Originally posted by CivilDiscourse
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My general opinion on pronouns is this:
Lets keep stuff down to 3 sets. He/him, She/Her, They/Them.
We should do our best to minimize dissonance. It is reasonable to expect people to use the pronoun of the gender that someone presents themselves as. Someone presenting themselves to the world as a man? He/Him. A woman? She/Her. Inconsistent, back and forth, entirely mixed? They/Them.
What's not reasonable is to expect the population at large to change their basic speaking congnition process. Expecting that cognitive change is unrealistic and unreasonable. It is not reasonable to invent new pronouns and expect people to seamlessly use them. It's not reasonable to force cognitive dissonance when speaking about someone who's pronoun doesn't match what they put themselves forward as. It invites mistakes and offense. The same goes for the recently invented pronouns. It's not reasonable to expect the population to think or even use them. Nor is it reasonable to expect people to essentially keep a catalogue of people and what pronoun they want to use. We already recognize that remembering people's names is a skill not everyone has, and expecting that compounding that with extra details people need to remember is not reasonable.
Lets keep stuff down to 3 sets. He/him, She/Her, They/Them.
We should do our best to minimize dissonance. It is reasonable to expect people to use the pronoun of the gender that someone presents themselves as. Someone presenting themselves to the world as a man? He/Him. A woman? She/Her. Inconsistent, back and forth, entirely mixed? They/Them.
What's not reasonable is to expect the population at large to change their basic speaking congnition process. Expecting that cognitive change is unrealistic and unreasonable. It is not reasonable to invent new pronouns and expect people to seamlessly use them. It's not reasonable to force cognitive dissonance when speaking about someone who's pronoun doesn't match what they put themselves forward as. It invites mistakes and offense. The same goes for the recently invented pronouns. It's not reasonable to expect the population to think or even use them. Nor is it reasonable to expect people to essentially keep a catalogue of people and what pronoun they want to use. We already recognize that remembering people's names is a skill not everyone has, and expecting that compounding that with extra details people need to remember is not reasonable.
It's basic politeness.
But non-widespread variations beyond the basic three of him/her/they is getting a bit carried away.
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