Asklemmy

43968 readers

892 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

158

So, on pronouns. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by shapis@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

135 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have a few questions on how to best behave to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible without sounding bad. I hope you guys don't hate me.

I'm just a straight male. Are my pronouns he/him? Is that how I should tell people? Do you actually tell them as you meet them ? Do I have to wait for a certain social cue ?

How about online. Should I tell people or have it on my personal profile somewhere?

And about respecting other people's pronouns. How do i figure them out ? Is it a big faux pas if I don't before I know them ? Is it a faux pas if I refer to someone I just met and I assumed to be male as he/him?

I've never seen anyone referring to anyone irl by non conventional pronouns. Is it an actual thing or is it currently being pushed to make the world a more inclusive place?

I'd love some help with all of this.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Ocelot@lemmies.world 4 points 1 year ago

I think at some point language as a whole will shift. Most languages have had a concept of masculine/feminine and differentiating between genders for most if not all of their history. This seems pretty weird as a concept in modern times since it serves no real benefit. If we were to develop a language from scratch today I don’t think it would have such features.

Its going to take a pretty long time (hundreds of years) but language is constantly evolving. I think it will get there. In the meantime things are going to remain at least a little confusing.

I have a few transgender friends and its still a bit if a mental hurdle to see them as who they want to be identified as sometimes. I sometimes slip up and will call them by their old name or use the wrong pronoun. It’s never intentional of course, but sometimes my mental auto-correct isn’t working at full capacity. If I meet the person post-transition then its never really a problem as I always see them as that gender.