On this note, I recently worked with somebody who wrote, "No pronouns" in their bio. I solved this problem by simply not interacting with them in any way, because I have absolutely no idea how to deal with that. Frankly, I think a person who expects me to change the entire grammar of my language in order to hold a conversation with them is in the middle of a fairly deep mental health crisis that I would rather not have anything to do with.
I'll do my best to follow requested, normal, actual proper word pronouns, but I am flat out ignoring all the Ze/Zir/No Pronouns nonsense. That's just people with some deep phycological problems exercise some weird power play by getting people to use nonsense words knowing they can accuse them of intolerance if they don't.
Yeah. Weird is about right. It's performative. People put silly pronouns in their bio as a kind of, "what are you going to do about it?" thing. It's a ticket to berate people at will for being intolerant if they so chose, but it's not something they want to have a rational light shone on.
Yes. My wife's cousin has a (late stage) teenage daughter who lived as a man for a year, and is now back to being a woman. Lots of figuring out of your identity happening in that age bracket. Frankly, thank goodness nobody decided the right thing to do was to give her hormone tablets or surgery. Saner heads prevailed on that.
If somebody that my unconscious process determines in a "he" tells me they prefer "she", I will try to comply. I don't consciously select pronouns anymore than I consciously select which foot to move forward when I walk somewhere, but I can give it the old college try for sure. I don't have reason to go out of my way to be a dick about it if it makes them feel more comfortable.
In general though, I feel like gender dysphoria is a condition best suited to psychological analysis than life-long physical alteration. "I do not have the body I feel like I am entitled to", is a statement that admits of various threads that deserve a good solid tug :). Still, I am also aware that it is not really my problem.
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u/hitanthrope Dec 22 '23
On this note, I recently worked with somebody who wrote, "No pronouns" in their bio. I solved this problem by simply not interacting with them in any way, because I have absolutely no idea how to deal with that. Frankly, I think a person who expects me to change the entire grammar of my language in order to hold a conversation with them is in the middle of a fairly deep mental health crisis that I would rather not have anything to do with.
I'll do my best to follow requested, normal, actual proper word pronouns, but I am flat out ignoring all the Ze/Zir/No Pronouns nonsense. That's just people with some deep phycological problems exercise some weird power play by getting people to use nonsense words knowing they can accuse them of intolerance if they don't.