Sorry, I identify as somebody pronouning on visual sex and not gender. Purely as a language thing for my own selfish convenience, nb. I'm not denying the gender-spectrum, nor do I want anybody to change who they want to be! Luckily for me people transitioning usually start looking like their prefered gender, so I will usually automatically change my pronoun along the way to the correct one. Well, except for the "they/them's", which will never sound right for me cause my language fixed it in a different way for us already: singular unknown is by rule always "He", while plural unknown is the same word as what we use for "She". So even if I say "They" in my language, I'm still just saying "she" anyway. π
Anyway, I totally respect any gender on the spectrum being what they are and wish everybody the peace of mind to be able to be what they want to be; but I'm just not into the whole "must ask the person, whom might not even be there at the time, first what they randomly prefer"-concept some people make of it... π¬
Everybody's free to use their own words to refer to stuff from their pov, imho... Nothing gives anyone the right to force their ways upon others... π€·ββοΈ I'd for example also rather be referred to as 'handsome' than 'weirdo', but that choice and decision is not mine to make either. π
Anyway, no harm intended with this, nor any bad intent to any person or their believes in gender. You are free to be who you want to be and how you want to be that, but so does everybody else. π
Triggering people that get too bound to - and upset over - specific subjects like semantics (while trying to still refrain from saying something hurtful, I don't do personal attacks) is a weird (and often lonely π ) hobby, but someone's gotto do it. π
But yeah,
--For anybody's info (I don't usually do this (never even when I still roamed the bigger companies' social websites), but I have a feeling that the community of Lemmy might be a bit too small still to not at least do this once... π Here's my real view in relation to this particular topic):
I actually have no real opinion on it as I always will be an outsider to it. I don't have any personal experience with it myself, so I also have no ability (or right) to judge about it. If enough people tell me something is not for them what is for me (and I assumed to be the norm for everyone until that point in time), then it's just a logical action to believe them and to take their word for it when it comes to their experience of it, cause there's just no way to find that out on my own from the outside.
Hence, in reality, I usually will just go along with what is asked to use, as is just the respectful thing to do whatever my personal views would be, so I'm not as ignorant as I come over, but I do like a bit of trigger-chaos sometimes, cause I do feel people in general are getting a bit too 'responsive' to details (like semantics) these days, and I personally am of the idea that we need to give 'other people' a bit of their right to be wrong back...
This random (just a bit overly) PC meme just gave good opportunity for my bad habit and I just couldn't help myself,... Which I then, due to real-world stuff, quickly forgot about having done,... until now. π
I'll maybe try not to do it too often here, but I can't make waterproof promises on that,... Sometimes it's just stronger than myself to 'push some buttons' as I pass by them... π
And finally, as a sidenote on this: I'm either very amazed I only got -1 on it; or maybe Lemmy just doesn't go any lower? π¬
It did go up to 2 at first, which I can only imagine being somebody that must not have read it to the end. π
Anyway, truly no offense intended to anyone, just an old habit of poking the bears to keep everybody a bit at the edge of their seat. π
tbf, it wouldn't be trolling if it had a specific dedicated threat for it. π
Anyway, I'll try to keep it at a low on Lemmy and keep my poking of the directional entities mostly for "Big Social" moments. π
I feel like getting a mob against me here would be 80% of Lemmy hating me for my bullshit, while it's not even my actual opinion. Rather have that go to actual haters... π
You have a 50/50 split of upvotes and downvotes, so youβre hovering around 0 give or take.
Personally and if I understand you correctly, I pretty much share your view.
If someone looks/acts like a specific gender based on cultural norms and personal experience, Iβll default to calling the person that gender. Itβs just a simpler and easier form of communication, and takes just a moment to correct if the opposite is desired.
They/them is technically usable but really clumsy sounding in English because that changes the entire sentence structure to plural even when you are speaking about a singular. Which is a personal pet peeve.
It feels more natural to default to a neutral βheβ and change to feminine βsheβ if corrected than it does to default to a plural βtheyβ. Heck Iβve seen someone default to a neutral βsheβ and it still sounds more natural than a plural as a neutral. Just a personal issue with the English language there.
And on the side of people who are transβ¦ I have seen sentiment that the whole asking pronouns things makes some people feel very uncomfortable. Itβs a constant reminder of being born into the wrong body, and makes it feel like all the effort to pass and be their true selves is meaningless.
I think Iβd rather offend a couple trenders that donβt understand language use than remind someone whose mental health is at stake about that and invalidate their efforts to pass with something so unnecessarily superficial.
I keep it simple and default to they/them unless they mention some specific preference. Doesn't matter if they appear to be very traditionally masculine or feminine, or anything in between.
Ah, that's understandable. My native tongue doesn't really have gendered pronouns so they/them feels right at home for me (though ironically, the people in my country are mostly conservative and bigoted and wouldn't accept nonbinary)