International Pronoun Day

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ChemGal

ChemGal

One with keen eye
Pronouns
She/Her/Her
I discovered it's International Pronoun Day.
I'm actually 2 days late on this, it was the 20th.

I have found it's more common with email signatures and social media profile information to include pronoun preference. Do you do this?
I've also come across the suggestion that when introduced to people you ask their pronouns as well as state your own. What are you feelings on that?
 
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I haven't really made an attempt to state my pronouns with any of the social media stuff. I have commented about doing it on my work email - I think the culture there would mostly get a WTF for a response. Local group is pretty good, accepting I would say although not necessarily progressive. I think the response there would be more of a huh. some of those I communicate with though I can't imagine the responses would be positive (although I probably wouldn't hear about them).

I'm not at the point where I would ask someone their pronouns, unless in an LGBTQ environment or something like that. I think if I asked that of the typical person I met there would be a good number I would offend.

I have gotten more familiar with they/them as singular, knowing a few people who use those. No one I know well so it still feels slightly awkward.

I have only heard recently of what I think of as mixed pronouns. Ie. Someone may want to be referred to as she/them or he/her etc. I have not been in a position where I have had to use those yet and I think I would make a lot of mistakes.
 
Never heard of this day until now. Have noticed people indicating their pronouns in correspondence though.

I have often wondered if eliminating pronouns altogether might have been a better solution. Remember the journey of eliminating he/ him in reference to God? It took a while to adapt our language but now it is second nature.
 
It has become common to use "they/ their" in certain contexts.

For example, some of us, on finding a wallet, might say, "Oh look, someone lost their wallet."

In grammar instruction in schools many of us were taught to say, "Oh look, someone lost his or her wallet."

Long time since I have heard anyone express themselves this way. (Another example of what I mean.)
 
paradox3 said:
Never heard of this day until now. Have noticed people indicating their pronouns in correspondence though.

I have often wondered if eliminating pronouns altogether might have been a better solution. Remember the journey of eliminating he/ him in reference to God? It took a while to adapt our language but now it is second nature.
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I think eliminating them could make things fairly wordy. I could see sticking with they/them most of the time though and using gendered ones only when familiar with someone.
 
ChemGal said:
I think eliminating them could make things fairly wordy. I could see sticking with they/them most of the time though and using gendered ones only when familiar with someone.
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Could lead to wordiness although using the word God over and over doesn't seem too cumbersome.
 
paradox3 said:
Could lead to wordiness although using the word God over and over doesn't seem too cumbersome.
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God is a short word though. Think Mx. van der Dussen or a name like that.

Also how would you write your example sentence without using a pronoun? I can only think to reword the entire sentence. Nah, thinking about it more:
Oh look, someone lost a wallet.
It's easy to get hung up on the pronouns :)
 
Paradox3 just posted her thoughts.
Vs
Paradox3 just posted their thoughts. Might work.

Even better. Get rid of the pronoun altogether:
Paradox3 just posted some thoughts.
 
On a related note, what about pregnant and lactating persons instead of pregnant and lactating women?

Seems silly to me. I have even heard of chest milk instead of breast milk.
 
paradox3 said:
On a related note, what about pregnant and lactating persons instead of pregnant and lactating women?

Seems silly to me. I have even heard of chest milk instead of breast milk.
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Depends on the context. People is fine when referring to many. In a smaller group asking if everyone identifies with woman is fine I think. Breast isn't gendered IMO so I would stick with the term breast milk unless someone specifically asked me not to and it was being applied to them.
 
The writer Cassandra Khaw that I talked about in What Are You Reading? this morning is non-binary and uses they/them as their preferred pronouns. I have a hard time keeping my head in that space sometimes but fortunately don't interact with them much online yet, just keep chiding myself when I use other pronouns internally.

English needs a neutral, singular third person pronoun. Apparently, some linguists say "they" was actually used that way centuries ago but fell out of use so I think using it makes more sense than some of the proposed neologisms I have seen.

I have contemplated adding a pronoun field on the profiles here but I figure it won't be much use unless I can make it appear in the little information block to the left of posts. Which tends to be a bit crowded already unless I take out something else. So for now, I would suggest adding preferred pronouns to your custom title if you want them to display. Though if people start endorsing the idea of a pronoun field, I'm game to try.

paradox3 said:
Get rid of the pronoun altogether:
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Chinese does not have masculine and feminine third person pronouns and I know that Chinese people have problems keeping "he" and "she" straight. So I can see value in this for ESL speakers from some cultures.
 
paradox3 said:
On a related note, what about pregnant and lactating persons instead of pregnant and lactating women?
Click to expand...

The reason that this can be important is that, depending on surgeries chosen by a female to male transperson, a person who presents as male may choose to get pregnant and breastfeed.

I'm going to fix my profile to add my pronouns. Once we go back fully to church, to the point where we're using name tags again, I've asked the name tag prep woman if she could add an optional field for pronouns to the standard name tag, and she was cool with that. We also offer little rainbow stickers to add to your name tag, if you wish, to identify particularly as an LGBTQ2S+ ally. (And yes, I'm one of two leads on Affirming initiatives in my congregation.)
 
BetteTheRed said:
The reason that this can be important is that, depending on surgeries chosen by a female to male transperson, a person who presents as male may choose to get pregnant and breastfeed.
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Yeah, I know Mama Doctor Jones has made an effort to use inclusive terminology, in that type of setting, educational material, etc. it does. In a group where it's all pregnant women (& maybe spouses) then I don't think it's necessary to be inclusive of people who aren't present.
 
I'm the Team Leader of FFCE (Faith Formation & Christian Education) in our congregation, so it permeates my every interaction, LOL. I've been known to do it at the grocery store. The poor franchisee, new, 2 years, young-ish, doesn't love me because of this opinionatedness (just about everything, but I do shut up about water), but doesn't exactly know what to do about it, so he ignores me as much as possible, occasionally throwing terrified sideways glances.

And it might be more likely, in the future, to be "people who might not be present". I know 4 people fairly well who are trans or non-binary aged 25-35. Our small city has a fairly large Quoir that meets and practices in our sanctuary.
 
Local indigenous people sometimes say things like She is my brother, or He looks good in that ribbon skirt. Seems a bit rude to ask why.
 
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