, the same as everyone asks and expects.

ModernMech 5y ago

People aren't asking you to call them "your royal highness" though. It's typically "he", "she", or "they" 99% of the time, words you already use to refer to people. People are just giving you the right mapping rather than hoping your heuristics get it right. I appreciate this especially in situations when my heuristics fail, and if you meet enough people they fail often enough to create noticeable social friction. As the world becomes more interconnected, this friction is appreciable, and can be alleviated easily by just adding pronouns to the formalities of introducing one's self. When we meet, I already tell you my name. You tell me yours, and I wouldn't presume to just call you whatever I want. It would signal I don't appreciate you or consider you worthy of remembering. The same is true for pronouns. If I tell you I want to be called "they" and you decide you'd rather call me "she", it's the same level of indifference as if I tell you my name is "Sue" and you insist on calling me "Sam." They aren't asking for special treatment either -- I think everyone in your life appreciates that you refer to them using their personally preferred gender pronouns, rather than ones you might prefer for arbitrary reasons. Go ahead and switch around the pronouns you use with people in your life, and see how those people react. Trans people and non binary people are just asking you to use the pronouns they prefer, the same as everyone asks and expects.