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I think you nailed it on a lot of these points! But I feel like one big point in putting pronouns in bios is that on the Internet, you often don't have any sign

I think you nailed it on a lot of these points! But I feel like one big point in putting pronouns in bios is that on the Internet, you often don't have any signifiers of one's gender, even if the person is cis and presents as their gender (hell, in Hacker News' case we don't have profile pictures at all). A lot of people don't use their real photos in their avatars, so if you wanted to assume based on appearances you couldn't. Therefore, it's convenient for everyone, not just trans folks. > Stepping back from the oppression angle again, there is also a sense of fascination and exploration. I'll speak for myself on this front, I have ADHD and I am asexual. I have been very fortunate not to have experienced much if any discrimination over this, I am an extremely privileged person. However, even though I don't have discrimination forcing me into solidarity with people... Case in point: I also have ADHD and I'm also asexual, and reading that part of your comment made me really happy! I feel the exact same way about it!

danShumway 5y ago
> lot of people don't use their real photos in their avatars, so if you wanted to assume based on appearances you couldn't. That's a great point. Certainly on HN where there are no pictures and everyone is using usernames, but also your avatar/photo point is completely accurate. If you get really deep into indie/hacker spaces on Twitter, you hit a point where 3/4ths of the profile pictures you run into are either an abstract icon or a fursona, and trying to correctly guess everyone's pronouns in that situation isn't really feasible regardless of whether or not anyone is cis/trans. And we should be encouraging that kind of behavior; it's good that people can go exclusively by a username online, and it's good that people don't need to have everything constantly tied back to the physical world. And pronouns end up being just kind of convenient information to give in a world where people have that kind of control over how/what they present about themselves at any given moment. > Case in point: I also have ADHD and I'm also asexual, and reading that part of your comment made me really happy I'm so glad, it always makes me happy when I run into other people in those circles. If you ever want to talk more about anything, feel free to reach out, but it's always just nice to see other ace/ADHD people show up on HN :)

danShumway 5y ago

> lot of people don't use their real photos in their avatars, so if you wanted to assume based on appearances you couldn't. That's a great point. Certainly on HN where there are no pictures and everyone is using usernames, but also your avatar/photo point is completely accurate. If you get really deep into indie/hacker spaces on Twitter, you hit a point where 3/4ths of the profile pictures you run into are either an abstract icon or a fursona, and trying to correctly guess everyone's pronouns in that situation isn't really feasible regardless of whether or not anyone is cis/trans. And we should be encouraging that kind of behavior; it's good that people can go exclusively by a username online, and it's good that people don't need to have everything constantly tied back to the physical world. And pronouns end up being just kind of convenient information to give in a world where people have that kind of control over how/what they present about themselves at any given moment. > Case in point: I also have ADHD and I'm also asexual, and reading that part of your comment made me really happy I'm so glad, it always makes me happy when I run into other people in those circles. If you ever want to talk more about anything, feel free to reach out, but it's always just nice to see other ace/ADHD people show up on HN :)