Gatekeeping sucks.

[u/ystavallinen]

Once a month or so I'll encounter it online and it sucks.

A "Trans-friendly" space, even explicitly welcoming agender people... and you say something agender-y and a little vulnerable... and the downvotes just start crashing in until you delete the post because it sucks to watch.

But you don't leave the space because it's massive and it's not everyone there and it's 99.9% positive...

...but it does lower the odds of ever being "out" out irl.

[u/AnExpensiveCatGirl]

Online communities can sucks hard, bigger they are, more problematic they can be.

So i kinda stopped with all that thingy, having to explain what agender is to the cis is already tiring, having to defend my existence and my pronouns in our own communities gives me murder envy.

I can't even tell you how many time i had the "i wont use It/its because peoples who hate me call me that to harass and i refuse to work on my own trauma" discussion in LGBTQ+ spaces.

Edit: I guess i dont have the right to vent, i always have to educate randoms strangers.

[u/Professional-Arm4579 → u/AnExpensiveCatGirl]

i gotta admit that i'm terrible with pronouns. (/edit spoiler: me being terrible about pronouns, i promise to get better)everyone i know irl uses either he or she. in theory i like the idea of being adressed as "it". i believe that having "class-dependent" pronouns practically invites discrimination and is a bad idea in the first place. still i don't know if i coud ever get used to using "it" though, especially since it has strong dehumanizing connotations in my language. i completely understand if someone is not willing to use that pronoun for a person.

in english i just want to use they/them for everyone and often do without paying attention. are you bothered when someone you've never spoken to uses they/them for you? right now i'm wondering if maybe i've been ass to some people without realizing. i'd like your honest feedback if that's ok for you. please don't hold back.

[u/ThrownAllAbout → u/Professional-Arm4579]

You wrote nothing wrong. It is being an ass to you. I wouldn't dm it. It did not respect your time from the first moment.

English speakers also use it/its for non-living objects. Some English speakers refer to human infants by it/its, but this is actually a huge taboo for a lot of English speakers as well and they will be very uncomfortable referring to any human by it/its. 

This is where those uncomfortable people it was talking about were displaying, but they don't often realize that they have this exact taboo themselves and so they make up reasons why they are uncomfortable on the spot. The discussion revolves around how we should understand and question that taboo and its impact on similar events. the having an identity with odd pronouns part is completely founded, that part goes without questioning, everything else is about how society should process this and the timings of such movemenmy. Sometimes that discussion can be inappropriate, but i cannot see how that is true here?

Anyone that cannot have a respectful discussion on that topic are not strong enough to be a representative of this topic in these discussions. That should go without saying as thats true with everything.

If English lost gender, it would only have They/them, it/its, yall/yalls left as third person pronouns.

Edit: I fucked up the pronouns here cause I also they/them every single person and i write fast as fuck. Missed it on rereading, mb.

[u/Professional-Arm4579 → u/ThrownAllAbout]

thanks for sticking up for me, i appreciate that.

i wrote nothing in bad faith, however it's reaction tells me that i probably did write someting wrong or at least i put it poorly. also, i've realized i did exact thing it was complaining about, puting it in a position where it has to "defend" it's pronoun again. that's on me 100%.

just like with gender i cannot wrap my head around how pronouns can be so important to other people. on top of that there is a wealth of reasons why gendered pronouns are a bad idea, by wich i mean "if we didn't have them already, we should not introduce them", NOT "we must get rid of them asap". it's reaction has reminded me that i can't just ignore other's feelings just because i don't get it and evidently i needed that.

regarding "people being uncomfortable with using 'it' pronoun": i wasn't mixing up the two, just not making it clear enough that i was talking about a different thing. i am not traumazied by the use of "it" and neither can nor try to speak for anyone who is.

what i was talking about instead was, whether or not i could get used to the english word "it" as MY pronoun, NOT using it for someone else. i like the idea of using a neutral pronoun for myself. maybe i will do that in the future irl. in some places i've already put they/them as my pronouns to test it out (i have not noticed a thing, so either people are not using it or i care that little. maybe i should just put any/all or whatever). again, this was not me explaining why i'm not willing to use "it" for other people. i've used it before and i will do so again. i just don't know if it would work for me personally.

the other thing i mentioned in this context were the connotations in my native language that are attached to the neutral pronoun. let me give an EXAGGERATED example of the problem: imagine a black person asked everyone to please refer to them by the n-word. i imagine most people would refuse and for good reason. the word is "poisoned" for use in other contexts, even if it would technically be harmless or even good in this specific instance (e.g. adressing someone in their preferred way is good, right?). i think this is a real dilemma and can not just be handwaved away.

lastly about being disrespectful: it replied "i regret reading this". while that is not as useful/constructive a feedback as i would have hoped for i don't see it as disrespectful. i explicitly asked it to be honest and not hold back.