4 ms·

While I understand the sentiment, I think to some degree putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or

While I understand the sentiment, I think to some degree putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. In lieu of this, and because I don't really care what pronoun is used for me, I sometimes just put "any" if it's an option to denote that I don't care.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago
I literally dont give a shit what you call me. People who hem and haw about getting pronouns wrong blow my mind of how weird this has all become
- kbenson 5y ago
  They hem and haw because some people care a lot and make a big deal if you get it wrong and it can have social consequences depending on where you live/work, etc, and if you repeatedly ignore what other people want to be called it can be seen as an act of aggression. In the current climate, people want to get it right for other people because either they don't want to be an asshole, they believe it's important, they're afraid of being called out, or some combination thereof. If you actually don't care, the easiest thing to do is just advertise that you don't care so people don't have to wonder. If you actually do care, but about how you shouldn't have to care and are trying to make a point about that, well that's something different, isn't it?
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    What else about myself do i have to actively advertise so that people are not afraid of talking to me.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      That is just one of three reasons I listed. I'm not sure why you'd focus on that exclusively, it seems a bit silly to me. What's being asked of you is a common courtesy. Anyone that refuses this courtesy that takes so little when specifically asked for it is taking actions that speak for themselves. You're being asked something as simple as "how do you prefer to be addressed" and you've scoured the area for all the loose dust and detritus you can find to make yourself a mountain to die on. Is it really worth it? Perhaps there are other aspects to recent culture shift that are slightly less defensible that are better targets?
    - metabagel 5y ago
      You seem really obsessed about this, much more so than most people who might be in favor of supplying pronouns. I think that most people do it as a common courtesy. I generally don't, but it doesn't bother me if people do, and it doesn't hurt me in the slightest if someone asks me to supply my pronouns. My pronouns are "he/him". Not difficult at all.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    So if you are "she" and someone calls you "he" out of ignorance and you correct the person, and he says "Oh, I'm sorry for my mistake" can that not be the end of it? Is that such a terrible thing to have to deal with? I'll call you whatever you like, but if you look like and dress like a man, or your name in the company directory is "Jim," I'll use "he" if I haven't been told otherwise, and I'll think you're a bit weird if you make a big deal over it. One place where the "pronouns in the signature" can be helpful is if your name is foreign. I work with a group of international folks and if I haven't met the person, I don't always know if a person's name is a male or female name. So then I end up referring to them by name all the time, which can be a little awkward in an otherwise informal written email.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      > Is that such a terrible thing to have to deal with? For me? No. I imagine that someone that might deal with that 10 times a day or more might feel a bit different about it, and be tired of being in the situation of either correcting people or just letting it go because it's too tiring to deal with. I mean, I used to get that way because of my first name which has an uncommon spelling, and just correcting people writing it down for me (because otherwise I always have to worry if they search digitally where they recorded it whether their system is smart enough to do levenshtein distance or something similar to find it). I imagine it's much worse when it's something you might really care about, like gender identity, or even just people that get mistaken for the other gender often. I'd like to think that everyone deserves the benefit of a doubt and one or more times being corrected, but some people are worse at remembering than others, and I don't see a problem with people putting preferences down, or people being asked for their own preference, especially when they think it's such an obvious thing to see. > I'll call you whatever you like, but if you look like and dress like a man, or your name in the company directory is "Jim," I'll use "he" if I haven't been told otherwise, and I'll think you're a bit weird if you make a big deal over it. I mean, so do I, but if Jim has corrected me once already or has registered a preference that I've seen, I should probably address them as they'd prefer, right? Anything else is just being an asshole, IMO. > So then I end up referring to them by name all the time, which can be a little awkward in an otherwise informal written email. They/them went out of favor a while back in English for gender neutral communication, which I think is weird, because it's super useful. I remember an English teacher in college telling me not to use it, because it was less direct and impactful. I always disagreed. I just default to you/they/them whenever I don't know specifically. It doesn't seem to cause problems, from what I can see. If someone asked me to use something else for them, I would try to remember to do so as a courtesy to them.
- space_fountain 5y ago
  Do you actually not give a shit or do people just tend to properly guess what you'd want to be called? Pronouns are part of how we communicate gender and many people do get bothered when others perceive them differently than how they perceive themselves
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    I dont give a shit. It is useless information.
xienze 5y ago
> putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. The type of people concerned with being addressed by the "correct" pronouns will list them without being asked, believe me. And for the other 99.9% of people, it's pretty obvious what to use.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  Maybe for you, but I don't know what pronoun to use to refer to someone named Xie that I have never met, and it's not exactly unusual for it to come up in email discussions.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    I dont understand. You do the thing we have been doing a hundred years. "They"
    - lazyasciiart 5y ago
      I was addressing the parent comment that said it's pretty obvious what to use, which I interpreted as being able to identify whether someone should be referred to as he or she. I agree that 'they' is the solution when you don't know, but I don't think that's what the parent comment was trying to say.
  - DeWilde 5y ago
    If people feel that it is important to them they will make sure you know it. Otherwise if unsure maybe ask? I don't feel the need to put the pronouns as I don't care about it and find it toxic that it is being peer pressured uppon me. I also support anyone who wants to put their pronouns in the signature or whatever. If it is something important to them then I'll respect their choice, even if they go with something silly like Xor/Xir.
- space_fountain 5y ago
  Hum, do you actually agree with the idea that people care about how others perceive them? Are you saying that the only way we should get to communicate that is through crude things like the way we dress or our bone structure? I don't know, sometimes stating pronouns and the like can seem a bit much I'll admit, but I'm not sure what the good alternatives even all
nrdgrrrl 5y ago
I'm transgender and this business of putting pronouns everywhere bothers me too. If I'm in a group that usually doesn't do pronouns but does when I'm in the room it's like they're pointing a finger at me saying "you're different and we're afraid of offending you, so we're going to act differently around you". No. I just want to be a human being. If you wonder about my pronouns, ask and I'll happily answer. If you get them wrong I'll happily correct you. If you're an ass to me I'll report you to HR, but putting my pronouns at the bottom of my email isn't going to make you any less of an ass.
- kbenson 5y ago
  Hopefully it all settles down a lot more in the future. Around societal and cultural change there's always friction, and there's always people that take more offense to new norms (or what people want to be new norms) not being followed, whether to pump up their self importance or because they're honestly exasperated. I like to treat each thing as it comes, and whether I think it makes sense or is sully, if someone asks something of me with regard to dealing with them that doesn't require much as is accepting of people making mistakes, then I don't see a problem with humoring them, as long as they also accept neutral terms, such as you/they/them (which are the English language accepted neutral terms). There's only so many genders and pronouns I can wrap my head around, but as long as people are accepting that others can just use a generic term, I think we're all at a place that's workable.
lovecg 5y ago
But that’s a problem for like 1% of people who’re free to do so. Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”. Seems unnecessary to require this as a matter of policy.
- kbenson 5y ago
  I mean, not everyone interacts with people in person at work. I would go so far as to say that most these profile settings are used for textual communication, where it's not always obvious, but where some people still get upset over the wrong pronoun being used (possibly because for then it's such a contentious topic in their lives it's hard to disambiguate honest mistakes from passive agressive purposeful behavior). Like you, I also wish that pronouns weren't a big thing, but the truth is that right now society has shifted a bit to the point that it is, so rather than upset people over something I really don't care about, I just try to address people how they prefer to be addressed, while noting I have no preference and don't care if you get it wrong.
  - lovecg 5y ago
    Someone else commented about how this is basically coming back full circle to the formalities of Sir/Madam or Mr/Ms in writing, maybe there’s something to it.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”. I was confused once when a doctor gave me the direction "follow him" and there was no male around. A definitely female nurse had just walked out, and that's who I was supposed to follow. Nothing strange was going on; this happened in China. Chinese doesn't have gender distinctions in pronouns (except in the spelling...), and Chinese speakers aren't able to make the distinction consistently in extemporaneous speech. The default is 'he', though, so I guess you're still safe from being called 'she'.
masonic 5y ago
>conversing with you When conversing with you, your gendered pronouns aren't used. There is no gendered version of "you".

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

I literally dont give a shit what you call me. People who hem and haw about getting pronouns wrong blow my mind of how weird this has all become

kbenson 5y ago
They hem and haw because some people care a lot and make a big deal if you get it wrong and it can have social consequences depending on where you live/work, etc, and if you repeatedly ignore what other people want to be called it can be seen as an act of aggression. In the current climate, people want to get it right for other people because either they don't want to be an asshole, they believe it's important, they're afraid of being called out, or some combination thereof. If you actually don't care, the easiest thing to do is just advertise that you don't care so people don't have to wonder. If you actually do care, but about how you shouldn't have to care and are trying to make a point about that, well that's something different, isn't it?
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  What else about myself do i have to actively advertise so that people are not afraid of talking to me.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    That is just one of three reasons I listed. I'm not sure why you'd focus on that exclusively, it seems a bit silly to me. What's being asked of you is a common courtesy. Anyone that refuses this courtesy that takes so little when specifically asked for it is taking actions that speak for themselves. You're being asked something as simple as "how do you prefer to be addressed" and you've scoured the area for all the loose dust and detritus you can find to make yourself a mountain to die on. Is it really worth it? Perhaps there are other aspects to recent culture shift that are slightly less defensible that are better targets?
  - metabagel 5y ago
    You seem really obsessed about this, much more so than most people who might be in favor of supplying pronouns. I think that most people do it as a common courtesy. I generally don't, but it doesn't bother me if people do, and it doesn't hurt me in the slightest if someone asks me to supply my pronouns. My pronouns are "he/him". Not difficult at all.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  So if you are "she" and someone calls you "he" out of ignorance and you correct the person, and he says "Oh, I'm sorry for my mistake" can that not be the end of it? Is that such a terrible thing to have to deal with? I'll call you whatever you like, but if you look like and dress like a man, or your name in the company directory is "Jim," I'll use "he" if I haven't been told otherwise, and I'll think you're a bit weird if you make a big deal over it. One place where the "pronouns in the signature" can be helpful is if your name is foreign. I work with a group of international folks and if I haven't met the person, I don't always know if a person's name is a male or female name. So then I end up referring to them by name all the time, which can be a little awkward in an otherwise informal written email.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    > Is that such a terrible thing to have to deal with? For me? No. I imagine that someone that might deal with that 10 times a day or more might feel a bit different about it, and be tired of being in the situation of either correcting people or just letting it go because it's too tiring to deal with. I mean, I used to get that way because of my first name which has an uncommon spelling, and just correcting people writing it down for me (because otherwise I always have to worry if they search digitally where they recorded it whether their system is smart enough to do levenshtein distance or something similar to find it). I imagine it's much worse when it's something you might really care about, like gender identity, or even just people that get mistaken for the other gender often. I'd like to think that everyone deserves the benefit of a doubt and one or more times being corrected, but some people are worse at remembering than others, and I don't see a problem with people putting preferences down, or people being asked for their own preference, especially when they think it's such an obvious thing to see. > I'll call you whatever you like, but if you look like and dress like a man, or your name in the company directory is "Jim," I'll use "he" if I haven't been told otherwise, and I'll think you're a bit weird if you make a big deal over it. I mean, so do I, but if Jim has corrected me once already or has registered a preference that I've seen, I should probably address them as they'd prefer, right? Anything else is just being an asshole, IMO. > So then I end up referring to them by name all the time, which can be a little awkward in an otherwise informal written email. They/them went out of favor a while back in English for gender neutral communication, which I think is weird, because it's super useful. I remember an English teacher in college telling me not to use it, because it was less direct and impactful. I always disagreed. I just default to you/they/them whenever I don't know specifically. It doesn't seem to cause problems, from what I can see. If someone asked me to use something else for them, I would try to remember to do so as a courtesy to them.
space_fountain 5y ago
Do you actually not give a shit or do people just tend to properly guess what you'd want to be called? Pronouns are part of how we communicate gender and many people do get bothered when others perceive them differently than how they perceive themselves
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  I dont give a shit. It is useless information.

xienze 5y ago

> putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. The type of people concerned with being addressed by the "correct" pronouns will list them without being asked, believe me. And for the other 99.9% of people, it's pretty obvious what to use.

lazyasciiart 5y ago
Maybe for you, but I don't know what pronoun to use to refer to someone named Xie that I have never met, and it's not exactly unusual for it to come up in email discussions.
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  I dont understand. You do the thing we have been doing a hundred years. "They"
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    I was addressing the parent comment that said it's pretty obvious what to use, which I interpreted as being able to identify whether someone should be referred to as he or she. I agree that 'they' is the solution when you don't know, but I don't think that's what the parent comment was trying to say.
- DeWilde 5y ago
  If people feel that it is important to them they will make sure you know it. Otherwise if unsure maybe ask? I don't feel the need to put the pronouns as I don't care about it and find it toxic that it is being peer pressured uppon me. I also support anyone who wants to put their pronouns in the signature or whatever. If it is something important to them then I'll respect their choice, even if they go with something silly like Xor/Xir.
space_fountain 5y ago
Hum, do you actually agree with the idea that people care about how others perceive them? Are you saying that the only way we should get to communicate that is through crude things like the way we dress or our bone structure? I don't know, sometimes stating pronouns and the like can seem a bit much I'll admit, but I'm not sure what the good alternatives even all

nrdgrrrl 5y ago

I'm transgender and this business of putting pronouns everywhere bothers me too. If I'm in a group that usually doesn't do pronouns but does when I'm in the room it's like they're pointing a finger at me saying "you're different and we're afraid of offending you, so we're going to act differently around you". No. I just want to be a human being. If you wonder about my pronouns, ask and I'll happily answer. If you get them wrong I'll happily correct you. If you're an ass to me I'll report you to HR, but putting my pronouns at the bottom of my email isn't going to make you any less of an ass.

kbenson 5y ago
Hopefully it all settles down a lot more in the future. Around societal and cultural change there's always friction, and there's always people that take more offense to new norms (or what people want to be new norms) not being followed, whether to pump up their self importance or because they're honestly exasperated. I like to treat each thing as it comes, and whether I think it makes sense or is sully, if someone asks something of me with regard to dealing with them that doesn't require much as is accepting of people making mistakes, then I don't see a problem with humoring them, as long as they also accept neutral terms, such as you/they/them (which are the English language accepted neutral terms). There's only so many genders and pronouns I can wrap my head around, but as long as people are accepting that others can just use a generic term, I think we're all at a place that's workable.

lovecg 5y ago

But that’s a problem for like 1% of people who’re free to do so. Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”. Seems unnecessary to require this as a matter of policy.

kbenson 5y ago
I mean, not everyone interacts with people in person at work. I would go so far as to say that most these profile settings are used for textual communication, where it's not always obvious, but where some people still get upset over the wrong pronoun being used (possibly because for then it's such a contentious topic in their lives it's hard to disambiguate honest mistakes from passive agressive purposeful behavior). Like you, I also wish that pronouns weren't a big thing, but the truth is that right now society has shifted a bit to the point that it is, so rather than upset people over something I really don't care about, I just try to address people how they prefer to be addressed, while noting I have no preference and don't care if you get it wrong.
- lovecg 5y ago
  Someone else commented about how this is basically coming back full circle to the formalities of Sir/Madam or Mr/Ms in writing, maybe there’s something to it.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”. I was confused once when a doctor gave me the direction "follow him" and there was no male around. A definitely female nurse had just walked out, and that's who I was supposed to follow. Nothing strange was going on; this happened in China. Chinese doesn't have gender distinctions in pronouns (except in the spelling...), and Chinese speakers aren't able to make the distinction consistently in extemporaneous speech. The default is 'he', though, so I guess you're still safe from being called 'she'.

masonic 5y ago

>conversing with you When conversing with you, your gendered pronouns aren't used. There is no gendered version of "you".